What do we think of the first Public Enemy album?

1987 Hip-Hop offered so much more.

For those who LACK
The odds are STACKED
The one who makes the money is WHITE not BLACK
You might not believe it but it is like that

1987 Marley (Roxanne Shante's Go On Girl, Big Daddy Kane's Raw, etc.) stomp Bum Rush, which is why Chuck rushed the release of Rebel w/o a Pause onto the b-side of a Bum Rush single against Russell Simmons' wishes.

http://www.discogs.com/release/219516
http://www.discogs.com/release/452724

But this sadly does not reflect the Kareem of the crop.

I don't hate Bum Rush, but you know, context vs. hindsight/revision. When each of these were released, it was the year of topping each other. Bum Rush came too late in the game and had lost. Chuck knows this and speaks in depth about it in his book.

(If the remasters Chuck's been promising for years ever come out, I'll happily get it on CD, skip to track 2 and listen through without thinking "...but... but... I could be hearing those tyre squeals and guitars again...")

There's a lot more actual interplay between Chuck and Flav on this than most records that came after, even if it's only Flav yelling "Tell 'em about this subject, Chuck!" instead of yelling "Tell 'em, Chuck!" (Or "Yeeeeah, I agree with the thesis you are putting forth!" instead of "Yeeeeeeeah!")

"Miuzi" is an isolated, baffling example of what would later become an embarrassingly consistent propensity for Chuck to engage in pointless wordplay. (I have to give it up for "HUSTLER SCRIMMONS and LIAR CONMAN" though, which I still remember from some four-year-old Terrordome entry. And the DYS? of his capitalising the portmanteus and puns on the blog is earnest enough to be charming inna "aw bless" stylee.)

Actually, Party For Your Right To Fight hints at that a bit too I guess. The song was a great way of taking that OH SO DISRESPECTFUL hijacking of new black music by whitey and turning it into ANGRY BLACK MAN, and riding the Moebius cot-tails back into the attention of yer white teen America audience. Maybe.

"impeach the president pullin' out a raygun, zap the next one I could be a shogun..."

For 1987 Hip-Hop, this type wordplay was trailblazing...especially considering the underlying layers that us Hip-Hop fanatics were (possibly) reading into it. "Impeach the President" was a Hip-Hop break recently revitalized by Daddy O's sampling of it in Audio 2's "Top Billin'" earlier that year (later co-opted by Puffy for Mary J Blige, possibly sparking the "keep it real" campaign).

I've gone too far now.

no, see, that wordplay has a point!

unlike Muse-Sick-N-Hour-Stew-Pidalbumty-Tell

-- PappaWheelie 2 (evieandjo...), June 15th, 2006.

You might be engaging in your own kind of revisionism here. There was a more serious, darker vibe coming off PE than off of ANY other rap artist at that point (maybe with the exception of Schoolly D) - the embrace of noise, reflections of urban unrest. I don't remember seeing any crosshairs on Roxanne Shante or Big Daddy Kane record covers.

They turned the volume way up on the militant black power vibe for It Takes A Nation of Millions... but it was definitely palpable when that first record dropped, and I don't remember anybody saying, "Here come Public Enemy with their tired ol' johnny-come-lately shit," at the time - more like, "What the fuck is THIS?"

One of the finest annoying / why-is-it-catchy choruses of all time. Sounded great coming out of a boombox down at the park.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000005X5Y.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Noise? I don't see it on that record at all. In fact, the so-called noise-element on Nation of Millions has always sounded like James Brown loops to me. Better yet, maceo Parker sax.

and I don't remember anybody saying, "Here come Public Enemy with their tired ol' johnny-come-lately shit," at the time

I don't remember anyone saying anything at all. Everyone I knew was listening to Paid in Full instead. And hell, oddly enough, we chose Dana Dane over this. Not a choice I'd make again, but revisionist I am not.

It's hard to listen to the record now without the fog of everything that came after hanging over it, but "Miuzi Weighs A Ton", "Too Much Posse", "Public Enemy No. 1" didn't sound like funk 'n' fun at the time; it was a more desperate affair, and I could draw some lines between what PE was doing and indie noise rock like Big Black (which it's fair to say was my frame of reference at the time). Maybe why nobody was listening to it?

I am having no luck finding Yo! Bum Rush...'s release date. Any clue?

Which might explain why Yo! was huge on college radio. I don't ever remember hearing PE on commercial hip-hop radio shows until "Bring The Noise."

As far as a release date for Bum Rush, I really don't know. Again, the point being made by me is no one I knew in my Hip-Hop circles even took note of it. I bought it later just because I was desperate for something new and it was on Def Jam. I listened, chose one or two songs that were okay, and shlved it later. I returned to it in the mid-90's with a new perspective. I was quoting (paraphrasing) Chuck D about the release date being too late in the year.

When I heard Rebel w/o a Pause, my jaw hit the floor and I have yet to pick it back up.

cold rock rap 49-er supreme

in this corner w/ the 98 . subject of suckers' object of hate

Chances are, those unidentified people on the Panic Zone cover didn't contribute anything. Maybe Ron De Vu is on there or something. There're more photos on the back of the 12" which are more artist related (and contain one badass Suzuki Samurai):

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=387550

Macola records slapped that comp together and called it their debut album. The group never sanctioned it. Macola chose to use 4 songs from Fila Fresh Crew due to Dre's production and DOC being a member, but frankly, using the 3 song C.I.A. 12" would've made it more of a NWA album as that was Ice Cube's group that Dre produced. And I'd guess that the name "NWA & the Posse" was trying to cahs in on Cube's hit song "My Posse", so it really should've been included.

Macola followed by putting out another comp series called "The Posse" afterwards, complete with more group shots of non-artists:

http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?what=R&obid=179125