Originally recorded in less than a week, the fun and moxie will hit you with every beat of ‘Better Living Through Chemistry’. Released in 1996, this is the first full-length album Norman Cook was to release under his successful moniker of Fatboy Slim. His debut, Better Living Through Chemistry, is more of a compilation than a proper album per se. Much of it had already been released, either as singles or via Skint’s Brassic Beats series. Indeed, along with Skint, he helped spearhead an array of chiefly Brighton-based bangingness at the Big Beat Boutique club night. The blueprint was already there: the beats were big, the house was mostly acid; the funkier end of crate-dug breaks prevailed, and there were cheeky lifts and samples ahoy. Santa Cruz borrows Lulu’s tremendous Love Loves to Love Love, Going Out of My Head batters I Can’t Explain, and Punk to Funk masterfully deploys Keith Mansfield’s Young Scene. The key track, however, was Everybody Needs a 303: a champion acid monster of a tune, it encapsulates the Fatboy ethos in just under six minutes. Sixteen years on, Better Living Through Chemistry stands tall as the sound of abandon and messiness, a joyous soundtrack to an era of caning it and the third (or fourth… or fifth?) Summer of Love.