Our joint delegation from XL and Mute met with Jimmy Iovine in his LA office at Interscope Records, the company he cofounded after engineering and producing albums for the likes of John Lennon and Patti Smith. We went and did the meetings in New York and LA. Jimmy Iovine seemed the most musically intuitive person to operate a large US record label And with one of GuyвЂ™s very first signings, a Canadian singer-songwriter called Alanis Morissette, they had the single biggest-selling worldwide artist of the 1990s on their roster. Freddy and Guy had a powerful combination of youth and experience. She had not only her manager, former Michael Jackson consigliere Freddy DeMann running the show, but his proteМЃgeМЃ, a young and hungry Hollywood go-getter of Israeli descent called Guy Oseary. MadonnaвЂ™s Maverick, however, showed every sign of being the label that bucked this trend. A fortune was lost, chaos descended, but we at least remember its name. The BeatlesвЂ™ Apple was perhaps the most famous artist-run disaster as record label. In fact, the more talented they were, the less likely the artist would eclipse their own success, and until they did that, the label is pure vanity. Historically, it did not seem to matter how talented the artist was. However, just as it is an age-old law of the music business that superstars get their own labels, the enterprise is usually not a resounding success. It had long been an age-old law of the music business that when an artist reached a certain level of mega-popularity, their fawning and supplicant record label did whatsoever they requested and so, along with the scented candles and floral arrangements, they received their own вЂњboutiqueвЂќ (the word itself is a giveaway) record label. We werenвЂ™t going to dilute any aspect of what we did, so if the media wanted to group together disparate artists under a weak heading, that wasnвЂ™t going to be our problem.

It was cringeworthy but I suspected it might be helpful nonetheless.

The music industry had decided that вЂњelectronicaвЂќ was going to be the next big thing. Other British electronic artists, including the Chemical Brothers and Underworld, were also receiving unprecedented levels of US interest. Daniel understood that and we agreed to somehow bulk up our firepower going forward. The only thing that continued to elude us was proper Stateside success.Дaniel Miller was a benevolent ally with excellent taste and Mute had kept all their promises. The album was a huge success in most of the world and The Prodigy were becoming one of the most thrilling live acts on the planet вЂ“ a feat that would have been unthinkable for an electronic act a year or two previously. His personality is expressed through the production: unshakable self-confidence in every note of every synth riff.

But he does it so much better that it actually bears little relation to anyone elseвЂ™s work. On JiltedВ Liam makes dance music, music from a scene, genre music. The follow up to ExperienceВ was called Music For The Jilted Generation and showed Liam honing his craft and making another classic long-player in a genre which was still dominated by singles.

The prodigy music