best tribe album etc.

The first three are essential anyway, but if I had to pick one, it would be the first.. "People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm". The catchiness of the first record is unmatchable.

I'm going to go with the conventional wisdom and say that "Low End Theory" is their best, althougt "Midnight Marauders" is quite good too.

1) MIDNIGHT MARAUDERS 2) low end 3) love movement 4) people's instinctive 5) beats rhymes etc.

I'm generally a "Low End" person myself although I revisited "Mid. Marauders recently and found it better than I remembered. "Love Movements" and "Beats, Rhymes, Life" are eh...

er.. "Love Movement" without an 's'.

Eric B and Rakim's albums are worth getting, but if you want a great overview, get the 20th Century Masters: Millenium Collection greatest- hits disc, it's almost flawless (though it unfortunately doesn't contain both versions of "Paid In Full")

agree wholeheartedly with ian about the "20th century masters" cd...if yr looking for the "golden age" (blech, blech, BLECH) of hiphop: JUNGLE BROTHERS (at least the first two...avoid the new stuff like the fucking plague.) oh yeah, there was this band called de la soul some people liked too.

whither mantronix?

I spose I'm the only person who thinks Beats, Rhymes & Life is amazing then. I mean, 'The Pressure'?? '1nce Again'?? 'Jam'?? 'Keep It Moving' has the the most gorgeous guitar bit on any song ever! (Er, possibly if its a sample, there's another song with an equally gorgeous guitar bit.) Midnight Marauders is probably better overall tho. You could start with that Anthology thing, featuring many hits and a couple of decent rarities.

Midnight! the first time I heard self-doubt, paranoia on a Hip Hop record.

I like Low End best, but also love Beats, Rhymes & would call that the most underrated record in their catalog. It has such a unique vibe -- thoughtful, sad, wistful, nostalgic.

Beats, Rhymes & Life is an all time classic, I don't think any other TCQ record is in the same league (that's not to say they're shite), it's probly my favourite hip hop album ever. I don't get why people rate their others above it so much, they seem kinda dull, blah blah blah type records to me. Peace

i don't think i've even heard the first or BR&L in their entirities, but i can't shake Low End as an unchallenged favorite. front to back incredible. still trying to get into M

Another vote for Beats, Rhymes, & Life. It has an end-of-an-era feel, like if it had been made one year later, it would have sounded woefully out of place.

I love'em all, but although many do not agree, I have a special place in my heart for "Paths of Rhythm."

I have not heard all of their albums but peoples instinctive travels and the love movement which doesn't seem to receive a lot of notice, are amazing.

just found this on the rolling stone website; thought i'd post it here for posteriority before they remove it and replace it (as dave q says the website is tending to do) with some retrospective review once and for all:

A Tribe Called Quest

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm

Originally released: 1990
Jive Records

Inasmuch as the arch and arty New York hip-hop foursome A Tribe Called Quest exudes any enthusiasm at all on its debut album, that enthusiasm shows up mostly in the grooves, not the voices. The samples, nowhere as disjointed as those used by ATCQ's overpraised comrades in De la Soul, alternate between gratuitous fun ("Walk on the Wild Side" and "La Marseillaise" by way of "All You Need Is Love") and dreamy delirium (Earth, Wind and Fire and Ellington by way of Stevie-Wonder's "Sir Duke"). But the real pleasure on People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm comes from a detailed mesh of instruments and incidental sounds. Jungle congas, philharmonic pianos, Art Ensemble of Chicago chimes and fluttering flamenco guitars are pitted against windstorms, crying babies, a pondful of frogs and crickets. Add turntable scratches that are nearly melodic, and you've got rap's answer to the Environments series.

Yet at least as much as the members of De la Soul, who introduced Tribe chief Q-Tip in the song "Buddy" last year, the rappers of A Tribe Called Quest tend to mumble in understated monotones that feel self-satisfied, even bored. They'd like to be a HA! Network for your ears, but there are too many inside jokes, too many heavy-handed proverbs on the order of "In a society of fake reality/I'm nothing but a peg of informality," whatever that means. The group does have its amusing moments: A tirade against wife beating escapes from the sermon syndrome through preposterous Barry White grunts; "Bonita Applebum" opens with a whiny parody of Prince's love-sex mode; and a CD bonus track is called "Pubic Enemy." "Ham 'n' Eggs" attains a smidgen of the greasy suppertable mood Fred Wesley and the JBs captured so spontaneously on 1974's "Breakin' Bread," and Tribe's gutbucket anticholesterol message gives it a cute twist. But the shaggy-dog stories (about eating snails in France, eating enchiladas and losing wallets in Southern California, even derelicts rambling through their own shaggy-dog stories) get tedious fast.

At least until it finally kicks in midway through side 2, this is one of the least danceable rap albums ever – there's no forward motion. Sound effects or no, the backing tracks frequently add up to the sort of funkified quiet-storm pseudo-jazz you might expect young Afrocentric upwardly mobiles to indulge in when they crack open that bottle of Ameretto and cuddle up in front of the gas fireplace: plenty of sweet silky saxophones. Yet since the patter on People's Instinctive Travels is hardly what you'd call pillow talk, it's impossible to imagine how people will put this music to use. Maybe A Tribe Called Quest has hit upon the perfect middlebrow college-radio format for the early 1990s: Nutritiously Eclectic Adult-Contemporary Comedy Rap. (RS 576)

CHUCK EDDY

While we're posting RS reviews...

TWO STARS

Can you envision/a brother who ain't dissin'?" asked A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip on the rap group's 1990 debut album, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm, a breakthrough in what became known as Afrocentric hip-hop. It was a refreshing idea then, and Quest pulled it off with panache; their raps were gently wry, while their jazzy jams proved that dope beats don't need sledgehammer impact to kick ass. In today's hip-hop climate, where hardcore acts are practically defining the whole genre – at least commercially – it's an even better idea. Which is why it's a shame to see Quest partially abandon it on their new album, Midnight Marauders.

Not that the Tribe are suddenly on the gangsta tip – they still make nods to positivity, mostly on the between-songs segments featuring the record's host, a computerized female voice. But the Tribe are now going for a harder-edged verbal attack, or at least they must think so – the lively wit of past songs like "Skypager" and "I Left My Wallet in El Segundo" is replaced with tired boasts like "I like my beats harder than two-day-old shit." They try to rationalize the niggas dropped all over this album with the tortured "Sucka Niggas" and concoct a convincing litany of urban and personal woes on "Eight Million Stories." But instead of coming off impassioned, the Tribe only sound cranky. The music still has its beguiling moments, but nothing approaches the revelatory jazz stylings and laid-back cool of past work. Sadly, the schizzy Midnight Marauders suggests that at this point the band might more accurately be called A Tribe Called Flounder. (RS 670)

GLENN KENNY

what's amusing about a song named "public enemy"?

Not much, but a song called "Pubic Enemy" is pretty amusing.

you're right! i can't believe i've never noticed that! i am a dummy.

weird, I wouldn't have expected the range of opinions evident on this thread. "Instinctive Travels" is good, but a little stiff (tho not quite as stiff as Chuck makes it out to be), and Phife's rhymes are uniformly clunky thru the entire record. Really it's Mohammed's production and Q-Tip's mellow/funny vibe that save the record. By the time of "Low End Theory", Phife had inexplicably sharpened his skills and the resulting record is waaayyyy better. Sharper, darker, funkier, more unique, groundbreaking for its time. I'd rank it tops as far as Tribe albums go, with Midnight Marauders close behind, and Travels third. The rest don't even rate, not a memorable track on them for me.

PITATPOR has of tribe's best songs, (Bonita Applebum, Can I Kick It?, El Segundo) but the rest is weak. So Low End theory wins.

I love that "I like my beats hard like two-day old shits" line.

That Anthology CD is pretty solid...

I don't remember there being much smooth sax on their first album, unless that was just a sort of metaphor.

ah, the "smooth jazz" crack is just chuck being pissy/heavy-handed (what a surprise)