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Big beat (sometimes called chemical breaks) is a term deployed in the mid 1990s by the British music press to describe the work of artists such as The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method and The Prodigy.

Big Beat tends to feature distorted, compressed breakbeats at moderate tempos (usually between 90 to 140 beats per minute), acidic synthesizer lines and heavy loops from Jazz, Rock or 60's Pop. They are often punctuated with punkish vocals and driven by intense, distorted basslines with conventional pop and techno song structures. Big Beat tracks have a sound that include: crescendos, builds, drops, explosions, crowd-inciting drum rolls, and whooshing sounds that pan across the stereo-field.[1] Big beat is also characterised by a strong psychedelic influence stemming from the influence of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the acid house musical movement. Particularly in the style of Fatboy Slim, the genre features a heavily compressed, thunderous drum sound (hence the name). It can also contain off-the-wall samples such as explosions, police sirens and also can feature snippets of Turntablism. Big Beat is like "jungle's retarded cousin", both sharing frantic breaks, heavy bass, and an odd "jittery-rhythm" but big beat tends to have more simplistic loop beats than jungle. [2]

An example of the "big beat" sound is the "Spitfire" track on The Prodigy's latest album, Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.[3]

Big Beat emerged due to Ectasy culture; some felt that the music helped make the body feel more euphoric while under the effects of Ecstacy. [4] In 1971 The Doors released a song called 'The Wasp (Texas radio and the big beat)'. In the song, a reference is made to Big Beat music coming out of the Virginia swamplands. The psychobilly band 'The Cramps' have also released an album titled 'Big Beat from Badsville'. At the beginning of the 90s several local UK electronic music genres bordered at certain points. The disco scene at that time was very straight and promoted glamour and beauty. Out of many clubs in London a subculture emerged which opposed the pop scene but at the same time wanted to dance to electronic music. Sampling became an integral part of standard studio equipment and made the fusion of many genres easier. Norman Cook first defined the word Big Beat named after his club night 'The Big Beat Boutique', which was held on Fridays at Brighton's now demolished Concorde club. The music played there combined breakbeats, rock, funk, drum'n'bass, industrial, jazz, acid house, hip hop and trance. The term caught on, and was subsequently applied to a wide variety of acts, notably Bentley Rhythm Ace, Lionrock, Monkey Mafia, Meat Beat Manifesto, Lunatic Calm, Death in Vegas and David Holmes.

Big beat was later brought into the American mainstream because of the "rock-like" qualities found in the music of acts such as The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy. By mixing their electronic elements with the charateristics of post-grunge rock, The Prodigy was able to popularize the big beat genre even more. Firestarter was The Prodigy's first big national and international hit. (Because of their cross-genre sound band was booked to play rock festivals causing rock fans to appreciate their electronic style and opening a gateway for other big beat musicians. The band released their third album in 1997 and it topped both the UK and US charts along with the charts of twenty or so other countries.

Other notable 'Big Beat' acts include The Crystal Method, Overseer, Adam Freeland, Propellerheads, many artists signed to Brighton's Skint label and London's Wall Of Sound label, and to some extent the later work of The Prodigy. By the time of the latter's successful 1997 album The Fat of the Land, the music press were increasingly drawn to using the catch-all term 'electronica' to describe the big beat sound. The Big Beat movement died by 2001, due to the genre's nature of playing out samples, and dumbing down the electronica wave of the late 1990s. However, Big Beat had left an indelible mark on popular music as a true incarnation of rave music, even though it sounded "rock". Without this association to rock, some have argued that it never would have reached the heights that it did, or talked to as many listeners as it did. ^[1] The genre's mainstream popularity was to be taken by funky house, then later electro house in the mid-2000s.

Big Beat acts such as The Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim have collaborated on a variety of musical styles from rave, house, rap, disco, ad infintum. In "Generation Ectasy", Reynolds says, "they've remided us that dance music is supposed to be about fun, about freaky dancing as opposed to head nodding and train spotting."[5]

• Acid house
• Rocktronica
• List of electronic music genres

• The DJ List's Big Beat artists
• Discussions, music and news from Sirius radio station for big beats, Boombox
• Onlineradio, Discussions and News about Bigbeat