Fat of the Land album hit #1 in the US at a time when "techno" was absolutely the catch-all term used to describe dance-oriented rock/electronic music. Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, Prodigy, Moby all fell under this moniker in the popular press, but so did Madonna, U2, and David Bowie, who had also released electronic-tinged albums at the time.

Lots of '90s bands labeled as "grunge", "shoegaze" or "Britpop" weren't any of those things, but for the benefit of the reading public, it was easier to connect them to a "scene" using those terms.