BSPH: The Prodigy - Boom Boom Tap

Sometimes you stumble upon something so simple and astoundingly mind-numbing you just can't help but morbidly wonder how it managed to be the way it is. You realize that by this point you have put more thought in the piece then the actual creators, but nonetheless you soldier on as if it actually mattered. 

This is what i thought when i first heard this song.



The song is titled "Boom Boom Tap". It is performed by seminal british big beat electronica producer Liam Howlett AKA one-man band The Prodigy. "Boom Boom Tap" is very simple song, in fact, it is late Black Eyed Peas level of simple. One dig pony. Basically it is what it says on the tin. It is booming, blasting, blaring banger that walks around with a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound.

And indeed, how atrocious does it sound.

It is so loud, you can't really tell what is going on in the song aside from the song playing. It is quite an experience. I think Luigi Russollo would have liked the production of this song. It is so nondescript - it is just impressive.

The loudness of "Boom Boom Tap" is catharthic. It is like a sonic equivalent of Katamari Damacy star substitutes. Mess of sounds so dense - it is nothing in particular but nonetheless imposing and eventually effective.

The production of the song is so uneven - it leaves this weird approximation of impression - as if you haven't really heard the song but some rotting, partially incinerated, partially calcified remnants of the song being blown off by the gust of wind of the incoming tornado. It is just bits and pieces caught in a snapshot and thus turned in the wholesome piece by the act of documenting.

The best thing about this song is the lyrics. While being simplistic and absolutely mind-numbing, the lyrics work really well with the overall sound of the song. It is blatantly charming. These words are really good for crooning and scatting all over the place and also banging head against the wall out of nebulous notion of opaqueness. But in the song they are delivered in the manner so straightforward you start to question the very nature of reality. Why? The reality is that it would have been tongue-in-cheek, if the tongue wasn't biten off...

From the compositional standpoint, it is a master class in lyrical minimalism. "Boom Boom Tap" lyrics consists of barebones, repetitive slurred onomatopoeiac drolling of either "Boom Boom Tap" or "Tick Tick Bang" with neat pigtails of "Fuck You" at the end of each section. While the verbiage is limited, there is a lot dynamics between the lines and you can really feel there is a lot of things going on beneath the words. It is really impressive.