Wednesday, August 21, 2024: Gang Starr - Code Of The Streets

 

1994 is often considered one of the greatest years for rap, hip-hop and R&B music.  I mean, just look at this list:

1. Nas - Illmatic
2. The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
3. Outkast - Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik
4. Method Man - Tical
5. Scarface - The Diary
6. Warren G - Regulate… G Funk Era
7. Gang Starr - Hard to Earn
8. A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders
9. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony - Creepin on ah Come Up
10. Redman - Dare Iz a Darkside
11. Jeru the Damaja - The Sun Rises in the East
12. Pete Rock & CL Smooth - The Main Ingredient
13. O.C. - Word…Life
14. Common (Sense) - Resurrection
15. Digable Planets - Blowout Comb
16. Da Brat - Funkdafied
17. Coolio - It Takes a Thief
18. Snoop Doggy Dogg - Murder Was the Case
19. The Fugees - Blunted on Reality
20. Beastie Boys - Ill Communication
21. MC Eiht - We Come Strapped
22. DJ Quik - Safe + Sound
23. Above the Law - Uncle Sam's Curse
24. UGK - Super Tight
25. Smif-N-Wessun - Dah Shinin'
26. The Roots - Do You Want More?!!!??!
27. Artifacts - Between a Rock and a Hard Place
28. Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep
29. Keith Murray - The Most Beautifullest Thing in This World
30. The Lady of Rage - Necessary Roughness
31. TLC - CrazySexyCool
32. Brandy - Brandy
33. Aaliyah - Age Ain't Nothing but a Number
34. Mary J. Blige - My Life
35. Boyz II Men - II
36. R. Kelly - 12 Play
37. Jodeci - The Show, The After Party, The Hotel
38. Sade - The Best of Sade
39. Babyface - For the Cool in You
40. Blackstreet - Blackstreet

This list is chock full of landmark, iconic albums that changed the game. 1994 represented a confluence of artistic innovation, regional diversification, genre-blurring experimentation, and mainstream breakthrough that made it a landmark year in music history.

 

Tuesday, May 22, 2012: Beastie Boys - Shake Your Rump

RIP: MCA (Adam Nathaniel Yauch) August 5, 1964 – May 4, 2012 

Some of the best times in my life have the Beastie Boys as the soundtrack.

More specifically, some of the best times in my life have the album "Licensed To Ill" as the soundtrack.

It was very tempting to put Paul Revere as today's track.  Every group needs a origins story - and there are very few cooler than that one.

However, for me, today's track speaks volumes about this group, far more than my own personal experiences.

Shake Your Rump is, essentially, the opening track to the Boy's second album, Paul's Boutique.  You see, Licensed To Ill was flat out brilliant.  It was a fun, frantic, loud, frat rock cum rap album that encouraged young boys and girls everywhere to crank it up and fight for our right to paaaaaaarrrrrtttyyyyy!  As I've said, it was the album everyone had, or everyone knew someone who had it.  Ask any Gen X'r to tell you a story that involves the song "Brass Monkey", I guarantee you they'll have one.  I knew someone who had Licensed To Ill on CD, one of the first CD's I had ever seen.  This album was a juggernaut.

And, as such, I think many simply wrote off the Boy's as a white-rapper novelty act, and had all the text to their Sophomore Slump review of whatever their second album was going to be already written before Paul's Boutique even came out.

Then Paul's Boutique came out.

And I will go to my grave knowing that nobody, but nobody, knew what to do with this album.  It was so revolutionary and so visionary and so complex and weird and hard that I truly believe reviewers, and many fans, just gave up trying to figure it out.  The audience was expecting License To Ill 2.  The reviewers were expecting Sophomore Slump.  The Beasties gave them both the Sistine Chapel.  In rap form.

I mean, just listen to Shake Your Rump.  Listen to those funky basslines interspersed throughout the song.  Listen for all the samples, hundreds is seems like.  Listen to the breaks and the drops, the sonic patterns that make Spector's Wall Of Sound seem more like a quaint garden enclose.

And, for me, this is what puts the Beastie Boys so high on my list of truly great artists.  They really never did stop developing, refining and rediscovering.  They could have settled for just cranking out another License To Ill, and even others after that, and probably there would have been an audience for that.  But, instead, they took a difficult road and went far higher than anyone would have imagined.

And, all the while, having a great time doing it.  And encouraging us to join them at the party.

And we haven't even mentioned MCA's commitment to Tibet, his filmmaking efforts, or his support for human rights for everyone.

You will be missed.