15. Public Enemy, "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back"

 


I am properly embarrassed to say that this album slipped right by me when I was younger and although I had certainly heard tracks from it, like "Bring the Noise," I ahd never heard the album all the way through until yesterday.  So I am here to say, as a totally unbiased listener: this album is fucking great.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but this just seems way ahead of its time for 1988.  The Bomb Squad's production on these songs is a thing of beauty, whisking together some expertly chosen funk, soul, and rock samples with booming percussion, all serving as a backdrop for Chuck D's muscular voice.  Take the aforementioned "Bring the Noise," for example; it has samples from "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" by Funkadelic, "The Assembly Line" by Commodores, "Give it Up or Turnit a Loose (Remix)" by James Brown, and a speech by Malcolm X.  

That last sample is absolutely representative of the themes of this album, which is concerned with Black empowerment, structural racism, and inequities in society.  For example, from "Louder Than a Bomb":

Once again and I say it for you to know
The troop is always ready, I yell, "Geronimo!"
Your CIA, you see, I ain't kiddin'
Both King and X, they got rid of both
A story untold, true but unknown
Professor Griff knows, "Yo, I ain't milquetoast!"
And not the braggin' or boastin' and plus it ain't no secret
Why they're tappin' my phone, although I can't keep it a secret
So I decided to kick it, yo
And, yes, it weighs a ton, I say it once again
I'm called the enemy, I'll never be a friend

"Don't Believe the Hype" is a direct hit at PE's critics, in which Flavor Flav expounds, "A lot of people on daytime radio scared of us/Because they too ignorant to understand the lyrics of the/Truth that we pumping into them clogged-up brain cells."  Speaking of Flav, I was surprised to hear how front and center he is on this record.  I'd thought of him more as the traditional hype man, but on this album, he is right there with Chuck D., not just playing off him but making a solid contribution with his own verses.  

"She Watch Channel Zero?!" is built on an aggressive guitar riff that turns out to be from "Angel of Death" by Slayer.  It's a total jam of a song, about the evils of watching too much TV (ironic. considering Flav's later career trajectory).  I loved "Rebel Without a Pause," a song whose urgency is underscored by the siren sound (sampled from "The Grunt" by The J.B.'s), and sounds like a manifesto for the group:

From a rebel, it's final on black vinyl
Soul, rock and roll coming like a rhino
Tables turn, suckers burn to learn
They can't disable the power of my label
Def Jam, tells you who I am
The enemy's public, they really give a damn
Strong Island, where I got 'em whylin'
That's the reason they're claiming that I'm violent

Listening to this now from the 2023 perspective is wild.  (One humorous note: I was momentarily confused when, in "Hype," I heard Chuck rap "Caught in the middle and not surrendering/I don't rhyme for the sake of Ritalin," but it's actually "riddlin'," my bad.)  Flav, of course, reinvented himself as a reality star and cable court jester, so it's soberng to hear him throwing down some impressive verses on this album.  Public Enemy is still making music!  They released an album in 2020.  

I could have been listening to this the whole time!  Bummer.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip...
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g...
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th...
Read more