Soul Strut 100: # 31 - DJ Shadow - Endtroducing

RAJ

I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.

# 31 - DJ Shadow - Endtroducing



The list so far:

# 100 - Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds
# 99 - Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul
# 98 - Donny Hathaway - S/T (1971)
# 97 - Bernard Wright - ???Nard
# 96 - Tom Scott - Honeysuckle Breeze
# 95 - People Under the Stairs - Question in the Form of an Answer
# 94 - Harlem River Drive
# 93 - Black Moon - Enta Da Stage
# 92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
# 91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
# 90 - Les McCann - Layers
# 89 - Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
# 88 - Leroy Hutson - Hutson (1975)
# 87 - ESG - S/T (1981)
# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
# 85 - Bohannon - Stop & Go
# 84 - WILLIAM DEVAUGHN - Be Thankful For What You Got
# 83 - Power of Zeus - The Gospel According to Zeus
# 82 - Gang Starr - Hard To Earn
# 81 - The J.B.???s - Doing It to Death
# 80 - Parliament - Osmium
# 79 - McNeal & Niles - Thrust
# 78 - The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - Malik
# 77 - Earth, Wind, and Fire (1971)
# 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic
# 75 - Black Sabbath (1970)
# 74 - Trap Door / An International Psychedelic Mystery Mix (2006)
# 73 - Bob James - One
# 72 - Matthew Larkin Cassell - Pieces
# 71 - The Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
# 70 - Big Bear - Doin??? Thangs
# 69 - Steely Dan - Aja
# 68 - Quasimoto - The Unseen
# 67 - Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live! (1971)
# 66 - Al Green - Im still in love with you
# 65 - The Beatnuts - Street Level
# 64 - Archie Whitewater - Archie Whitewater (1970)
# 63 - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - Mecca & the Soul Brother
# 62 - Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
# 61 - The J.B.???s - Food For Thought
# 60 - Don Blackman (1982)
# 59 - Niagara - (Tiddies)
# 58 - Can - Ege Bamyasi
# 57 - Whatnauts - On the Rocks
# 56 - The Mohawks - Champ
# 55 - McDonald and Giles (1971)
# 54 - Darondo - Let My People Go
# 53 - Dorothy Ashby - Afro Harping
# 52 - Beastie Boys - Paul???s Boutique
# 51 - Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu of Ethiopia
# 50 - Lyman Woodard Organization - Saturday Night Special
# 49 - Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul
# 48 - Lyn Collins - Think (About It)
# 47 - James Brown - In The Jungle Groove
# 46 - Bill Withers - Still Bill
# 45 - Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
# 44 - Silver Apples - S/T
# 43 - Mobb Deep - The Infamous
# 42 - Lyn Christopher (1973)
# 41 - Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson
# 40 - Gang Starr - Step in the Arena
# 39 - Diamond D - Stunts, Blunts, & Hip Hop
# 38 - Terry Callier - What Color is Love
# 37 - David Axelrod - Song of Innocence
# 36 - The Invaders - Spacing Out
# 35 - Leo Sayer - Endless Flight
# 34 - Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
# 33 - DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist - Brainfreeze (Mix)
# 32 - Michael Jackson - Thriller

Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.

About


Endtroducing..... is the debut studio album by American hip hop artist DJ Shadow. It was released on November 19, 1996 by Mo' Wax Records. The album was conceived as an effort by Shadow to make an album completely based around sampling.[1] It is structured almost entirely out of sampled elements from genres ranging from hip hop, jazz, funk, psychedelia, as well as samples from films and interviews. All sampling on the album was done on an Akai MPC60 MKII sampler.[1]

In the years following the release of Endtroducing..... high praise has continued to be forthcoming. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic gave the album five of five stars, saying that "...it's innovative, but it builds on a solid historical foundation, giving it a rich, multi-faceted sound. It's not only a major breakthrough for hip-hop and electronica, but for pop music." In a review of the album's "Deluxe Edition" in 2005, Pitchfork awarded Endtroducing..... the maximum score of 10.0/10.0, saying that it "... taps that inner-whatever better than most of the albums of its day, and it swims so easily that it established an entire genre of instrumental hip-hop-- count how many records come out every month and are dubbed 'Shadowesque.' Building the album from samples of lost funk classics and bad horror soundtracks, Shadow crossed the real with the ethereal, laying heavy, sure-handed beats under drifting, staticky textures, friendly ghost voices, and chords whose sustain evokes the vast hereafter." Also in a review of the Endtroducing..... "Deluxe Edition" in 2005, PopMatters gave the album 10/10, and went on to say that "it is a uniquely evocative and intimate disc, a stridently personal statement masquerading as a genre-defining dissertation." Spin was also full of praise once again, stating that "This remains a stone classic, channeling Afrika Bambaataa's genre-splicing, DJ-booth mysticism into a fully realized studio epic..." In a review by Sal Cinquemani for Slant the album was given five out of five stars, saying that DJ Shadow had created "...an ominous and multi-textured masterpiece of hip-hop postmodernism." "A decade on," said Mojo, "DJ Shadow's affirmatory essay on record collecting as a creative endeavour has lost none of its grandeur," giving the album four out of five stars.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endtroducing.....

Related Threads

Book on Endtroducing DJ Shadow Related&Remastered;

ENDTRODUCING OR PRIVATE PRESS?

Endtroducing vs Donuts

Luke and Josh could make a great instrumental lp

Shadow (why did he fall off?)

Media

Mr. Attention

Like so many others, this album was massively important to me. I'd never heard sample-based music made this way before; the blueprint was hip-hop, but its style sprawled out in so many different directions. Dude sampled everything from Third Guitar to the "BOB" reveal in Twin Peaks! The "In/Flux" 12" was a good indication of what was to come (as was the "What Does Your Soul Looks Like" EP, which he revisited half of on here), but DAMN. What a gut-punch of a record. It's been imitated so fucking much over the years, but none have had the impact sonically or culturally.

Shadow never really reached these heights again (and probably never will), but this truly deserves to be in any respectable "best albums" list (all time, any genre.)

HarveyCanal

Thanks for reminding me that I need to throw my copy up on the Bay.

RAJ

A lot of the REAL Josh talk is lost in the Waybackmachine.org Archives.

I recall a thread calling out all the samples on Private Press before it was even released.

cai

Wow I'd never seen that short film 'the gold dust record' before. The matrix meets record digging. That's hilarious that endtroducing inspired it. Terrible!

The album was good at the time, though parts haven't aged well.

kala

HarveyCanal said:

Thanks for reminding me that I need to throw my copy up on the Bay.

you'll get about 10 dollas for it bronson
might as well use it clean up your spodee after the lube tube humper sesh

Possum Slim

That record inspired friends of mine to start making beats. Wasn't quite my thing and i liked What Does Your Soul...

Controller_7

I didn't like it at first. I thought it was boring. Then I kind of learned more about sampling and I was impressed. Then I became really impressed. It doesn't hit me the way it once did, but I was definitely feeling it at one point.

Preemptive Strike is a bit more my speed these days, but no doubt Entroducing was a game changer.

Harv's anti-Shadow boner is raging.

HarveyCanal

Can you guys come up with any non-sexual analogies?

I'll ride for pre-Endtroducing, con vocals Count and Estimate 'til infinity.

But yes, I'll never get why people insist on treating Endtroducing like it's Sergeant Pepper's or some shit.

DJ Krush's albums from that same time-frame were better IMO.

Controller_7

Nope, only boner analogies.

I can appreciate Krush's work, but it lacks a bit of movement. Depends on your mood.

I'll admit that the shadow love became rampant and he was god-like and it was kind of fever driven, but at the end of the day he still produced something incredibly original that holds up as a major accomplishment. I said it in one f the other similar threads, but his drum work with Third Guitar for the number song and the Jimi drums for High Noon are the work of an extremely talented and hardworking dude who was thinking beyond the confines of what was already going on. Even having that Jimi record and understanding the general idea of what he did, I have neither the patience nor the frame of mind to even attempt to recreate it on an Mpc.

drbrownscelray

Never got what all the fuss was about.

batmon

Props.

I like this shit, but damn a bunch of crazy late passers got baptized w/ this shit. Brown sneaker dudes.

Half of it didnt age well.

mrmatthew

There seems to be alot of this in this thread, though im not surprised.



Josh has always been a lightning rod on this site.


I played this album to death when it came out.

Got into proper digging a few years later, so it didnt really affect me that way, as i think it did alot of people.

It was the first "sample based" record that i remember alot of Musician friends,who up to that point were dismissive of the entire genre, embraced.

I dont recall it being co-opted into the boutique/lounge/coffee shop scene as quickly as 6 monthes, but it was close to 20 years ago and i was doing alot of things at tahe time that probably clouded my memory.

Cant say i re-visit this album too often, though i did breakdown and buy the "deluxe reissue" a few years ago....as all i ever had as a duped casette of this album.

Glad i own it.
i think its aged as well as anything else from that era (blue lines, milight, homogenic, etc)

Possum Slim

I bought a lot of Mo Wax about that time but my reservation with it was that it seemed like watered down hip hop, skip My non rap friends loved it.

fishmongerfunk

it was landmark at the time...at least in montreal where i was living when it came out...it was the one cd every damn person had no matter what genre of music or scene that person mostly into or whatever... within 6 months that record was all you ever heard at cafes and trendy boutiques.

almost 20 years later that record has not aged that well in my opinion (does anyone on here ever whip this one out?).

BeatChemist

This was ground zero for my interest in making music. It hasn't aged as well as I'd like it to, but there are still moments that sounds as good today as they did back then. I find myself going back to Preemptive Strike more often nowadays if I'm in the mood for some Shadow.

I think I'm gonna give it a spin from front to back tonight and see how it goes.

The drum programming on this blew my mind back in the day. To me, the greatness of his album is the drum programming and the overall mood derived from the vocal samples. Moody loopz for dayz...

RAJ

I still ride for Organ Donor

skel

Thx to the Brit strutters for recommending this set, only last year was it copped.
I bump it in the car, it sends the kids into head-nodder sleep and I dig the whole lot of it. In fact I dig the whole hell out of it.

batmon

DJed a jam for the African American Studies department at the University. Most requested songs were "Mutual Slump" and "The Number Song!"

Mr. Attention

I keep reading it "hasn't aged well" on here. What do you mean? Did you overplay it (like I did) way back then, so it sounds stale now? Is it all the Shadow fanboy love that still exists to this day (particularly from fans who otherwise have tastes that differ from yours?) Is it the TONS of similar sounding yet inferior beat shit that came out in the aftermath for years to come?

What about it hasn't aged well? Which tracks? It's been a few years since I've listened to it in full, but the tracks I come back to ("Changeling", "Midnight", "Napalm", etc.) still sound good to me.

countmacula

I found a DJ selling his records last weekend and I bought this record. I had never heard it before. I don't know how I avoided hearing it. Probably cause every white dude I knew who had been waving glow sticks and wearing Jnco's was telling me how great it was. So last weekend I put it on with an open mind and expected to hear a "classic" album. I played it all the way through and recognized a few songs from the Scratch Movie and some other random things but I didn't "get it". It was exactly what I thought it was gonna be, "bad white dude hip hop production." it sucks, he is way over rated.

LoopDreams

crabmongerfunk said:

it was landmark at the time...at least in montreal where i was living when it came out...it was the one cd every damn person had no matter what genre of music or scene that person mostly into or whatever... within 6 months that record was all you ever heard at cafes and trendy boutiques.

almost 20 years later that record has not aged that well in my opinion (does anyone on here ever whip this one out?).

I was living in Mtl too at the time Shadow was big in the city, it seemed to fit the mood: dark and restless.

GatorToof

Kinda embarrassing being on here now. I thought the SS 100 was for real music music.

Waaaaahhambulance.

Controller_7

I know it's more cool to front on this shit now than it is to jock it, but there is some straight tripping in this thread.

Whether or not it sounds great today doesn't mean that it wasn't pretty major back in the day. You can argue against the musical content of the album by todays standards, but it's pretty much technically perfect in terms of sampling and programming. Yes, that brings up Steve Vai type comparisons of a virtuoso who just isnt listenable, but Shadow has plenty of heat in his catalog.

Countmacula and Gatortoof, what be dat rill shit?

GatorToof

Controller_7 said:

in terms of sampling and programming.

Nuff said / do you work for Akai / Montage

cai

Mr. Attention said:

What about it hasn't aged well? Which tracks? It's been a few years since I've listened to it in full, but the tracks I come back to ("Changeling", "Midnight", "Napalm", etc.) still sound good to me.

For me those jerky drum fills that sound like him holding down the 'note repeat' button on the drums put it in a certain time period for me. I'm now no longer interested in listening to people flexing those kind of programming skillz. Thats pretty much the only thing about the record that makes me cringe when i hear it.

batmon

"How come u dont like it as much as I do?"

DOR

GatorToof said:

Kinda embarrassing being on here now. I thought the SS 100 was for real music music.

Waaaaahhambulance.

Just to note once again. This is a list of "Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records". Not OMG this is the definitive best music ever made list.


Take that shit to www.iamamusicsnob.com


I've never hated this record or particularly died in love for it (I do enjoy it tho). But to think this record wasn't a big discussion on this place since the beginning is odd.

yuichi

no doubt Entroducing was a game changer.

The above statement is truth.

But I listened to Private Press first.......and would probably put that album over Endtroducing.

Still, there's no denying the sheer impact it had on suburban and nerdy America about beat-digging for obscure records. Sure, there were pioneers doing that shit way before, but it opened doors for a whole different demographic of nerds.

yuichi

I can appreciate Krush's work, but it lacks a bit of movement. Depends on your mood.

This is true as well. And I like Krush's body of work, especially "Kakusei".

DocMcCoy

RAJ said:

A lot of the REAL Josh talk is lost in the Waybackmachine.org Archives.

I recall a thread calling out all the samples on Private Press before it was even released.

I think that might have been me who started that thread. I was working at Universal at the time, and Josh was signed via their UK office. They were having trouble tracing some of the sample owners, and the head of legal & business knew I used to work at MCPS as an advisor in their sample clearance department and asked me if I might be able to help.

She gave me a couple of CD-Rs (which I still have somewhere) with the album tracks and the sampled songs, and an email from Josh with some pretty extensive notes, and asked me to try and find out whatever I could. At that point they were struggling to trace the Marc Z sample, the Soft Touch sample on Monosylabik - apparently Josh had already retained someone to track this down - and a few others, but pretty much all the big samples were on the list and the clearance process had started on many of them.

With hindsight, there was quite a bit of stuff on there that he presumably just didn't tell Universal about - David Wertman, most of the samples on Blood On The Motorway, probably a couple of other things. Like most music publishers, Universal had an unofficial don't-ask-don't-tell policy - anything an artist tells you about, you're obliged to clear (or attempt to) or else you're liable. If they don't tell you about it, the liability's on them. As I understood it, even back then Josh was concerned at the extent to which samples were eating into his royalties and was trying to minimise the impact on both his creativity and his bottom line. If your publishing advances are structured on how big the percentage of control you have on your album is, it's conceivable that you mightn't be as transparent as you could be. Either way, by the time I left Universal in 2008 (at which point I was actually directly involved in clearing samples), they were still negotiating buyouts and tying up clearances for shit on both Private Press and Endtroducing.

All I really remember about that thread were a few people getting salty and accusing me of blowing up spots, but all I was doing was letting the light in early on what would have been fairly common knowledge within a few months anyway.