30th Anniversary of ‘No Good’ single

On 16 May 1994, XL Recordings released No Good (Start The Dance), the seventh single from The Prodigy. This release marked a continuation of the new direction in the band’s music, style and aesthetic that had been established by the revolutionary One Love single released seven months earlier. Today we bring you the short but detailed story of the anniversary single, along with some strictly exclusive details on the single’s artwork and rare information behind the ‘No Good’ video, directed by the legendary Walter Stern.

Available on cassette, CD and vinyl, the release contained four different title track mixes, three of which were created by Liam Howlett in close connection with Neil McLellan – Original Mix, Radio Edit and Bad For You Mix.

Liam Howlett & Neil McLellan

In a 2019 interview with MusicTech, Neil recalled some interesting details about the recording of the track that had never surfaced before.

Neil McLellan: On this one, we ran out of sequencing space in the W-30 so we transferred over to Cubase on an Atari which gave us more MIDI tracks.

The track was mixed on a Neve VR60 console at London’s Strongroom 1 studio and, as with the beats on Voodoo People, McLellan used the live room for a live reverb (echo, in simple terms). This room was used for the main synth break/lead, which enters at 0:55 in the album mix.

London’s Strongroom 1 where ‘No Good’ was mixed, and hall, where Neil McLellan recorded the reverb for the track.

Neil McLellan (about hall reverb): The live room in Strongroom 1 used to have this pair of speakers that were given to the studio. But instead of putting them in a normal place, they put them really high up in the room. And they had them on a buss so you could listen to them, so I’d send it to them from the mixing board. They had these EQ settings on the front of the speaker, we had to get up a ladder to tweak them. I took off all the bass, and then just fed that into the room and had a pair of AKG C414s right at the back of the room

The track listing of the single was rather atypical for the band: there was no B-side, and all four tracks were versions of the title tune. The only remix on the single recorded by a third party artist, was done by Christian Jay Bolland and David Morley, — their version was titled as CJ Bolland’s Museum Mix.

Liam Howlett liked the CJ Bolland’s remix so much that he added it to the band’s live setlist some time later. The tune was played as a live jam called Helicopter Techno — although many people know it better by its unofficial bootleg title The ’95 Vibe.