Hard Normal Daddy is the second studio album by English electronic musician Tom Jenkinson under the alias Squarepusher, released on 28 April 1997. The album was Jenkinson's first studio album as Squarepusher for Warp. A single for the track "Vic Acid" was released in 1997 prior to the album's release. Hard Normal Daddy received positive reviews from critics and was listed as one of the best albums of 1997 by NME and The Wire. The album has received further acclaim years after its release, with Stylus Magazine referring to it in 2003 as Squarepusher's "masterpiece" and Pitchfork ranking it in 2017 as one of the greatest IDM albums of all time. Background Tom Jenkinson was offered to sign to Ninja Tune, Rephlex Records, R&S Records and Warp. Jenkinson eventually chose Warp as he was more interested in the label's music. Music Pitchforks Seth Colter Walls cited the album's musical style as an early example of the drill 'n' bass subgenre, described by the online music database AllMusic as a version of drum 'n' bass that warped "old midtempo beats and breaks into a frenzied, experimental potpourri of low-attention-span electronic music." Baltimore Sun critic J. D. Considine described the album as jazz fusion influenced, characterising its contents as "lyrical, complicated keyboard riffs, dense, churning beats, nimble, melodic fretless bass – add in a saxophone, and you'd have the drum 'n' bass equivalent of Weather Report." Tom Jenkinson has stated that his music on Hard Normal Daddy was not influenced by jazz fusion but by funk-oriented music such as Herbie Hancock's Death Wish soundtrack and 1970s television themes from police and detective shows. Artwork The album art for Hard Normal Daddy was designed by Jenkinson and Johnny Clayton, who had previously collaborated on the artwork for Jenkinson's 1996 debut album as Squarepusher, Feed Me Weird Things. Clayton encouraged Jenkinson to again take inspiration from Jenkinson's hometown of Chelmsford, which had also inspired the artwork for Feed Me Weird Things. Given a camera, Jenkinson took photos of various locations in the town, including sheds where illegal raves were held and the local park, which are depicted in the CD packaging, as well as a run-down gas container that features on the album cover. In late 2018, the gas holder was demolished, over twenty years after the release of Hard Normal Daddy. The packaging artwork has a note of dedication to the Chelmsford rave