Motivation: What 'Fat of the Land' taught me.

I was 12 when I first heard about Fat of the Land by the Prodigy and I know exactly where I was as well. Sitting opposite some good school mates of mine Chris & James in our Art lesson and it was Chris who grabbed my attention ripping me away from my latest creation in 2B pencil. We had slight differences in taste when it came to music, they were from Harlow in Essex and hung out with 'The bigger boys'.

I was into my electronic dance acts like the Chemical Brothers and hip hop groups like the Fugees and Public Enemy. C & J were more into bands, typically those you would see emblazoned on the back of hoodies and paraded around School on own clothes day like Nirvana, Limp Bizkit and um... Papa Roach. (Google them if you haven't heard them, if you have, say no more)

Chris said:

My mate told me about this new Prodigy album that's just come out, you won't believe what the first track is called.

He then relayed the title to me and he was right, I couldn't, and it wasn't until the following weekend that I would realise I wasn't the only one. Saturday morning I jumped on my bike and rode into town just like most other weekends to hang out with my mates, although this time I left earlier than usual and when I flew down Wind Hill in Bishop's Stortford I had my end destination firmly in mind.

Wind Hill - Bishop's Stortford

I skidded my bike to a halt round the back of Jackson's Square, locked it up and ran up the stairs skipping every other step to Our Price, the best... and only record shop in Stortford.

There is was, the Prodigy Fat of The Land on CD firmly positioned on the highest shelf behind the cashiers head. That image of the crab stood out a country mile from all the other dredge in the pop chart.

Jackson Square - Bishop's Stortford

The cashier, was shuffling through CDs, checking off codes and forming an order on the desk, under his floppy fringe I could only see a nose ring twinkling in the dimly lit shop, even though it was 10:30am for some reason it was dark.

He turned to me, nodded to the CD and said:

Best opening track I've heard to an album in a long time mate.

Promptly bowing his head back to the desk based job in hand.

Now, obviously even though this was in the age before 'Parental Guidance' stickers needing you to be 16 when purchasing explicit musical content, it was still the cashiers discretion as to whether they should sell it to you or not. I'd been in this position once before with 'I got 5 on it' by Luniz.

I slow nodded, and replied in my lowest voice:

*cough, yeah, mate I heard that it's meant to be an amazing album.

Now, I don't know why I said that, I didn't know it was an amazing album, I didn't even know 100% what kind of music it was. But, Chris liked it, his cool mates liked it, the cashier liked it and the album cover was mesmerising me.

Have you got it on vinyl?

I said, CD was too obvious, he'd know I would have just giggled all the way down the street to my 12 year old mates if I'd have got my mitts on it. There was a pause.

Sure,

he said...

gate sleeve?

It was like a beam of light shone down heaven through the dimly lit shop highlighting the vinyl as he slid it out of one of the many shelves of records behind the desk. I've never put a record in my rucksack quicker, and as a receipt spinning in the wind replaced the place in the record shop where I once was, before you could say Diesel Power was I was on my bike peddling up Wind Hill home.

The rest they say is history and I feel that 20 years, yes 20 YEARS on. When I fire up Spotify, Fat of the Land is one of my staple offline albums, it still has the same effect when those opening bars of track one come in.

It's picked me up when I'm down, focussed me when I need clarity and accompanied me on many a journey. Not only that... it's fired up teams, motivated others and supplied the soundtrack to many an office team building event.

If Fat of the Land didn't exist, there would be a big ant shaped hole in my life.

I feel it's incredibly important to make sure you know what your motivators are so that you can utilise them fully, I definitely didn't know what effect Fat of the Land would have on me when I was 12 but here I am now.

Here's to the next 20 years.