The Prodigy released "Smack My Bitch Up" as the third and final single from the album The Fat of the Land in 1997. It hit #1 in Finland, Spain and the UK Dance charts, in the US it hit #89 on the Hot 100 and #23 on the Dance charts.
The song caused quite a stir as people thought the song was promoting violence against women, but The Prodigy says that is not the case. They say "Smack My Bitch Up" means "to do something with vigor and intensity." They fed off the controversy and it helped grow sales.
Liam Howlett admits that the song title was intended to create buzz just as the song title "Firestarter" had.
The Prodigy "Smack My Bitch Up 1997
The original video for this song is very intense and was banned by MTV. It's shot in a first-person point of view style, where we watch as our character snorts cocaine, goes to a club and and causes all manner of hell and unrest. At the end of the video we see the person in the mirror, and it's a girl.
Howlett told Q magazine, June 2009: "The Americans picked up on it and wanted to make out it was a song about violence. We thought we'd have a laugh with it and set out to make an extreme video. That's the one time we thought we'd be controversial."
The Prodigy "Smack My Bitch Up" 1997 official video (NSFW-Contains nudity)
