The Prodigy - Firestarter 1996

"Firestarter" is a song by British electronic dance music band the Prodigy, released on 18 March 1996 as the first single from their third studio album The Fat of the Land (1997). It was co-written and produced by Liam Howlett and features vocals by Keith Flint. It also was the group's first number-one single on the UK Singles Chart, staying on top for three weeks, and their first big international hit, topping the charts in the Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, and Norway. In the US, it peaked at number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2020, The Guardian ranked it number eight in their list of "The 100 Greatest UK No 1 Singles".

The songwriting credits include Kim Deal of alternative rock group the Breeders, as the looped wah-wah guitar riff in "Firestarter" was sampled from the Breeders' track "S.O.S." from the album Last Splash. The drums are sampled from a remix of the song "Devotion" of the group Ten City. The "hey" sample is from the 1984 song "Close (to the Edit)" by Art of Noise. Then-members Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, J. J. Jeczalik, Gary Langan and Paul Morley also receive songwriting credits. The "Empirion Mix", which does not include these samples, is credited solely to Liam Howlett and Keith Flint. The accompanying black-and-white music video for "Firestarter" was directed by Walter Stern and was filmed in an abandoned London Underground tunnel at Aldwych. The video was subsequently banned by the BBC after it was shown on Top of the Pops and supposedly terrorised children.

Following Keith Flint's death on 4 March 2019, fans used the hashtag 'Firestarter4Number1' on various social media platforms to replicate the song's success by getting it to the number one spot again. This was done out of respect for Flint and to raise awareness of suicide among men. During this time the single also returned to the US Billboard charts, entering number 13 on its Dance/Electronic Digital Songs Sales chart, marking the first time that this song has appeared on a Billboard dance chart. "Firestarter" was used in the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 reveal trailer and the films Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), The Condemned (2007), Fear Street Part One: 1994 (2021), and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), as well as the cold opening of The Beauty (2026). "Weird Al" Yankovic created a loose parody of "Firestarter", titled "Lousy Haircut", for an episode of The Weird Al Show; he could not do a full parody of the song as the network CBS did not want to pay royalties to the Prodigy.

"Firestarter" received a total of 66% yes votes! Previous The Prodigy polls: #8 "No Good (Start the Dance)", #112 "Breathe", #493 "Smack My Bitch Up" (Maxim #245 "Carmen Queasy")

No one said that raising a future world saviour would be easy...