| Fun Lovin' Criminals | |
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FLC live in 2005 |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | New York City, United States |
| Genres | Alternative hip hop, alternative rock, hip hop, blues, jazz, funk, mafioso rap |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Website | http://www.funlovincriminals.tv |
| Members | |
| Huey Morgan Brian Leiser Frank Benbini |
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| Past members | |
| Steve Borgovini Maxwell Jayson |
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The Fun Lovin' Criminals (often referred to by their acronym, FLC) is an American alternative hip hop / alternative rock group from New York City. Their musical style is primarily eclectic, covering styles such as hip hop, rock, funk, blues and jazz. Their songs often deal with life in New York City, as well as urban life in general. As a band, they cover such issues as organized crime, recreational drug use, violence, poverty and politics. Their songs are often gritty or existentialist in nature, but are just as often humorous or satirical. They are best known for their hit "Scooby Snacks" which features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino. According to Huey they sold approximately 10 million albums worldwide.[1] The band gained a large following internationally, notably in northwest Europe, around the release of their first two albums in the late nineties.
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The band was formed in 1993 by Huey Morgan, Brian Leiser and Steve Borgovini after Leiser, who was already friends with Borgovini, met Morgan at the club where they both worked. They started playing together and would provide the entertainment for the club when a booked act failed to show up. It was during one of these stand-in gigs that they came to the attention of EMI and they were offered a record deal. Come Find Yourself, the band's first album, was released in 1996 by Capitol Records and included "Scooby Snacks", the band's biggest hit single to date. It features samples from films by Quentin Tarantino, interspersed with rap verses and a sung, anthemic, chorus. Come Find Yourself had a slow rise up the UK album charts, finally peaking at #7. But as discussed above it failed to make any impact in the US. The success of the album prompted the re-release of "Scooby Snacks" as a single. It fared much better on the second time around, reaching #12 when previously it had peaked at #22.
100% Colombian, released in 1998 by Virgin Records, had a far grittier sound to it tempered by three upbeat songs, and several downtempo tracks, including "Love Unlimited", a tribute to Barry White. However, "Korean Bodega", one of the aforementioned upbeat songs, was the biggest hit from the album, reaching #15, their second highest placing single so far after the re-release of "Scooby Snacks".
Their 1999 album Mimosa, released by EMI was a Lounge album consisting of laid back covers and different versions of earlier released tracks. It sold well enough but was their weakest selling album yet and remained so for some years. It was around this time, in 1999, that Steve Borgovini left the band. He was replaced by Maxwell Jayson aka Mackie, originally just temporarily in case Borgovini returned.
The band's third studio album, Loco was released in early 2001 and by this time it was clear that Borgovini was not going to return so a permanent replacement was found in the form of Mark Reid from Leicester, UK, who had previously worked with the band as Mackie's technician.
But two years later the band released Loco, again under EMI, which had all new songs including the eponymous single "Loco" which became their biggest hit yet, reaching #5 in the UK singles chart. It was the only single release to reach the UK Top 40 from the album and its success helped send the album itself to #5.
Their final album under EMI was a "best of" compilation called simply Bag of Hits released in 2002. It was released in both one and two disc versions, with the second disc being full of remixes of FLC songs by other artists. EMI released this album against the wishes of the band who were not happy with the two disc version. However despite their objections it reached #11 in the UK album charts.
After parting company with EMI they were picked up by Sanctuary Records in the UK and with them released their fourth studio album, sixth overall, Welcome To Poppy's (2005). While it got strong, but not fantastic, music reviews it failed to live up to the commercial success of any of the previous albums, peaking at #20 in the UK album charts and the best selling single from the album only reached #61.
In 2007 the band played alongside artists such as 9Lies from Ireland and Sugababes at the Vena Festival in Poland.
EMI continued to release their back catalogue and unreleased songs on two more albums but the band themselves didn't bring out a new album until 2005 when they released Livin' in the City, still under Sanctuary Records. This was very much a love letter to New York with many songs, just like in their debut album, extolling the virtues of New York.
In June 2008 they performed at the Glastonbury Festival playing on the Jazz World Stage, they last played the Festival in 1999, on the Pyramid Stage.
In April 2010 Classic Fantastic was released to commence a Europe-wide tour which kicked off in Manchester. Legal wranglings with their previous manager meant this album was their first official output in five years, although they had played live during this time. A party album to celebrate the end of their troubles - Classic Fantastic is soaked in sunshine and has a much cleaner sound than previous albums. Fast and Frank had produced much of the album in London, while Huey recorded his parts in New York. The album reviews range from a negative rant from NME - to being hailed as this Summer's good time album - generally the album received favourable reviews. Classic Fantastic was the first album on Kilohertz, their own label, and signalled a new business model for the FLC - based on touring their famed live shows rather than relying on dwindling record sales alone. Singles from the album were the well received title track "Classic Fantastic" followed by "Mr Sun". The official video for "Mr Sun" was cancelled due to volcanic ash, a montage of old home movies was used in its place. The third single was the double A-Side "We the Three" and "Keep on Yellin" featuring South London's Roots Manuva, released 16 August 2010. During July 2010 the boys recorded a special series of songs with Roots Manuva the project dubbed Criminal Manuvas was recorded at Maida Vale studios for BBC 6 music; songs included a reggae Scooby Snacks and a re-version of Witness.
As of Sept 2010 the boys were again on tour - which was interrupted due to a death in Huey's family. During the tour a new live album was announced, featuring new and old tracks, to be released late 2010.
In April 2011 they released their first live album, titled Fun, Live and Criminal via Pledge Music.
During this period Huey has made some waves as a personality on TV and radio. As well as winning Bronze for his acclaimed The Huey Show on BBC 6 Music, Huey has appeared on Jack Osbourne's Adrenaline Junkie, a Boy-Racer show Slips, sat in for Jonathon Ross and Dermot O'Leary on BBC Radio 2, appeared in the Soul Boy as a Dick Van Dyke accented London record shop owner, voiced a character in the Scarface: The World Is Yours video game, and most bizarrely appeared with his dog, Sugar and Liza Tarbuck on Liza & Huey's Pet Nation on primetime SKY TV. He also bought himself a (now known to be fake) Lordship somewhere in Scotland.
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