Block Rockin' Beats

Released in March 1997 by Freestyle Dust and Virgin as the second single from Dig Your Own Hole, and its opening track, it entered the UK chart at number one on 30 March 1997 and spent one week at the top. It reached number 40 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Nic Goffey and Dominic Hawley directed the video. It was recorded at Orinoco Studios in South London, with Steve Dub engineering and Mike Marsh mastering. The album version has an intro, while the single starts on the bass line.

The drums are sampled from Bernard Purdie's Changes, and the line about another one of those block rockin' beats comes from Schoolly D's 1989 song Gucci Again. One reviewer wrote that the bass line comes from 23 Skidoo's Coup. NME made it single of the week. David Fricke of Rolling Stone called it the Whole Lotta Love of Dance Floor '97, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described a slamming cacophony where hip-hop meets hardcore techno. LA Weekly ranked it number 14 on its 2015 list of the 20 best dance music tracks in history, and Billboard put it at number four in its 2025 list of the 100 best dance songs of all time. It was played in 247 of the 357 concerts that have a logged setlist.