Big beat is a term employed since the mid 1990s by the British music press to describe much of the music by artists such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, and Propellerheads, typically driven by heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns in common with established forms of electronic dance music such as techno and acid house.

Big Beat tends to feature distorted, compressed breakbeats at moderate tempos (usually between 120 to 140 beats per minute), acid house style synthesizer lines and heavy loops from 60s and 70s funk, jazz, rock and pop songs. They are often punctuated with punk-style vocals and driven by intense, distorted basslines with conventional pop and techno song structures. Big beat tracks have a sound that include: crescendos, builds, drops, dramatic sound effects such as explosions or sirens and extended drum rolls. As with several other dance genres at the time the use of effects such as cut-off, phasing and flanging was commonplace. Big Beat is also characterized by a strong psychedelic influence comparable to a wide range of artists from Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Jacques Perrey to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin to Funkadelic and the Acid House movement of the late 1980s. Celebrated instigators of the genre such as Fatboy Slim tend to feature heavily compressed loud breakbeats in their tracks which are used to define the music as much as any melodic hooks and sampled sounds. Based on the primary use of loud, heavy breakbeats and basslines, Big Beat shares attributes with Jungle and Drum & Bass but it has a significantly slower tempo.

Big Beat later gained some popularity and commercial success in the American market largely due to the "rock-like" qualities and influences cited in the work of The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy who were featuring loud and heavy guitar sounds more and more in their material at the time. Madonna introduced a live video performance by The Prodigy at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, having signed the band to her Maverick Records label for the American release of their third album "The Fat Of The Land". "Firestarter" was The Prodigy's and Big Beat's first number one single in the UK and became their biggest hit worldwide at the time. The band played several Rock-orientated festivals, opening a gateway for other acts associated with Big Beat (including The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim and Death In Vegas) to follow suit. Other Big Beat singles that enjoyed varying degrees of success in the U.S.A. on account of the "Electronica invasion" include "Setting Sun" by The Chemical Brothers, "Battle Flag" by Lo-Fidelity All Stars and "Ooh La La" by The Wiseguys. Meanwhile by the end of 1997 several Big Beat tracks had peaked within the UK Top 40, with both The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers achieving two number one singles each. Fatboy Slim himself reached the top of the UK charts early in 1999 with "Praise You", becoming Norman Cook's fourth number one single albeit under or involved with a different band on each of the three previous occasions.