Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 26/06/06
Label: Skint

As national institutions go, few are as loved as Norman Cook. Taken to the nation's heart as much for the self-deprecating attitude of his Hawaiian shirts, big ears and geeky dancing as his music, he's risen from Housemartins bass player to superstar DJ to living legend. His deck-spinning, surf guitar wielding Fatboy alter-ego is essentially bigger than dance music, bigger than pop and, according to "Why Try Harder"'s tracklisting, bigger than the sum of his greatest hits.

Think about it. Call to mind the biggest hits of Cook's cartoon dance hero: "The Rockafeller Skank", "Praise You", "Gangster Trippin'", "Right Here, Right Now", rollicking, big-beat anthems one and all. But they all came from one album. Indeed, 1998 was a good year for dance music and Fatboy Slim's "You've Come A Long Way Baby" was the album which took it to the masses and made Norman the people's superstar DJ. On the downside, "You've Come A Long Way Baby" brace of classics dwarfs everything else on the tracklisting, implying an average career made good by one album.

However, to dismiss the rest of the album's 18 tracks as filler, would be to miss the real genius of Norman Cook. While the names and ramshackle party clatter of "The Rockafeller Skank" & co will be the things to spark the interest of casual fans, it's the lesser hits from the other three albums which confirm Cook as a national treasure on purely musical grounds. During the course of his transition from The Housemartin's pub-ready indie to masterminding Beats International's dub, Freakpower's funk, Pizzaman's proto-dance and finally the bric-a-brac big-beat of Fatboy, much has been made of the breadth of Cook's talent. Yet never has his musical nouse been more versatile than in the 10 years since donning his most memorable moniker. And "Why Try Harder" is a testament to it.

For more bouncy floor-filling, there's the sly shimmy of "Weapon Of Choice" and two of his finest, and most recognisable remixes, Cornershop's "Brimful Of Asha" and the rump-shaking take on Groove Armada's "I See You Baby". "Sunset (Bird Of Prey)" is all trancy comedown, "Don't Let The Man Get You Down" reconditions the hippy dream for Sunday afternoons in the park, "Wonderful Night" does a Latino hip hop twist, "Champion Sound" reverts to his dub-rap interests and "That Old Pair Of Jeans" is pure Americana circa 1969. Best of all though, "Demons", arguably Cook's finest hour, enlists Macy Gray for quietly anguished soul which few would think the party geek in the loud shirt capable of.

Norman Cook is a national treasure for the overwhelming personality of his hits. And rightly so. The irony is, that it's all the other stuff, the happenings which don't mean as much, that make "Why Try Harder" essential listening.

    by Dan Gennoe