Artist – Album: Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of
Millions to Hold Us Back
Released: 14th
April 1988
Sounds Like: Earth shattering rock rap
At heart I’m an indie rock fan. I grew up listening to XFM
and Absolute Rock Radio and, being from Manchester, Oasis were the only band
anyone wanted to talk about. I was 14 when I bought my first album with rap in
it, and even older before I bought something by a band with a female lead
singer (there was surprisingly with of them in the late nineties!). I have
branched out from those humble beginnings of course, and now I can call myself
a fan of anything from sunshine pop straight through to shoegaze... In the
world of hip hop though, my dabbling has tended to stay quite alternative and quirky,
with the likes of De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest being my go-to groups.
A friend of mine started along a similar path but has since
tried to immerse himself in rap and hip hop music, although there are
understandably still gaps in his knowledge. Years of listening to R.E.M and the
Police may have affected our urban knowledge. When I texted him to say that
this Public Enemy album is widely regarded as the greatest hip hop album of all
time, he contested it. My overly long and geeky text back:
“From Wikipedia – “has been claimed by various publications
and writers as one of the greatest and most influential recordings of all time”.
Q hailed it as “the greatest rap album of all time”. Melody Maker called it “bloody
essential”. NME dubbed it “the greatest hip hop album ever” and Rolling Stone
ranked it 48th best of all time, the highest ranked of the 27 hip
hop albums in the list...”
So it’s pretty damn good then. Although they ostensibly built
on the rock rap template of Run DMC, there’s a far greater depth and dimension to Public
Enemy’s work. They have the punk attitude of Sex Pistols, the strong political
sentiment of Spike Lee movies, the powerful delivery of N.W.A, abrasive rock
guitars like Rage Against the Machine, and funky backbeats sampled from James
Brown, Funkadelic, and the Commodores to name a few. “Bring the Noise”, “Don’t Believe the Hype”, “Black Steel in the Hour of
Chaos” and “Rebel Without a Pause” are
classics of their genre.
Do believe the hype.
Albumaday... rating:
9/10
1. Countdown
to Armageddon – 1:40
2. Bring
the Noise – 3:46
3. Don’t
Believe the Hype – 5:19
4. Cold
Lampin’ with Flavor – 4:17
5. Terminator
X to the Edge of Panic – 4:31
6. Mind
Terrorist – 1:21
7. Louder
Than a Bomb – 3:37
8. Caught,
Can We Get a Witness – 4:53
9. Show
‘Em Whatcha Got – 1:56
10. She
Watch Channel Zero?! – 3:49
11. Night
of the Living Baseheads – 3:14
12. Black
Steel in the Hour of Chaos – 6:23
13. Security
of the First World – 1:20
14. Rebel
Without a Pause – 5:02
15. Prophets
of Rage – 3:18
16. Party
for Your Right to Fight – 3:24
Listen to ‘Bring the
Noise ’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvy7MWjfVPE
Also released on the 14th April:
2003: M83 – Dead Cities, Red Seas and Lost Ghosts
|
No comments:
Post a Comment