Tuesday, September 02, 2008

680. Public Enemy - Fear Of a Black Planet (1990)





















Track Listing


1. Contract On The World Love Jam
2. Brothers Gonna Work It Out
3. 911 Is A Joke
4. Incident At 66.6 FM
5. Welcome To The Terrordome
6. Meet The G That Killed Me
7. Pollywanacraka
8. Anti-Nigger Machine
9. Burn Hollywood Burn - Ice Cube, Public Enemy
10. Power To The People
11. Who Stole The Sole?
12. Fear Of A Black Planet
13. Revolutionary Generation
14. Can't Do Nuttin' For Ya Man
15. Reggie Jax
16. Leave This Off Your Fu*Kin Charts
17. B Side Wins Again
18. War At 33 1/3
19. Final Count Of The Collision Between Us And The Damned
20. Fight The Power

Review

When hip-hop is boring, it is really boring, when it is good it sounds like this album! Public Enemy had already shown what gods they were in their previous album, and this doesn't disappoint in the least.

You know a hip-hop is album is working when you are actually interested in what they are saying, this works partly as a great music album. partly as a spoken word album and partly as documentary through the spoken samples used through it.

Actually it is as socially important as It Takes A Nation of Millions, the black-white divide pervades the album, in all its forms, up to the point of the type-casting of black actors in Burn Hollywood Burn. This is art of the highest calibre, and another example of why East Coast rap will always be superior, at least at this point in time.

Track Highlights


1. Fight The Power
2. Burn Hollywood Burn
3. 911 Is a Joke
4. Power To The People

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The album's musical qualities were overshadowed by a controversy surrounding alleged anti-Semitic remarks by group member Professor Griff. After the controversy had been forgotten, however, the album's critical reception was generally very positive, with many commentators ranking it equal to or better than the previous album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988).In particular, critics were favorable to The Bomb Squad's innovative and diverse production and Chuck D's songwriting. The Encyclopedia of Popular Music credits Fear of a Black Planet's atmosphere to the "bunker mentality" of "clashes with the press", and specifically cites "Fight the Power", which "bites harder than just about any other track in rap's history" (p. 1864).

Fight The Power:

2 comments:

Rod McBan said...

I really love this album. I'd even rate it above Millions. The production's a whole other level, the writing's more focused - it's just great.

Controversial opinions, I know. Next thing I'll be praising the Beatles.

Francisco Silva said...

You might have a point, but the impact of Nation of Millions is much greater for the simple fact that it came first.