Let Them Eat Bingo

After he stopped being the bass player for the Housemartins, but before he became an international club sensation as Fatboy Slim, Norman Cook helmed a glorious but short-lived experiment in cut-and-paste dance-funk under the name Beats International. Let Them Eat Bingo, the project’s first album, could serve as the basis for an entire academic course on copyright violation: uncredited samples, straight recreations of vintage (and familiar) melodies, basslines, and hooks, and unapologetic lyrical appropriation are all wielded in the service of bright, glossy, funky, and unbelievably fun dance music. You’ve probably heard “Dub Be Good to Me,” which is basically a mash-up of the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton” and the SOS Band’s “Just Be Good to Me,” and which was a massive international hit. There’s also a heartfelt tribute to the deceased maestro of dub reggae, King Tubby, as well as some sharp political commentary – all of it couched in exquisitely funky beats and earworm melodies. Cook’s second Beats International album, Excursion on the Version, was almost as good, but flopped commercially. Then he became Fatboy Slim, and the rest is history.