Wu Tang Clan's 'Iron Flag'

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... Strikes me as an immense and profound record right now. Why don't more people recognise its greatness beyond "Rules" and "Pinky Ring"? How could anyone not adore a record that contains "In The Hood", "Babies", "Back In The Game" and "Dashing"?

Please talk about this record.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 17 October 2002 15:15 (twenty-two years ago)

This is a great album. Oddly, I find "Babies," "Back in the Game," and "Dashing" some of the less compelling tracks. "Radioactive" and "Iron Flag" are hot as hell though! And the beat for "Good Thing We Brought the Glock" is about the best thing I've heard in a long time. Classic RZA-- it's crazy minimal and paranoid as fuck.

"Chrome Wheels" has a cool sound in the beat, but I can't figure out what the hell it is, but regardless, that's a tight track too (At first I didn't like it because of the 'diva' thing, but now I dig it a lot). "Ya'll Been Warned" is great too.

Although Method Man is one of my least favorite Wu members (just above U-God), he's got some great one-liners in this one ("If I'm going down / she's coming with me") ("I'm so focused / simple chronic halitosis / Keeps my shit funky when I spit this braggadocious"). Two of my favs GZA and Inspectah Deck are in top form too. All in all, a damn good album, and one that finds the Wu evolving, and changing their styles.

― Rahul Kamath (Rahul Kamath), Thursday, 17 October 2002 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

The hidden track is great (better than most of the album), and "Radioactive" beats "Night Of The Living Baseheads" at its own game musically.

― Vic Funk, Thursday, 17 October 2002 19:53 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

I can't believe it took me until JUST NOW to finally buy this record. What a fool I am. At the time of its release I was a little burned out on the Wu following "the W" (which is markedly inferior to "Iron Flag", I think) and Ghostface's solo stuff - coming to this album now I'm blown away by how concise it is. It packs a helluva wallop into a relatively short set of songs - almost every tune sounds like some alternate universe pop single. And ohmigod "Rules" up through the first verse drops my jaw "Who the fuck knocked our buildings down!" indeed.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 27 January 2005 19:04 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

I just now got this as well, surprised there's not more chatter. Took me a while as stores don't as readily have it available, but got a good quality used quality.

It seems almost like a Wu 'party' album, with simplified lyrics and beats, but damned if they aren't infectious. This album also highlights one thing Method Man does well -- he has a flow that is just inherently "hooky", even when he does verses.

"Rules" was probably the most surprising beat on here to me though.

Cappadonna's Pillage is also on its way -- anybody heard that one?

― San Te, Tuesday, 13 July 2010 15:27 (fifteen years ago)

Pillage has only one track I remember as being good ("Milk the Cow", I think?) - pretty standard 3rd-tier Wu stuff

― gordon lishification (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 13 July 2010 15:33 (fifteen years ago)

this album is super-underrated, tis true.

― swvl, Tuesday, 13 July 2010 21:01 (fifteen years ago)

six years pass...

got me duckin rudy giuliani
like i'm still coppin big H
from papi

― j., Sunday, 18 September 2016 17:53 (nine years ago)

"Babies" is the best track on this record - when people call RZA's beats "cinematic" this is what they're talking about, and "Babies" has horns and live drums and backing vocals and great verses to match.

― Futuristic Bow Wow (thewufs), Sunday, 18 September 2016 22:47 (nine years ago)

Still out here on my own thinking this is the best Wu album.

― Tim F, Monday, 19 September 2016 00:17 (nine years ago)

This has really good first four tracks, but after that it sadly regresses to Wu-on-autodrive. After they experimented with different forms and expanded their sound on The W (the real best non-solo Wu album), the conservative nature of IF was a disappointment.

― Tuomas, Monday, 19 September 2016 07:17 (nine years ago)

I listened to all the albums in a playlist on shuffle for several months, a few years ago, and now I can't separate them in my mind.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Monday, 19 September 2016 07:20 (nine years ago)

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