''No Tourists'' is the seventh studio album by English electronic music band
the Prodigy
The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboard player and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured dancer and singer Keith Flint and dancer and occasional l ...
, released on 2 November 2018 on Take Me to the , their independent label managed by
BMG BMG may refer to:
Organizations
* Music publishing companies:
** Bertelsmann Music Group, a 1987–2008 division of Bertelsmann that was purchased by Sony on October 1, 2008
*** Sony BMG, a 2004–2008 joint venture of Bertelsmann and Sony that wa ...
. The album debuted at No. 1 on the
UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
, their seventh consecutive studio album to do so.
''No Tourists'' is the final studio album to feature
Keith Flint
Keith Charles Flint (17 September 1969 – 4 March 2019) was an English singer and member as well as one of the vocalists of the electronic dance act The Prodigy. Starting out as a dancer, he became the vocalist of the group and performed on th ...
who died in March 2019. To support the album, the Prodigy began a world tour in November 2018. After Flint's death, the remaining tour dates were cancelled.
Background and writing
In July 2015, three months after the release of their previous album ''
The Day Is My Enemy
''The Day Is My Enemy'' is the sixth studio album by English electronic music group the Prodigy. It was released on 30 March 2015 by record labels Take Me to the Hospital/Cooking Vinyl in the UK and Three Six Zero Music/Warner Bros. Records in th ...
'', songwriter and producer
Liam Howlett
Liam Paul Paris Howlett (born 21 August 1971) is an English record producer, musician, songwriter, co-founder and leader of the British electronic band The Prodigy, and an occasional DJ.
Early years
Howlett was born in Braintree, Essex, Engla ...
revealed the group's desire to shift their output from albums to
EPs due to the long process and to deliver new material to fans quicker. In 2017, Howlett started to prepare new material for a proposed EP and "Fight Fire with Fire" was the first track he worked on, co-written by American hip hop duo
Ho99o9
Ho99o9 (pronounced Horror) is an American punk rap group founded by theOGM and Yeti Bones in 2012 in Newark, New Jersey. They relocated to Los Angeles in 2014. They attracted a cult following on account of their live performance and began collab ...
. The song was originally a remix that Howlett had agreed to produce for them, but the two parties agreed to include it on ''No Tourists'' as it fitted the "feel and flow" of the album. Howlett was pleased with the results and entered productive sessions: "Once I had finished that, I was on a flow".
After six months he had ideas for six complete songs.
[
Despite their original intention of making an EP with various collaborators, including ]Dizzee Rascal
Dylan Kwabena Mills (born 18 September 1984), better known by his stage name Dizzee Rascal, is a British MC and rapper. A pioneer of grime music, his work has also incorporated elements of UK garage, bassline, British hip hop, and R&B.
Dizze ...
, and resume touring, Howlett noticed the subsequent writing sessions delivered strong enough material at a faster pace compared to previous Prodigy records, which influenced the decision to commit to a full album. In September 2017, the band announced that they had signed a recording deal with BMG Rights Management
BMG Rights Management GmbH (also known simply as BMG) is an international music company based in Berlin, Germany. It combines the activities of a music publisher and a record label.
BMG was founded in October 2008 after Bertelsmann sold its ...
, giving them the green-light to produce a new studio album.
Howlett thought ''No Tourists'' displays the same amount of aggression as other Prodigy albums, "but in a different way".[ Despite his major input on the record, Howlett maintained that ''No Tourists'' is "very much a band album" and features vocal contributions from his bandmates ]Keith Flint
Keith Charles Flint (17 September 1969 – 4 March 2019) was an English singer and member as well as one of the vocalists of the electronic dance act The Prodigy. Starting out as a dancer, he became the vocalist of the group and performed on th ...
and Maxim
Maxim or Maksim may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine
** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition
** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition
*Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...
, plus collaborations with Ho99o9 and English singer-songwriter Barns Courtney
Barnaby George Courtney (born 17 November 1990) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician.
Early life
Courtney was born in England then moved with his family to Seattle, Washington when he was 4. He returned to the United Kingdom when 1 ...
.[ "Need Some1" was described by Howlett as a "sample, smash and grab-type of beat" and features a vocal sample of American disco singer ]Loleatta Holloway
Loleatta Holloway (, ; November 5, 1946 – March 21, 2011) was an American singer known for disco songs such as "Hit and Run" and "Love Sensation". In December 2016, ''Billboard'' named her the 95th most successful dance artist of all time. Acco ...
.
Recording
The album was written, produced, and mixed by Howlett in the course of a year at Tileyard Studios in King's Cross, London
Kings Cross is a district on either side of Euston Road, in north London, England, north of Charing Cross. It is bordered by Barnsbury to the north, Clerkenwell and Islington to the east, Holborn to the south and Euston to the west. It is ...
.[ Howlett wrote the new songs with their live performance being a priority in their style and arrangement, and aimed to include "every angle that's good about the band" in the music.] He made a conscious effort to write the new material differently to what he had done for ''The Day Is My Enemy'', and went so far to avoid socialising with friends and sleep to obtain different patterns of thought and see how it affected the process. He also stayed clear from alcohol as he drank a lot throughout the recording of ''The Day Is My Enemy''.[
The group continued to work on the album while on tour, which included a session where Howlett wanted to capture Flint's vocals for "Champions of London" at a hotel room in Belgium after a particularly high energy gig using portable recording equipment that they travelled with.][ While the other band members and crew preferred to stay in better quality hotels, Howlett "veer doff and stay in a one-star that's just two miles from the gigs, just so I can get stuff done quickly".][ In March 2018, during the group's tour of Russia, Howlett set-up a studio base in Moscow and returned to the facility to continue working after subsequent gigs to work on his new ideas. The set-up was a productive time for Howlett, who had close to three complete tracks by the time he left.][ After the album was finished, Howlett said that making it was "the most intense studio time I've ever had", and praised what everyone involved had contributed to it.]
Design
On 19 July 2018, the album's title and front cover was revealed on the group's official Instagram page. Howlett maintained that the title was not a reference to immigration or any political message, and explained that it refers to the album's theme of escapism: "The want and need to be derailed. Don't be a tourist – there is always more danger and excitement to be found if you stray from the set path".[ The front depicts a Routemaster bus on route 7 with its destination being ]The Four Aces
The Four Aces are an American male traditional pop quartet popular since the 1950s. Over the last half-century, the group amassed many gold records. Its million-selling songs include " Love is a Many-Splendored Thing", " Three Coins in the Fou ...
in Dalston
Dalston () is an area of East London, in the London Borough of Hackney. It is northeast of Charing Cross. Dalston began as a hamlet on either side of Dalston Lane, and as the area urbanised the term also came to apply to surrounding areas includ ...
, the location of the band's debut gig in 1990.
Promotion
On 19 July 2018, the album's lead single, "Need Some1", premiered on ''Annie Mac
Annie Mac (born 18 July 1978), is an Irish DJ, broadcaster and writer. She hosted a variety of shows on BBC Radio 1, including BBC Switch and ''Future Sounds''. She also DJed in various locations, including hosting her AMP (Annie Mac Presents) ...
'' on BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
. Its music video was released on YouTube after its debut broadcast. The video was directed by Paco Raterta and filmed in Manila
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...
. The second track, "Light Up the Sky", debuted on BBC Radio 6
BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available onl ...
on 26 September 2018 and made available later that day. It was used in the trailer for the F1 2019 game in 2019. “Fight Fire with Fire" featuring Ho99o9
Ho99o9 (pronounced Horror) is an American punk rap group founded by theOGM and Yeti Bones in 2012 in Newark, New Jersey. They relocated to Los Angeles in 2014. They attracted a cult following on account of their live performance and began collab ...
was the third single, released on 11 October 2018.
On 24 October 2018, a secret listening party was held for invited fans who heard the album played in full in a secret location, which turned out to be Egg London, a nightclub next to Tileyard Studios where the album was recorded. The day after, a new track was premiered on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 show called "We Live Forever".
The Prodigy planned to support ''No Tourists'' with a world tour starting from November 2018, including dates in the UK, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the US.[ On 4 March 2019 frontman Keith Flint was found dead at his home in Essex, just weeks after playing six live dates in Australia and New Zealand. All future tour dates were cancelled on 5 March 2019.
]
Release
''No Tourists'' was released on 2 November 2018 in various formats including CD, vinyl, and audio cassette.[
The album debuted at No. 1 on the ]UK Albums Chart
The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts C ...
with sales of 23,952, including 1,828 from streaming, to become their seventh consecutive studio album to reach No. 1.
Reception
At Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 66, based on 15 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". In a pre-release review for AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
, Neil Z. Yeung gave the album three stars out of five. He stated: "Much like preceding albums ''The Day Is My Enemy'' and ''Invaders Must Die
''Invaders Must Die'' is the fifth studio album by English electronic dance music group The Prodigy. The album was released on 23 February 2009 on the band's new record label Take Me to the Hospital, and was distributed by Cooking Vinyl. Alt ...
'', ''No Tourists'' leaves little space to breathe, delivering a short and sweet set of blows to the head that was designed specifically for performing live. For better or worse, there aren't many new ideas here, but main man Liam Howlett is so adept at crafting explosive body-shakers that the lack of fresh concepts can be overlooked." Ben Devlin of musicOMH rated ''No Tourists'' two stars out of five. He noticed the many "references, or rip-offs, of old Prodigy material" throughout and the recycling of previous Prodigy songs which suggested to Devlin that the group were "artistically spent". Nonetheless, he considered "Give Me a Signal" a moment where "style and substance are both there, featuring an acidic 303 line and a dramatic final section". Devlin concluded: "It seems that the record saves its best for last". Mojo
Mojo may refer to:
*Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in voodoo
Arts, entertainment and media Film and television
* MOJO HD, an American television network
* ''Mojo'' (play), by Jez Butterworth, made into a 1997 film
* '' ...
reviewer Ben Thompson gave the album three stars out of five, and pointed out that following an "unconvincing stab at collective irresponsibility" on ''The Day Is My Enemy'', the latest effort from the band "marks a welcome return to unenlightened despotism". He noticed that four of the album's ten tracks refer to a type of explosion. While it covers "familiar sonic landscape" he thought that "it's also a lot of fun", picking on "Champions of London" and the "Fuck you!" lyric of "Boom Boom Tap" as such highlight moments.[
Jamie MacMillan for '']Dork
Dork is a pejorative term for a person (compare with " dweeb" and "fool").
Dork may also refer to: People
* Dork Sahagian, Armenian-American climate scientist
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Dork'' (EP), an album by AFI
* ''Dork'' (magaz ...
'' magazine gave ''No Tourists'' three stars out of five, opening with: "A series of big beats in search of a big hook". He noticed that it sounds "exactly how you would expect a new album from The Prodigy in 2018 to sound", but was thankful that "it (mostly) avoids" the recycling of beats used on previous songs. To him, the album does not take off until half way with "Fight Fire with Fire", a song that houses "one of the few moments where attitude and atmosphere really gel into something memorable", but felt disappointed that such a highlight moment is not repeated elsewhere. A two out of five star review was given by Rupert Howe for '' Q'' magazine, who thought the trio "seem in need of a new adventure". While he thought "Need Some1" would satisfy the band's hardcore fans, "much of what follows sounds like he's set his overdriven synths to autopilot", with contributions from Flint and Maxim "reduced to the odd irate interjection". He praised their collaboration with Ho99o9 on "Fight Fire with Fire", but rates "Champions of London" as a "shadow of their past glories" from the 1990s.[
]
Track listing
Samples
* "Need Some1" samples "Crash goes Love" by Loleatta Holloway
* "Light Up the Sky" samples "Mam rád lidi" by Jiří Schelinger
* "We Live Forever" samples "Critical Beatdown" by Ultramagnetic MCs
* "No Tourists" contains sample of the film soundtrack to "Bullseye!"
* "Timebomb Zone" interpolates "Time Bomb (Dub Version)" by Alfonso feat. Jimi Tunnell
* "Boom Boom Tap" contains samples of "2 Weeks Sober" by Andy Milonakis
* "Resonate" contains samples of "Sound Killer" by Brother Culture
Personnel
The Prodigy
*Liam Howlett
Liam Paul Paris Howlett (born 21 August 1971) is an English record producer, musician, songwriter, co-founder and leader of the British electronic band The Prodigy, and an occasional DJ.
Early years
Howlett was born in Braintree, Essex, Engla ...
– writing, keyboards, synthesisers, sampling, drum programming
*Keith Flint
Keith Charles Flint (17 September 1969 – 4 March 2019) was an English singer and member as well as one of the vocalists of the electronic dance act The Prodigy. Starting out as a dancer, he became the vocalist of the group and performed on th ...
– vocals on "We Live Forever", "Champions of London", and "Give Me a Signal"
*Maxim
Maxim or Maksim may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine
** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition
** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition
*Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...
– vocals on "Light Up the Sky", "We Live Forever", "No Tourists", and "Champions of London"
Additional personnel
*Brother Culture – vocals on "Light Up the Sky" and "Resonate"
*Ho99o9
Ho99o9 (pronounced Horror) is an American punk rap group founded by theOGM and Yeti Bones in 2012 in Newark, New Jersey. They relocated to Los Angeles in 2014. They attracted a cult following on account of their live performance and began collab ...
(Jean "theOGM" Lebrun, Lawrence "Eaddy" Eaddy) – vocals on "Fight Fire with Fire"
*Barns Courtney
Barnaby George Courtney (born 17 November 1990) is an English singer, songwriter, and musician.
Early life
Courtney was born in England then moved with his family to Seattle, Washington when he was 4. He returned to the United Kingdom when 1 ...
– vocals on "Give Me a Signal"
*Olly Burden – guitar on "Light Up the Sky", "Fight Fire with Fire", and "Champions of London"
*Leo Crabtree – live drums on "Champions of London"
Production
*Liam Howlett – production, recording, engineering, mixing
*James Rushent – production on "Need Some1" and "Resonate"
*Olly Burden – co-production on "Light Up the Sky", "Fight Fire with Fire", "Timebomb Zone", "Champions of London", "Boom Boom Tap", and "Give Me a Signal"
*Richard Adlam – sample recreation production on "Timebomb Zone"
*Hal Ritson – sample recreation production on "Timebomb Zone"
*René LaVice
René LaVice is a Canadian electronic music producer, DJ and singer.
Biography
His song "The Calling", featuring Ivy Mairi, entered the UK Singles Chart at number 118 following a placement on BBC Radio 1's A List playlist. The song also featur ...
– additional production elements on "Champions of London"
*Robert Chetcuti and Jim Pavloff – assistance on "Need Some1"
*Rob Jevons – assistance on "Champions of London"
*Prash "Engine-Earz" Mistry – mastering (incl. stem mastering on "Fight Fire with Fire", "Boom Boom Tap", and "Give Me a Signal") (at FORWA3DSTUDIOS, London)
*Linden Jay – mastering assistant (at FORWA3DSTUDIOS, London)
*Luke Insect – artwork and sleeve design
*Rahul Singh – photography
Charts
Certifications
References
Sources
*
{{Authority control
2018 albums
The Prodigy albums
Albums produced by Liam Howlett