CoronaVinyl Day 22 (Rap): It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back by Public Enemy

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

On the original list of categories, today is supposed to be "classical."  I have nothing against classical music, and it serves a purpose, but I don't have much of any classical music on vinyl.  Neither you nor I wants to suffer through an album of Sousa marches, so I changed today's category to rap.

I chose Public Enemy's groundbreaking 1988 sophomore album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.  I bought this a couple years ago as part of the Vinyl Me Please record club.  It's a 180-gram reissue with a cool 3D cover, so it actually looks like Chuck D and Flavor Flav are behind bars.

Clearly I had never actually listened to the album on vinyl until this morning.  You can imagine my confusion when I put on Side 1 and "Hot 'Lanta" by The Allman Brothers Band began playing.  I thought to myself, I don't remember this being sampled in "Countdown to Armageddon," but I know Chuck D has some pretty eclectic musical tastes, so maybe it's kind of a prank or remix or something.  It was not.  Not only would the revolution not be televised, but it wouldn't even be broadcast aurally.  The entirety of "Hot 'Lanta" played.  And then "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed."  So Side 1 is actually Side 3 of The Allman Brothers Band's legendary 1971 At Fillmore East live album.  Apparently, I'm not the only one who has this hybrid jam band/militant rap pressing.

Nonetheless, I'm going to use both sides of the actual It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, since it would be strange for me to review the Allman Brothers and Public Enemy at the same time for a rap category.  Anywho, Public Enemy combined politically and socially charged lyrics with dope beats -- yeah, I just used the phrase "dope beats" -- and wicked samples to make a masterpiece.  Co-produced by Chuck D, The Bomb Squad, and wunderkind producer Rick Rubin (as "executive producer"), the album is considered one of the most influential in rap and hip hop history, as well as one of the best albums of all-time among any genre.  It has landed on too many "best of" and "greatest album of all-time" lists to mention, but here are a couple:  #2 on Spin's 2005 list of the Top 100 (Plus 5) Albums of the Last 20 Years; #11 on Blender's list of 100 Greatest American Albums of All-Time; #20 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Albums in Rock and Roll History; and #48 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Bring the Noise"
This is probably the most recognizable Public Enemy song (or at least one of the top few), and with good reason.  It's a classic, with Chuck D smoothly rapping at a mile a minute, while Flavor Flav does what he does in the background.  One of the seemingly unusual collaborations was borne out of this song.  Chuck D gave a shout-out in the song to thrash metal pioneers Anthrax because guitarist Scott Ian sometimes wore a Public Enemy t-shirt during live shows.  Anthrax returned the favor by collaborating with Public Enemy on a metaled-up version of the song.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Party for Your Right to Fight"
Turning the Beastie Boys' song "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)" on its ear, the group's message is a good one:  celebrate that you have the ability to stand up for what you believe in.  As with many of their songs, this one uses sampling masterfully, with the aforementioned Beastie Boys song making an appearance, as well as Sly & The Family Stone, Funkadelic, Bob Marley, and an audio clip of a Malcolm X speech.