Personnel includes: Fatboy Slim, Ashley Slater, Roger Sanchez, Macy Gray, Bootsy Collins, Roland Clark, Shinehead.

HALFWAY BETWEEN THE GUTTER & THE STARS was nominated for the 2002 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, drops the overwrought fratboy party appeal of his previous releases for this subdued take on the "Big Beat" formula. Cook conjures up soulful, gospel-inflected music that draws equally from classic rock as it does from acid house. Cook's samples vary wildly, from Jim Morrison to Bill Withers, but are part of considered arrangements and beautifully restrained production.

Things get off to a contemplative start with the opening track "Talking Bout My Baby." It sets the tone for the rest of the album, a contrast of introspective emotions and peak hour party stompers perfectly illustrated by the track "Sunset (Bird Of Prey)," which samples a Doors acapella over an ambient breakbeat track to great effect. The pace of the record is generally upbeat, especially on the sleazy funk track featuring Macy Gray "Love Life" and the hip-hop bossanova of "Weapons of Choice," which includes a performance by a heavily vocodered Bootsy Collins. The gospel influence extends to the final track "Song For Shelter," an exuberant statement for global house culture making implicit the connection between dance music and spiritual experience.

What the critics say...

Spin (12/00, pp.213-4) - 6 out of 10 - "...A post-masterpiece puzzler....it finds an edge and cuts itself open, almost shocked at its own capacity to say something new..."
Entertainment Weekly (11/10/00, p.88) - "...An assortment of sampled or live funk-soul brothers, from Bootsy Collins to the more obscure Roland Clark...wed to club-ready tracks that are grittier, loopier, and more driving than...YOU"VE COME A LONG WAY BABY..." - Rating: B-
Q (1/01, p.90) - Included in Q's "50 Best Albums of 2000".
Q (12/00, p.122) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Dance music for grown-ups..."
Alternative Press (12/00, p.89) - 3 out of 5 - "...A genteel album that's as typified by expansive breakbeats and dirty funk as it is by hard dance rhythms and Big-Beat nostalgia..."
Muzik (11/00, p.83) - 5 out of 5 - "... Deeper and more introspective....Both thumping and atmospheric, every groove is permeated with a warm glow..."
Melody Maker (11/14/00, p.51) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Dares to go out on a potential lethal limb....Old-skool Fatboy fans will lap up the gritty, Prodigy-esque 'Yo Mama' and the kooky, slap-happy beats of 'Weapon Of Choice'..."
Mojo (Publisher) (12/00, p.114) - "...Great pop music..."
NME (Magazine) (11/4/00, p.45) - 9 out of 10 - "...It's ace! True Fatboy concrete handbag-style disco-metal!! Yeah!..."