70. N.W.A, "Straight Outta Compton"
This absolute banger might be the first rap album I paid attention to, largely because I had a friend who was on the bleeding edge of Nerdy Record Store White Guys Into Gangsta Rap and he used to play it all the time. The first track I remember going "hey maybe there's something to this rap thing" was "Express Yourself," built around a sample from Charles Wright's classic of the same name, from 1970. The song is fascinating, actually, not just because it's probably the only song on the album without the word "motherfucker' and also because Dr. Dre loudly disclaims the use of marijuana and other drugs:
I still express, yo, I don't smoke weed or sess
'Cause it's known to give a brother brain damage
And brain damage on the mic don't manage nothin'
But makin' a sucka and you equal, don't be another sequel
Dre would, of course, make an entire album celebrating the virtues of weed a few years down the road (1992's The Chronic). But who cares? The song slaps.
Hey, how many groups are cool enough to have gotten an actual warning letter from the FBI? Not many, but not many groups have recorded "Fuck tha Police," a song that seemed transgressive and shocking to white people in 1988 before everyone woke the fuck up and realized what was going on and had been going on for years:
With a little bit of gold and a pager
Searchin' my car, lookin' for the product
Thinkin' every nigga is sellin' narcotics
You'd rather see me in the pen
Than me and Lorenzo rollin' in a Benz-o
Millions of white kids bought this album (80% of sales, by some estimates) and I wonder how many of them really absorbed what it was saying. The Rodney King beating, which happened less than three years after this album was released, was a lot of people's first realization about what was going on with policing in LA, but you can't say NWA didn't warn you.
Produced by Dre, DJ Yella, and Arabian Prince, this album was recorded in about six weeks on a budget of around $12,000, and was an instant classic, despite almost zero airplay. Not only was it groundbreaking, it's still a blast to listen to. Obviously influenced by the East Coast rap that dominated at the time, it definitely put its own spin on the genre. Densely layered with samples and the drum machine that would define 90's rap, the Roland TR-808, NWA and this album launched Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, and MC Ren, all of whom went on to various levels of success. It's a rare album that has both the cultural and musical impact that this one did.
Off topic, but a rankings note: After an exchange with commenter Stephen yesterday, I realized that at this point, with only 70 records left, whether or not they're in my Top 500 personally doesn't mean much. So going forward, we're going to make it whether or not they're in my personal Top 100. Although I like this record quite a bit, sadly it does not make the cut.
Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.
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