The Fat of the Land

Howlett produced, engineered and mixed the third album, with Neil McLellan also engineering, and it is the first Prodigy record to include contributions by Keith Flint. Flint sang on Breathe, Serial Thrilla, Firestarter and Fuel My Fire, Maxim on Breathe and Mindfields. The guests were Kool Keith on Diesel Power, Crispian Mills of Kula Shaker on Narayan, with Matt Cameron on drums, and Saffron on Fuel My Fire, a cover of an L7 song. Jim Davies played guitar on Breathe and Firestarter and Gizz Butt on Fuel My Fire. The cover shows a moon crab photographed in Costa Rica, and the title comes from the phrase about living off the fat of the land. Howlett said that making it after Firestarter was no pressure at all, and that some people think of it as playing like rap.

The album was released on 30 June 1997. It reached number 1 in the UK and on the Billboard 200, where it topped the chart on 19 July, and the RIAA certified it double platinum that December. The Los Angeles Times called it the first essential collection of the 1990s dance-rock movement, and Louder's list of the best albums of 1997 called it the point at which rave culture collided with metal culture. Pitchfork's Jesse Dorris singled out Mindfields as the real highlight. In 1998 Q readers voted it the ninth greatest album of all time. It was nominated for the 1997 Mercury Prize and for a Grammy Award, and in 1999 it entered the Guinness World Records as the fastest-selling dance album in the UK. A 2012 reissue added The Added Fat EP, with remixes by Noisia, Alvin Risk, Zeds Dead, Baauer, The Glitch Mob and Major Lazer.