816. DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...... (1996)














Track Listing

1. Best Foot Forward
2. Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
3. The Number Song
4. Changeling
5. Transmission 1
6. What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)
7. Untitled
8. Stem/Long Stem
9. Transmission 2
10. Mutual Slump
11. Organ Donor
12. Why Hip-Hop Sucks In '96
13. Midnight In A Perfect World
14. Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain
15. What Does Your Soul Look Like
16. Transmission 3

Review

DJ Shadow brings us a first here, the first album to be completely composed of samples, there is nary a note of original material here, but that in itself makes the album extremely original. The art of making snippets of music work together perfectly had never been achieved to a degree of anywhere near the success present when you hear this.

This is not to say that every single track is an unqualified success, but the work is well rounded enough in and of itself to make it quite astounding. For this alone the album more than deserves a place on any list of 1001 albums which are essential hearing.

Despite this not being my prefered style of music I have to tip my hat to Mr. Shadow, some of the tracks are a pure joy to listen to, particularly the ones who show particularly good musical archeology. Making your vinyl collection into a work of art is a worthy endeavour.

Track Highlights

1. Organ Donor
2. Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
3. Transmission 1
4. Transmission 2

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Endtroducing..... is structured completely out of sampled elements, including hip hop, jazz, funk, psychedelia, old television shows, interviews and percussion tracks. The entirety of the album was composed on an MPC60, a machine which Shadow would later pass on to Chief Xcel. The album has been cited in Guinness World Records as being the first album created entirely from sampled sources.

Organ Donor, slightly different from the album version: