[.ca] Halfway Between The Gutter And

From Amazon.com:
British techno wizard and crossover superstar Norman Cook's (a.k.a. Fatboy Slim) Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars is uneven as heck and nowhere near as frat boy-friendly as his previous releases. But if you're up for a ride, this eclectic, 68-minute roller-coaster trip contains tunes airier and more house-savvy and gospel-flavored than what you've heard from him before. Not needing to create another "Rockafeller Skank" has left Cook free to experiment. There are lovely, slowly building tunes: "Talking 'bout My Baby" sounds like a collaboration between Play-era Moby and the Chemical Brothers circa Surrender, while "Sunset (Bird of Prey)" is an ethereal track that samples a rare a capella vocal by Jim Morrison and does not suck. Breakbeats do eventually kick in on that tune, the album's first single, but they're almost an afterthought, not the music's guiding force. This is not to say that because Fatboy embraces the pop song he can't kick it down and dirty with the best of them. "Ya Mama" is crazy-ass handbag big beat with super-distorted breaks and loud squealing synths that will severely disturb any authority figure or small dog within earshot. There are at least a few super stupid songs--like "Star 69," which seems to exist solely to facilitate a daft sample of a man using a bad word--but these make the good ones just sound even better. The pure party tunes, like the deep house-inspired "Retox" and the super-bad disco-funky "Weapon of Choice" (a collaboration with Bootsy Collins), are the meat of the album, and it's top sirloin stuff. In a year with dozens of attempts at crossover success built on watered-down dance pop and well-known guests, Fatboy Slim shows how it's really done, sacrificing no artistic integrity in the process. The two tracks on which Macy Gray sing are worth the price of admission alone. Cook continues to skirt the line between innovation and accessibility with mad-scientist glee. --James Conde

Featuring house-music savvy and gospel-tinged samples among the big beats, Fatboy Slim's first record of the new millennium strays into meatier territory than the more pop-oriented material for which he's known. Importing help from the likes of Macy Gray and Bootsy Collins, as well as an irresistible, posthumous turn from Jim Morrison, Slim burns his colossal stamp on the dance/DJ landscape once again. --Matthew Cooke

You gotta like more than fatboy too like this:
Like i said, you gotta like more than fat boy too like this. This has a lot less main stream sound than many of his other albums, but its a great show on the versatility of his music. If you dont like it, listen to it all the way through. If you still dont like it afterwards, go pick up some "Now thats what i call music" albums. Im sure thats more style.

Get It For Weapon Of Choice:
The best song on this album is 'Weapon Of Choice'. In fact, it's the only song that's really good. The others are okay, but nothing to go nuts over. Weapon Of Choice is the real great song that makes you want to dance and do stuff. Also the music video for it is simply hilarious.

Fatboy Slim's worst!:
On this album, Norman Cook decided that he should go for a change of style, thus he worked with Macy Gray and Bootsy Collins, to give the album a more experimental feel. The result is Norman's worst album. His unique style gets lost on many of the tracks on this album, but still a few carry the energy that "you've come a long way, baby" had. Thus, it's nice to go through this track by track: 1. Talking 'Bout My Baby - starts off originally, but it is an average track, very strange too (3/5) 2. Star 69 - easily my favourite, keeping the fatboy vibe created by the presceding album (5/5) 3. Sunset (Bird of Prey) - first single, great video, enjoyable track, but still it could have been better (4/5) 4. Love Life (feat. Macy Gray)- this is what ruined Norman on this one, macy gray is great, but she spoils his stuff (1/5) 5. Ya Mama - fourth single off the album, a great track, very catchy, very fatboy-like (4.5/5) 6. Mad Flava - another great track, fatboy keeps his style on this one (4.5/5) 7. Retox - this track is similar in quality to the above, a bit more weird though (4.5) 8. Weapon of Choice (feat. Bootsy Collins) - third single off the album, incredible video, the song however, does not represent fatboy, it is experimental and pretty bad (2/5) 9. Drop The Hate - a dissapointing track, very hard to listen to it, very strange, boring and lame (1/5) 10. Demons (feat. Macy Gray) - second single, again a great video, but a terrible track, same comment as the above macy collab, she and norman do not fit together (1/5) 11. Song For Shelter (feat. Roland Clark)- a very long and awful track (1/5) Thus, it is worth buying if you are a Fatboy Slim fan, but if you want to get an album, representative of Norman Cook to sort of get into his music, get any other album but this.

An instant classic:
This is one of my favorite techno CDs, along with mr.deviant's "Techno Obsession". A lot of people say this is not another "You've Come Along Way Baby", so what?! What do you want to do, buy the same CD from an artist every time they put a disc out?! "Halfway Between the Gutter & the Stars" stands on it's own as a techno/dance classic. Some of my favorite Fatboy Slim tracks are on this disc. Stand out tracks include: "Weapon of Choice", "Star 69", "Retox" and the classic "Drop the Hate". "Drop the Hate" features a sample of a preacher speaking to his congregation, causing chills to run up my spine when Fatboy adds his dark sounds and killer beats to this one. There's something for everyone on this one, big beat, techno and emotional songs that pack a punch. Great stuff, I may be in a minority here, but I think it's Fatboy's best CD to date. Not to be missed!

Ambitious but Disappointing:
Fatboy Slim set his own bar too high with "you've come a long way, baby". The only way for Norman to evolve and escape the high expectations set by his former work is to evolve into a new direction. He chooses to literally spoil his own style by collaborating with Macy Gray and Bootsy Collins. Whether the already mentioned collaborations are fine is questionable. The fact that they are not techno at all, is however, not! The rest of the album also aims to sound original and makes a large step back from the quality of "you've come...". Although this album has an enormous commercial success, it is much much worse than Fatboy's last work.

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