Metascore
64

Generally favorable reviews - based on 21 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 21
  2. Negative: 1 out of 21
  1. Sniffy electronica purism aside though, Cook remains, if not the best overall producer in the dance world, certainly in its top rank, with an excellent ear for infectious hooks, tight beats, and irresistible grooves. On advice from friends the Chemical Brothers, Cook recruited collaborators for the first time -- nu-soul diva Macy Gray, funk legend Bootsy Collins, fellow superstar DJ/producer Roger Sanchez -- and the two tracks with Gray, "Love Life" and "Demons," are arguably the highlights of the entire album.
  2. Fatboy Slim (aka electronica pioneer Norman Cook) succeeds at the daunting task of assembling material that smartly courts pop listeners, while simultaneously maintaining loyalty to the club underground that's nurtured his career.
  3. Melodically repetitive, the songs only intermittently approach the energizing highs of earlier Fatboy cuts.
  4. Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, despite a couple of missteps, is brimming with life.
  5. And though his search for dance-floor transcendence gives the album emotional heft as well as a sense of pacing, the best songs on Halfway are the ones that look straight into the gutter and dive right in, corny catchphrases and all. "Ya Mama" -- which will likely do for "Push the tempo" what "The Rockafeller Skank" did for "the funk soul brother" -- is sped-up, silly, and, in the end, one of the more memorable songs on the album. It's enough to make an auteur look back fondly on his car-commercial period.
  6. Vigorous and wise, this is dance music for grown-ups, with Cook keenly aware that any number of spritely garage and trance chancers have stepped in while he's been away making babies. Rather than match them in the disco stakes, he's re-grouped and drawn on previously concealed depths instead.
  7. Cook hasn't given up the dance-floor stomps that made him a million-seller ...[but] the album isn't as much flat-out fun as You've Come a Long Way, Baby.
  8. Fans of "Praise You"'s twisted but hooky soul or the beat-box bonanza "The Rockafeller Skank" may be a bit disappointed with this current collection. Not because the record is a thundering and cohesive example of sequencers used for good instead of evil, but because Fatboy's approach this go around is a lot less (new-) user friendly. The tracks are longer and more measured, many of them built around the ebb and flow so essential to dance music made for the clubs, as opposed to dance music made for TV dance shows.
  9. All shallow, all pure as a result--pure escape, pure delight, and, as the cavalcade of gospel postures at the end makes clear, pure spiritual yearning.
  10. Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars won't prompt the inauguration of a Nobel Prize category for dance music, but like Armand Van Helden's Killing Puritans and the Chemical Brothers' 1999 gem Surrender, its another great example of a maturing dance artist learning to harness the ecstatic abandon of late night dance floor epiphanies to sentiments -- musical and emotional -- inventive and universal enough to flourish in the light of day.
User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 23 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 23
  2. Negative: 2 out of 23
  1. Dec 20, 2019
    9
    Great album. With a big variety of songs. My favorite is "Birds of prey" but "Star 69", "Ya mama" and "mad flava" are also great. My firstGreat album. With a big variety of songs. My favorite is "Birds of prey" but "Star 69", "Ya mama" and "mad flava" are also great. My first Fatboy's record and love it Full Review »
  2. DJSloves
    Sep 2, 2004
    10
    THis is not Shadow,infact this is a LIGHT and brilliant Classic Album
  3. Jeff
    Mar 20, 2002
    10
    When it comes to creativity and coming up with a unique sound. Fatboy slim is where you are going to find both! Way to go Norman! Another When it comes to creativity and coming up with a unique sound. Fatboy slim is where you are going to find both! Way to go Norman! Another awesome album. Full Review »