Because we love ‘em all. Here’s your 90’s Video of the Day
Prodigy - Firestarter
In 1996, I was twelve years old and obsessed with MTV. The sound of the first whirring explosion of “Firestarter” alone would have been enough to raise up my head from my second bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but there is no denying this video, which put Prodigy frontman and demonic circus clown, Keith Flint in front of every impressionable soul ushered in a new era. He terrified, titillated, shocked, and stoked the fires of our own inner chaos; a ring leader for aggression and expression in way that had never connected before you saw him.
The video was shot in an abandoned and unused London underground station in which most of the film crew (but not Keith for obvious reasons), were masked to protect themselves from the smoke of the dank dark tunnel for the twelve hours in which is took to film. Keith wasn’t necessarily the frontman for The Prodigy prior to this video, but the bubbling insanity of his persona had progressed so much it felt natural to place him at the forefront. What made him so magnetic for us, that chaotic catharsis that got the hard rock kids dancing without embarrassment for the first time, was the same self-destructive sensibility that haunted Keith for years. He died on March 4th, 2019.
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Major bonus on today’s post is some killer behind the scenes footage that basically show you that Keith Flint was such a one of a kind performer that really, the camera could have stayed on him the entire time and it still would have been a fascinating video.