| "Smack My Bitch Up" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by The Prodigy | ||||
| from the album The Fat of the Land | ||||
| Released | 17 November 1997 | |||
| Format | 12 inch vinyl record CD single |
|||
| Recorded | Essex, England, United Kingdom | |||
| Genre | Oldskool jungle, big beat | |||
| Length | 4:45 (Edit) | |||
| Label | XL Recordings Maverick Records |
|||
| Writer(s) | Liam Howlett | |||
| Producer | Liam Howlett | |||
| The Prodigy singles chronology | ||||
|
||||
"Smack My Bitch Up" is a song by The Prodigy, released as the band's twelfth single on 17 November 1997. It was the third and final single from the album The Fat of the Land.
The lyrics "Change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up" are repeated through the whole song. The band defended the song, saying that the lyrics were being misinterpreted as misogynistic and the song actually meant "...doing anything intensely..."[1] The song led to a publicised disagreement at the 1998 Reading festival after the Beastie Boys asked the group not to play the track.[2][3] The vocals are sampled and altered from the Ultramagnetic MCs song "Give the Drummer Some". The original lyrics, performed by rapper Kool Keith, are: "Switch up change my pitch up / Smack my bitch up like a pimp". Kool Keith had previously been sampled by the Prodigy in the track "Out of Space". The female vocals in "Smack My Bitch Up" were performed by Shahin Badar. Badar's vocals and harmonies are based on "Nana (The Dreaming)" performed by Sheila Chandra. Initially Liam Howlett used a direct sample of Chandra's song, but later had the vocal resung after sample clearance issues. The track also contains samples from "Funky Man" by Kool & the Gang, "In Memory Of" by Randy Weston, "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine and "House of Rising Funk" by Afrique.[4]
Prior to the release of the single, Liam Howlett was presented with three remixes of the title song, one by Jonny L, one by DJ Hype and one by Slacker. Eventually, Howlett chose the DJ Hype remix to be released on the single. The Jonny L remix was released through a free CD that came along with the January issue of Muzik magazine in 1998, while the Slacker remix was never officially released, although it surfaced on a rare and limited set of white labels. "Smack My Bitch Up" sold over 100,000 copies in the UK through the rest of 1997.[5]
Contents |
The promotional music video for "Smack My Bitch Up", directed by Swedish music video director Jonas Åkerlund depicts a night out in the city filmed from a first-person perspective, portraying drinking and driving, snorting cocaine, violence, vandalism, nudity and sex. The unedited version also includes a scene of heroin use, a hit and run incident and full sex scene. The protagonist takes a stripper (played by model Teresa May) home and has sex with her. As the stripper leaves with her things, the protagonist glances in the mirror, is revealed to be a woman, and passes out on the bed.
"Smack My Bitch Up" was banned by the BBC and only a lyric-free version was played on Radio 1. On the chart rundown, other tracks from the single release were played, and the title "Smack My Bitch Up" was not mentioned. On BBC World Service radio chart run down it was mentioned as "Smack" and was not played. Yet on the first episode of Top of the Pops in which it charted, the DJ Hype remix was played over the Top 10 countdown, including the offending lyric of "Change my pitch up, Smack my bitch up."
The Chart Show refused to display the name of the song when the video was played during one of their episodes. Usually aired at 11.30am, the show displayed the on-screen graphic as simply "The Prodigy"; the title of the song would usually appear underneath.
The music video for "Smack My Bitch Up" drew fierce criticism for misogyny despite its ending, particularly from feminist groups such as the US National Organization for Women, accusing it of encouraging violence against women, despite the main protagonist being a woman. Others, however, praised the video because of the way it subverted politically correct stereotypes of domestic violence, showing that women are also abusers.[6] Though universally banned from television, massive demands on MTV eventually had them relent and show the video, but only after midnight and following an MTV News warning. In mid-2002, the full unedited version of this video was aired on MTV2 as part of a special countdown showing the most controversial videos ever to air on MTV. This countdown was only shown late at night because of the graphic imagery of "Smack My Bitch Up" and several other videos on the countdown, such as the video for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer". This video was at #1 on the countdown and therefore named the "Most Controversial Video" in MTV's history. Programming blocks in the United States containing the unedited video for "Smack My Bitch Up" automatically gained a rating of TV-MA-LSV (sometimes TV-M-DLSV).
Despite the controversy, the video would be nominated for four MTV Video Music Awards, and eventually won Best Dance Video and Breakthrough Video. Eight years later, the full version of the video was aired and voted #1 on New Zealand television show 'U Choose 40', screened on music channel C4 as part of their 'Most Shocking Videos' and 'Top 10 - That's Shocking!' (June 10, 2007) countdowns and voted #2 as part of the 'Banned In The USA!' countdown on August 24, 2007.
In 2010, the song was voted as the most controversial song of all time in a survey conducted by PRS for Music.[7]
The controversy surrounding the single helped "Smack My Bitch Up" become a massive worldwide hit. The song reached the top 15 in several countries, for example Canada, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. The song performed best in Finland, securing The Prodigy their third Finnish number-one hit alongside Firestarter and Breathe. Although not reaching the top 20 in those countries, "Smack My Bitch Up" was a hit in the Netherlands peaking at #22, in Australia reaching #41,[8] and in the United States reaching #89.[9]
The digipak was released in cooperation with Sire.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||