On the Floor at the Boutique

Nineteen ninety-eight was the year big beat exploded, thanks to Norman Cook, a.k.a. Fatboy Slim, whose “Rockafella Skank” is one of the most ubiquitous dance tunes of the year — to the degree that Cook himself only licenses the track to foreign ads so he can avoid it at home in Brighton, UK, where his home club, the Big Beat Boutique, had helped germinated the style alongside London’s Heavenly Social. “At that point, the Social and the Boutique were the focal points for what had become a movement,” says Cook. “In those days, compilations used to outsell artist albums. Those were very potent forces. Tom and Ed [of the Chemical Brothers] had done a compilation [1996’s Live at the Social, on Heavenly]. A lot of the records we were playing were sort of obscure and eclectic. Everybody was clamoring for a compilation album of this new sound. It struck us that the best thing was for it to be branded through our club.”

His pals at Skint Records issued  On the Floor at the Boutique that July, at the heels of “Skank”’s popularity. “There was such a wealth of tunes we wanted to use,” says Cook. “It was what we could get the license[s] for. A few of the older things we couldn’t get: People didn’t understand [why they’d be] on a club compilation” — such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Crosstown Traffic.” (“Multi-racial [bands] that looked like they took drugs were usually my best material,” explains Cook.) Kicking off with the Incredible Bongo Band’s hip-hop lodestone “Apache” and closing with “Skank,” Cook’s set was a shameless crowd-pleaser — the kind of mix only a real Scrooge could hate. A handful of other Skint artists released On the Floor of the Boutique volumes as well (Lo Fidelity Allstars, Midfield General), but the original remains the greatest.