It takes a nation of millions to hold us back...
 

I love this album and have been listening to it quite frequently.

Can anyone explain to me why this is considered one of the best rap albums of all time? I guess I don't understand (besides the fantastic lyrics) what makes it so revolutionary, though I do enjoy it.

It seems like their songs are a lot longer than the typical rap song, and they generally don't break too much from the one "rhythm track" (sample? god, I sound white) that starts and ends the song. What makes this album and this group stand out so much aside from their strong personalities, great lyrics, and controversy?

Same question Nevermind; Same question White Album; Same question Never mind the Bollocks; Same question Astral Weeks; Same question London Calling; Same question Ok Computer; Same question DDN; Same question... oh, you get the point.

Were you there at the time? I ask this not to be provocative, but often I think it helps to understand what a difference a record made if you were there. I can't talk, the only record I was there for was Ok computer, which is good but nothing like as good as the hype.

Meh. If you can get past the fact that it'll never be as good as the hype (there's an irony there, obviously), it is a very good album. Although I prefer fear of a black planet personally.

have you heard any other rap albums from 1988? this album completely kicked everyone's ass. hip hop had never been as hard or political before. the production was better than the production on any hip hop album made before, the rapping was more innovative and fresh. i mean, just look at the shit that was being pushed that year:
"He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper" by fresh prince & jazzy jeff?

I love them. It Takes A Nation is good, but I like Fear of a Black Planet the best. To me, they kind of put some more "meat and potatos" into hip hop if that makes any sense.....a little more going on in in their music in comparison to the Godfathers of hip hop I guess is what I'm saying. They helped hip hop to evolve from the older stuff (which I love). Plus I think they are really respected for their unapologetic attitude.

A few random thoughts:

For a start, Public Enemy took rap from being all about 'sucker mc's' and all to being political. At the time music was very rarely about anything other then boy/girl.

This LP was very much a breakthrough for them, so there is the impact factor of that. It's also structurally different - all those short pieces in between the full songs, a change from their first LP. The tracks themselves were also more inventive stylistically - if you listen to the first LP, 'Yo! Bumrush The Show' you'll see how they had moved on.

Their intelligence was a big factor in rap gaining respect as a musical art form. And of course, the lyrical, vocal and visual duality of the serious Chuck D alongside the more lighthearted FLava Flav was a true innovation.

It was very much Public Enemy, around this time, who started to branch out in their appeal to white kids who had been listening to metal and indie.

Also, they could legitimately be considered as a musical force rather than merely a rap force as they were able to write an LP of very strong and distinctive songs.

As a side note, I was always much more imnpressed with the follow up to this one, 'Fear of a Black Planet'. Side one (that shows my age!) of 'Fear of a Black planet' is 30 or so minutes of absolutely intense non-stop brilliance.

my friend glen's killer photography on it.

i like "ITANOMTHUB" more than "black planet", but they're all really good... "muse sick in our mess age" is an amazing no one ever gives any credit.

i personally dont favor this record much, way to much sampling, and repitiveness. the YEAH BOI!11!! gets on my nerves

i much prefer apocalypse 91

I think a lot of it had to do with the appeal it gathered from all races. I think PE being political, and sure they tackled black community issues, but the year it came out (1988), was a very politcal year for music. Kids who were into metal found this album, kids who were into punk rock found this album. PE quickly became one of the first rap groups that spoke to every pissed off kid out there, despite thier race.

Ok, so the sound it totally secondary to the influence/impact/message, etc.

I think we'd all agree that it's not "catchy" as most mainstream rap. It seems like it would totally flop if it were put out now.

I remember Chuck D at some point said something like he wanted to make music girls hated, which I think sums it up quite well.
It's messy, aggressive, sharp, intelligent, catchy & noisy, it has great beats yet is impossible to dance to, pretty much anything you could ask for in an album.
Think they had a method of composition which basically involved noise jamming on 3 or 4 samplers for extended periods, taking any piece that sounded in any way good or coherent & looping it to form the basis of the track, which I think is a pretty genious working method.

what it had to do with was that it was the single greatest wall of noise, agitating, rousing, in your face slab of vinyl ever to hit hip hop. It Takes A Nation of Millions is a fucking CLASSIC. that album, apocalypse 91 and welcome to the terrorodome are all perfect albums.

Nation o Millions introduced the world to true hip hop aggression. the all of npoise created by chuck D and terminator X and the rest of teh Bomb Squad will never ever be replicated. it is ILLEGAL to replicate it. Public enemy sampled teeny bits from a dozen sources for each individual song, most samples being unrecognizable. tis was before de la soul got sued by teh turtles, creating the new m,arket for record companies of selling their songs for sampling purposes, so now,a nd for the last 14 years, all you hear is BULLSHIT hi hop where each hip hop track samples just ONE old songa nd not only do they do that but they sample the entire recognizable melody and I HATE THAT SHIT

I FUCKING HATE THAT SHIT SO MUCH. that is NOT art. that is outright lowest common denominator BULLSHIT

the bomb squad and opeople of that ilk can no longer sample anythinga nd everythin in teeny unrewcognizable bites. a half second snippet from a james brown song copsts as much as a 1 minutre loop of the melody of a Police song. the record companies screwed the listener and the artist again.

Public Enemy was the first and the last. there will be no others. the corpos have made sure oif that

I dance to that fucker and all PE all teh time!@!!!!!

Though the whole S1W thing does look a bit ridiculous in retrospect, different times...

the SIW thing comes directly from black fraternities, and their "step " routines. at the time, when black un iversities were getting a lot of exposure, this was a very relevant thing you know.
chuck D, terminator X and Flava all met at university. same with griff I think.

Sorry, I think much of what you wrote was rather intresting, and pretty true, however didn't Beastie Boys do much of the same for "Paul's Boutique"? I agree that no rap artist can currently do what either of these groups did in terms of thier sampling, and that sampling in both these albums and the way it was used is/was a major reason these two albums got so much attention, most of it positive, and perhaps some negative. Certainly back in the eighties sampling was not such a dirty word as it is now.

paul's Boutique was the Dust Brothers. The beastie boys had nothing to do with the music on paul's boutique. they just rapped over tracks provided them by the dust brothers.

It Takes a Nation...came out in 1988. Paul's Boutique came out a year later in 1989.

I love paul;s boutiqwue, but the density of sound is not as thick and lush and abrasive as the bomb squad's sirens.

PE still refuses to sample legally. if you look in the newest albums, they still don't say what samples were used. some of the few veterans who can still kick it. chuck d's flow nowadays is incredible...