They weren't dropped by XL. Their Law completed their contract. Part of the deal was a greatest hits record.

"We didn't actually want to do the Greatest Hits, we were ready to start our new record—until the record company pointed out that it was in the contract. But then we got into it, and tried to be creative with it as much as [we could]. And, you know, we ended up being really proud of it. You have to have a different brain when you're doing a record like that. It's more about [saying] 'this is your achievement'; I could hold in one hand all the records we've released, so that was cool. We're moving on now, and getting on with the new record."

After this, The Prodigy wanted to launch their own label, which eventually lead to the formation of Take Me To The Hospital and give them more control over the music they make.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4uPAwqBv ... FGKgA2VYQa

I mean, yes, that's the official version. I was told (by a fairly reputable source) they got dropped. But hey, the source might have been full of it. It was just a conversation.

I do remember Liam sending notes to Richard Russell back in the day with various tracks from AONO. I think Wake Up Call had a post it attached to it saying: "This one is a club banger." Which leads me to believe he had to vet a ton of AONO tracks with XL to evaluate their "hit potential". That process was probably grueling. But I gotta tell you, artist/creatives need constraints to thrive and the change of direction was pretty evident once they bounced from XL.

I've recently read Richard Russell's book. He and Liam are friends. Trying to get hit records and chasing commercial success isn't the driving force for Richard Russell. Even if it was, dumping The Prodigy after AONO and Their Law: The Singles both got to number 1 in the UK album charts would seem a poor decision. My understanding is they mutually decided to part ways at the end of the record contract.

The photo of the vinyl envelope with the post-it note on it was 'Get Up Get Off'. Liam mentions the two versions of the track on the note.

Ah yes, it was GUGO, you are correct.

IDK, voluntarily leaving XL under any circumstances is an odd choice. That label is absolutely astonishing in terms of talent, it's an incredible group of artists to be a part of. I do think the extra long delay after TFOTL, coupled with BGAT and AONO underperforming are all reasons that played into leaving or being dropped, however it went down.

Oddly enough, the AONO wikipedia page stated they were dropped as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Always_Ou ... _Outgunned

Granted, it's Wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt.

To this day, I still can't understand and never will how they spent 7 years without releasing the follow up album after the massive worldwide success tnat TFOTL was.

There are many things that we don't know and probably will never know, but according to what the band has always declared, that period was probably the worst they ever had. Keith was taking a lot of drugs (and was probably under depression).
He argued more than once with Liam and they have even been thinking about the possibility to broke up, but "in the end the music prevailed". I still remember these words by Keith during an interview, but I can't remember the mag.
Liam wasn't happy with the back in the day production (Nuclear, Trigger, three more tracks, including No Souvenirs feat. Robert 3D Del Naja from Massive Attack and Baby's Got a Temper, especially, which wasn't planned anyway to be released on the album), but I frankly still love the sound of these tracks (as most of you).

I can fully accept Maverick dropping them due to sales but not XL Recordings. "Dropped" to me means their deal was ended early. That wasn't the case. Their deal was completed. The decision to part ways was supposedly mutual. A lot of the new artists signed to XL after The Prodigy left weren't exactly huge sellers. As I said, in Richard Russell's book "Liberation Through Hearing", he's quite clear that he is more interested in releasing music he likes rather than chasing sales figures. He can probably afford to do that due to the money XL made on first The Prodigy and then even more from Adele. It took until Adele for any XL artist to surpass The Prodigy's sales.

Quite a few of XL's current artist roster is made up of already established artists e.g. Jack White, Radiohead/Thom Yorke, Sigur Rós, etc.

it's April and no announcement... I guess there won't be anything new this year either

In 2018. No announcement was made until July when Need Some 1 was premiered. The album was announced shortly after with a November release.

Still time. My gut tells me some kind of release this year in terms of new music but as for a new album, that might be early next year possibly.