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Bob Elliott
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1/29/2008 11:52:41 AM
How Many of You Like Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype?"
I swear, it's what, 20 years old now, and when it comes on my iPod, it just seems fresh and solid and makes me crank it every time.
It's rap at it's finest, but I don't really think a lot about the fact that it's rap, I think that it's on point. It's just right up in your ear on point, you can feel that they can feel that they are riding right on it.
And whenever musicians are right on point, I'm right with them.
Hank Williams, on point
heard Bach C major prelude, but with the horn part added that is sometimes called "Ave Maria" but is not the Ave most people think of, anyway...it's right on the point.
Zepplin's Black Country Woman...right there.
Elliott Smith "Needle in the Hay." Right on point.
These people know they are right at the point, and you can feel it, and that's what I love.
genre: who cares? I want the flow.
Lynton Quiesi Johnson, Dub on point.
I'd make music of almost any style, I just want to get on point.
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Bob Elliott
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1/29/2008 2:24:41 PM
No kidding. Hip hop's had twenty years to top that and De La Soul's early stuff and NWA, and I 'd say it never was matched, although Tupac sure had some flow. There's just something about the way Chuck D. gets his mouth around each line with that tone and five or six rhymes per line just flowin' and still making sense and the collage of samples behind just so funky with Flav adding all the comic flavor to counter thlow down seriousness of Chuck. That album's a classic.
I read that Dylan autobiography, and it seemed like the only modern stuff he gave a nod to was rap. He said some of these guys are great, wild, like throwing horses off cliffs.
It did not surprise me at all that he would dig on some of that poetry because some of it was just flat out great. Public Enemy was on fire for Nation of Millions, and for 3 fourths of the next album and half of the next.
Don't know what happened then.
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Gremislav Iakovich
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1/30/2008 2:22:18 PM
Yeah, Nation of Millions and Fear of a Black Planet were two hugely influential albums for me. I've been a solid PE fan ever since I first heard them. They may have taken a bit of detour after their first few records, but they've still been putting out remarkably consistent albums pretty much non-stop... but the media just doesn't seem to pay as much attention to them anymore. The album they did with Paris in 2006, Rebirth of a Nation, was really unexpected, stylistically speaking, but it kicked so much ass! New Whirl Odor was great as well. Really, the only two PE records that I ever skip any tracks on are The Enemy Strikes Black (although, "By The Time I Get To Arizona" was alone worth the price of the album, imo) and Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age, although I think that was a highly under-rated album, probably because the production and overall style was so different from their previous stuff. I haven't heard their latest one yet, but I will very soon.
Hip-Hop did go off in some unfortunate directions, and a lot of what becomes hugely popular these days is like a slap to the face of PE and all the other innovative and socially conscious rap artists that came before them.... but there are some devastatingly good artists who aren't willing to turn the other cheek when it comes to bad Hip-Hop. Dälek immediately comes to mind... the most innovative artist(s) in Hip-Hop as far as I'm concerned, both lyrically and musically... and I can't say enough good things about Saul Williams, either.
Now I must go and crank up Nation of Millions....
Best,
Gremislav
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