On the backside of the album cover, there is a cat sitting on the records racks staring at the viewer, well my cat at the time {Grace - male cat, R.I.P.} decided to piss all over that side to mark his territory against that cat in the store. My copy has forever been tainted with urine and a sea-smoke cloud on the corner of the album. It doesn't really bother me because I never play that record.
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.
Yeah, there's a bit of flexing that hasn't aged as well as the rest of the album.
batmon said:
"How come u dont like it as much as I do?"
Haha...okay. Just trying to get a full-formed opinion/argument instead of the usual "Oh this shit sucks and is overrated."
The cover alone is so simple and makes me feel nostalgic for a time that was still a few years away from me having a cash flow that afforded me a turntable of my own. I can't say that I put it on much but I still love the mood of "What Does Your Soul Look Like" and "Midnight in a Perfect World" -- both of which I can enjoy listening to in the car at night.
Great album. Agree with Controller7 in that I didn't really get it at first. It wasn't as "hip-hop" as some of his previous. I think the single he dropped on MoWax just before this was Hardcore (Instrumental) Hip-Hop
and I was expecting something with a similar mood. The opener Building Steam... is perhaps one of my least favourites from the album. It has great drums but the choral voices came off a little pretentious.
But... repeated listens got me into this. Maybe it's no mistake that this was on MoWax. To me it sits neatly amongst Portishead, Massive Attack, various Ninja Tune artists and a downbeat moody sound (aka the dreaded trip-hop) that a lot of UK artists were aspiring towards but none mastered better than Shadow. Aside from that, I can't see how anyone with an interest in digging or hip-hop or drums coudn't find something to marvel at in this album.
This thread made me go back and listen to Endtroducing for the first time in probably 10-12 years, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. People on this board, especially those who have been on here for many years, who are acting like this was no big deal are seriously revising history. Yes some of it sounds dated and pompous, but dismissing it outright retroactively is just silly. Shadow's had some undeniable skills as a sampler and arranger, and the best parts of this record will always be relevant on the Strut, at least in my mindgarden.
I do think the Steve Vai comparison is pretty spot on. Which would make Q-Bert's Wave Twisters a Yngwie Malmsteen record.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Although I think it still sounds pretty good, Midnight In A Perfect World in particular, perhaps one of the reasons it may not have aged well for some is the way so much of it quickly became the lazy music supe's default go-to record. I've heard Stem/Long Stem more times as a sound-bed on TV shows than I ever did from listening to the actual album. Even good music can get boring when you're hearing it involuntarily so often.
Of course, people were already making predominately sample-based music when Endtroducing came out, but it usually adhered much more rigidly to the structures and dynamics of hip-hop or dance music. Where this was different - and I've said as much on here before - is that this was more like head music in the realm of Pink Floyd or prog-rock generally. I reckon this is borne out by the way it caught on with the stoner crowd.
+1 for the clunky drum programming as well; one aspect of the record I never liked and the one major way in which it lagged behind what a lot of the drum 'n' bass dudes in the UK were already doing, for example. How much of that was to do with the tech he was using, I've no idea.
Like others have already said, this album was one that I at first didn't really get/understand, then turned into an album that meant a lot to me, and now stands as a piece of my music catalog that I recall with fondness, albeit rarely do I listen to it anymore.
What I think is more imperative to me is how this record, for better or worse, appeared to change the landscape of what a "hip-hop influenced" producer could make and sell. Especially for someone like myself who was at best only an avid fan of rap/hip-hop at the time, but didn't have any real experience with sampling/digging culture. I won't even claim to suggest that Shadow was the first/best to do it this way, but he was arguably the most exposed artist to change this landscape.
When this album originally came out, I had my own belief of how a person who was "hip-hop" was supposed to make beats and use samples -- and endtroducing did not align to that. So it took me a while to even really like this album. Then the pendulum swung for me probably too much on the other side, and I became enamored by this lot of producers (see Krush, Herbaliser, rjd2....etc.). Making just "beats" became boring to me, and it seemed more important to see how you could flip some never heard of folk/psyche album. It lead to a lot of interesting music and discussions, but in the end was something that took me away from that original love of "hip-hop" and I then took offense to such music--again the pendulum swinging the other way.
I have since very much come to terms with where I put this album in the pantheon of importance for me, but without a doubt it was definitely one of the albums that made me think about music and how much it meant to me.
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.
oh yeah...basically my tl;dr post was just summarizing what yuichi said in two sentences.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
I loved Blackalicious when they came out and thus Shadow. I definitely bought Endtroducing when it came out and listened to it a great deal at home. But I never bumped it in my ride, nor listened to it in my Walkman when going about town. I listened to the Melodica EP way more. I put DJ Krush beats and songs on mixtapes, so those left the house way more than Endtroducing. Actually where I was coming from back then, Shadow got dissed by Samson S, on a record put out by a Strutter no less. Point being, Endtroducing was far from garbage. It was one of the better albums that year in many respects. But why so many got stuck on it, and to this day want to call it a "landmark"...not sure I'll ever get it. Even on that trip-hop vibe, Dummy was the landmark to me X 1,000's over Endtroducing.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Shadow was a crate digger...as if there had never been one before him. Oh yeah, that's right, Shadow became THE faceless white crate digger, finally giving white dudes their means to trump the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation and the like. It's alright, whiteboys, to admit this stuff, even if only now. Shadow made you go, yeah...we white dudes can really know this deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit too! And maybe that's why it's a "landmark", correct?
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Shadow was a crate digger...as if there had never been one before him. Oh yeah, that's right, Shadow became THE faceless white crate digger, finally giving white dudes their means to trump the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation and the like. It's alright, whiteboys, to admit this stuff, even if only now. Shadow made you go, yeah...we white dudes can really know this deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit too! And maybe that's why it's a "landmark", correct?
perhaps a crude way of explaining it, but yeah...I think this has always played a big role in the albums mystique and acceptance. With that said, after 15+ years, I think now the trick is being able to determine how much this album matters solely because of music, and trying to divorce yourself from this "other" notable component.
chalk that up with a lot of shit re: music/art and acceptance/importance.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Which brings us right back to so many saying it hasn't aged well. And that hardly anyone has bothered to listen to it in 10+ years.
I might be the only person here who has not heard this album in full.
+1
although it wasn't necessarily for lack of trying. I remember hearing his music on the "Dark Days" soundtrack and thinking what's the big deal? Then I heard other songs from the album and to me it was just :ehhx2:
not that later on I wasn't guilty of buying the stuff that followed in its wake like The Herbalizer, Kid Koala, and even Prefuse 73
Which brings us right back to so many saying it hasn't aged well. And that hardly anyone has bothered to listen to it in 10+ years.
I rest my case.
I'm pretty sure your case was settled before it even went to trial. Seems like the majority in this thread are on board with you:
entroducings mystique > entroducings quality
which if anything, seems like it would be higher on the list of :
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.
This thread made me go back and listen to Endtroducing for the first time in probably 10-12 years, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. People on this board, especially those who have been on here for many years, who are acting like this was no big deal are seriously revising history. Yes some of it sounds dated and pompous, but dismissing it outright retroactively is just silly. Shadow's had some undeniable skills as a sampler and arranger, and the best parts of this record will always be relevant on the Strut, at least in my mindgarden.
This album blew my 16 year old mind. The Number Song, Changeling, Midnight... all sounded like the soundtrack to some fever dream and I had no idea how the fuck he made it sound like that, but I fell in love with it.
I'm always a bit bemused at how quick some people are to try and distance themselves from this record whenever it's brought up. Yeah, I know, different strokes... but it's kinda suspect sometimes.
I'm always a bit bemused at how quick some people are to try and distance themselves from this record whenever it's brought up. Yeah, I know, different strokes... but it's kinda suspect sometimes.
Do you want people who have learned and moved on to keep it around for 20 years before taking it to it's inevitable home at the goodwill?
.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Shadow was a crate digger...as if there had never been one before him. Oh yeah, that's right, Shadow became THE faceless white crate digger, finally giving white dudes their means to trump the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation and the like. It's alright, whiteboys, to admit this stuff, even if only now. Shadow made you go, yeah...we white dudes can really know this deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit too! And maybe that's why it's a "landmark", correct?
While this seems to exhibit some glaring gaps in your self-awareness (and while reading stuff like "the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation" makes me thow up in my mouth a little), there's undoubtedly some truth to that.
However, I think there's a larger point being missed: More than making "deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit" accessible to whiteys, Endtroducing made said shit accessible to the lonely and the isolated. I know that the post-internet ecosystem has blunted the idea of the single-handed masterwork, the strictly personal bedroom masterpiece with no co-writers, no band members, no MCs, no other fingers in the pot, but back in 1996 that shit was still kinda like a big deal.
If that record's impact was just about making whiteys comfortable, it would not still be spoken of like it is. It was a technological work that got at something really human, and managed to evoke a sense of musical tradition and continuity without resorting to familiar samples or vintage instruments or slavishly recreating old studio textures or whatever. It stands as an epic-sounding thing made by one dude, and made from the inside out, powered by individual obsession and a great deal of knowledge. It didn't sound like it was looking for friends or waiting for an MC to lace it with a verse or needing anything at all from the outside world.
It was like Songs In The Key Of Life For Bookish Dudes Who Were Born Too Late and/or Paul's Boutique For The Asocial. For anyone who lived through the cultural fragmentation and social withdrawal of the last couple-few decades, I'd think the lasting appeal of something like that would be pretty understandable.
I'm always a bit bemused at how quick some people are to try and distance themselves from this record whenever it's brought up. Yeah, I know, different strokes... but it's kinda suspect sometimes.
Do you want people who have learned and moved on to keep it around for 20 years before taking it to it's inevitable home at the goodwill?
.
I'm just curious why some folks are so vocal about not digging it.
There's a lot of "i was in to it before it was cool man" / "oh yeah well it never WAS cool" posturing that pops up around this record and I think it's kinda amusing, is all.
This thread made me go back and listen to Endtroducing for the first time in probably 10-12 years, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. People on this board, especially those who have been on here for many years, who are acting like this was no big deal are seriously revising history. Yes some of it sounds dated and pompous, but dismissing it outright retroactively is just silly. Shadow's had some undeniable skills as a sampler and arranger, and the best parts of this record will always be relevant on the Strut, at least in my mindgarden.
Cosign.
except for the part about going back and listening to it again, as I have no idea where my copy is stashed right now...it's still in a box somewhere from my most recent move.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
james said:
While this seems to exhibit some glaring gaps in your self-awareness (and while reading stuff like "the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation" makes me thow up in my mouth a little), there's undoubtedly some truth to that.
Trust that when casting applicable stones, I've already cast them upon myself.
And yeah, we went from dj's covering up the labels on records to internet databases citing every sample ever detected in quite a short span of time. It also transformed from this-is-the-music-I-grew-up-with-as-an-inheritance to this-is-the-music-I-was-able-to-purchase-just-yesterday-as-a-well-researched-consumer just as fast.
Of course, it wasn't his superior cratedigging alone that made Shadow. He obviously had a healthy background as a dj in hip-hop pre-Solesides and also exhibited quite a bit of creativity in each selecting samples and doing something creative with those samples.
But, Shadow undoubtedly did become the poster boy for novices jumping into the game as if they were born experts. Dudes who were shy one day, then trying to tell you what's what the next.
However, I think there's a larger point being missed: More than making "deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit" accessible to whiteys, Endtroducing made said shit accessible to the lonely and the isolated. I know that the post-internet ecosystem has blunted the idea of the single-handed masterwork, the strictly personal bedroom masterpiece with no co-writers, no band members, so MCs, no other fingers in the pot, but back in 1996 that shit was still kinda like a big deal.
^^^Good point.
If that record's impact was just about making whiteys comfortable, it would not still be spoken of like it is.
But it's really only whitey's speaking like that.
It was a technological work that got at something really human, and managed to evoke a sense of musical tradition and continuity without resorting to familiar samples or vintage instruments or slavishly recreating old studio textures or whatever. It stands as an epic-sounding thing made by one dude, and made from the inside out, powered by individual obsession and a great deal of knowledge. It didn't sound like it was looking for friends or waiting for an MC to lace it with a verse or needing anything at all from the outside world.
It was like Songs In The Key Of Life For Bookish Dudes Who Were Born Too Late and/or Paul's Boutique For The Asocial. For anyone who lived through the cultural fragmentation and social withdrawal of the last couple-few decades, I'd think the lasting appeal of something like that would be pretty understandable.
Again, good point. But how few actually listen to music like that, where they are even considering how it was made? For most music listeners, the end-product is the end-product. And again, while Endtroducing is indeed a pretty darned good album...it takes a whole lot of side-talk to justify its worth beyond just that.
Typically, a great album of music is merely bolstered by its back-story, whereas with Endtroducing, the opposite seems to be the case.
But yes, I do agree that Endtroducing belongs on the Strut top100. Of course it does. Every bit as much as Big Bear.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Shadow was a crate digger...as if there had never been one before him. Oh yeah, that's right, Shadow became THE faceless white crate digger, finally giving white dudes their means to trump the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation and the like. It's alright, whiteboys, to admit this stuff, even if only now. Shadow made you go, yeah...we white dudes can really know this deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit too! And maybe that's why it's a "landmark", correct?
While this seems to exhibit some glaring gaps in your self-awareness (and while reading stuff like "the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation" makes me thow up in my mouth a little), there's undoubtedly some truth to that.
However, I think there's a larger point being missed: More than making "deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit" accessible to whiteys, Endtroducing made said shit accessible to the lonely and the isolated. I know that the post-internet ecosystem has blunted the idea of the single-handed masterwork, the strictly personal bedroom masterpiece with no co-writers, no band members, so MCs, no other fingers in the pot, but back in 1996 that shit was still kinda like a big deal.
If that record's impact was just about making whiteys comfortable, it would not still be spoken of like it is. It was a technological work that got at something really human, and managed to evoke a sense of musical tradition and continuity without resorting to familiar samples or vintage instruments or slavishly recreating old studio textures or whatever. It stands as an epic-sounding thing made by one dude, and made from the inside out, powered by individual obsession and a great deal of knowledge. It didn't sound like it was looking for friends or waiting for an MC to lace it with a verse or needing anything at all from the outside world.
It was like Songs In The Key Of Life For Bookish Dudes Who Were Born Too Late and/or Paul's Boutique For The Asocial. For anyone who lived through the cultural fragmentation and social withdrawal of the last couple-few decades, I'd think the lasting appeal of something like that would be pretty understandable.
Couldn't have written it better myself, but the above is exactly why that record was an important work. He was ahead of his time and really was an innovator in the craft of sample-based music, and it was clearly put on display in Endtroducing. No, it hasn't aged well. But that's not the point of SS100. There are a bunch of other records on the list (this one included) that I don't care to revisit. But I would argue that not many on the current list have had as big an impact to 'digging culture' (whatever that is), or beat-making as Endroducing.
Kindly,
parallax
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
residentgiant said:
GatorToof said:
residentgiant said:
I'm always a bit bemused at how quick some people are to try and distance themselves from this record whenever it's brought up. Yeah, I know, different strokes... but it's kinda suspect sometimes.
Do you want people who have learned and moved on to keep it around for 20 years before taking it to it's inevitable home at the goodwill?
.
I'm just curious why some folks are so vocal about not digging it.
There's a lot of "i was in to it before it was cool man" / "oh yeah well it never WAS cool" posturing that pops up around this record and I think it's kinda amusing, is all.
For me, because same dudes propping up DJ Shadow hate DJ Screw...lol.
finelikewine"ONCE UPON A TIME, I HAD A VINYL." http://www.discogs.com/user/permabulker 1,416 Posts
It is an absolute master piece. Albums like this happen propably once in a decade, if you're lucky. People saying something different are tripping. Harvey, you feel extremly uncomfortable being white, don't you?
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
finelikewine said:
It is an absolute master piece. Albums like this happen propably once in a decade, if you're lucky. People saying something different are tripping. Harvey, you feel extremly uncomfortable being white, don't you?
Not at all. I'm just able to recognize when my caucasian brothers get on their own dicks too much at the expense others.
LOL Harvey is white? Man I thought I had the whole white librul guilt thing down pat, but it looks like I need to step my game up!
I had been on Shadow's dick ever since I read about his demo tapes in The Source. I didn't actually hear the dude until I bought a copy of the HollywoodBasic Sampler and heard his Basic Megamixx at the end. I loved the way he layered the differenct records on top of each other, and his fucking scratching was just incredible, reminiscent of some of the funkiest scratches I'd heard from like Jazzy Jeff or DJ Too Tuff. The next time I heard of him was in Spin, where they had reviewed "Lost and Found", and I was like "whoa, someone sampled 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', that's ill".
Needless to say I was all over his pre-Entroducing Mo' Wax shit (man, "What Does Your Soul Look Like" was my record of choice to blaze up and zone out to), and was squealing like a schoolgirl when my local record store called me to tell me that my copy of "..Entroducing" had arrived.
That fucking record didn't leave my turntables for months. My roommates were so sick of that shit.
Yeah, some of the record sounds dated now, but I'm getting down when "The Number Song" comes on, no matter what.
I know this isn't the thread to voice my displeasure for Shadow's work post-Entroducing, but I must say that I don't think I've ever been as disappointed in an artists' "evolution" as I am with Shadow.
Comments
Haha...okay. Just trying to get a full-formed opinion/argument instead of the usual "Oh this shit sucks and is overrated."
and I was expecting something with a similar mood. The opener Building Steam... is perhaps one of my least favourites from the album. It has great drums but the choral voices came off a little pretentious.
But... repeated listens got me into this. Maybe it's no mistake that this was on MoWax. To me it sits neatly amongst Portishead, Massive Attack, various Ninja Tune artists and a downbeat moody sound (aka the dreaded trip-hop) that a lot of UK artists were aspiring towards but none mastered better than Shadow. Aside from that, I can't see how anyone with an interest in digging or hip-hop or drums coudn't find something to marvel at in this album.
I do think the Steve Vai comparison is pretty spot on. Which would make Q-Bert's Wave Twisters a Yngwie Malmsteen record.
Of course, people were already making predominately sample-based music when Endtroducing came out, but it usually adhered much more rigidly to the structures and dynamics of hip-hop or dance music. Where this was different - and I've said as much on here before - is that this was more like head music in the realm of Pink Floyd or prog-rock generally. I reckon this is borne out by the way it caught on with the stoner crowd.
+1 for the clunky drum programming as well; one aspect of the record I never liked and the one major way in which it lagged behind what a lot of the drum 'n' bass dudes in the UK were already doing, for example. How much of that was to do with the tech he was using, I've no idea.
What I think is more imperative to me is how this record, for better or worse, appeared to change the landscape of what a "hip-hop influenced" producer could make and sell. Especially for someone like myself who was at best only an avid fan of rap/hip-hop at the time, but didn't have any real experience with sampling/digging culture. I won't even claim to suggest that Shadow was the first/best to do it this way, but he was arguably the most exposed artist to change this landscape.
When this album originally came out, I had my own belief of how a person who was "hip-hop" was supposed to make beats and use samples -- and endtroducing did not align to that. So it took me a while to even really like this album. Then the pendulum swung for me probably too much on the other side, and I became enamored by this lot of producers (see Krush, Herbaliser, rjd2....etc.). Making just "beats" became boring to me, and it seemed more important to see how you could flip some never heard of folk/psyche album. It lead to a lot of interesting music and discussions, but in the end was something that took me away from that original love of "hip-hop" and I then took offense to such music--again the pendulum swinging the other way.
I have since very much come to terms with where I put this album in the pantheon of importance for me, but without a doubt it was definitely one of the albums that made me think about music and how much it meant to me.
oh yeah...basically my tl;dr post was just summarizing what yuichi said in two sentences.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Shadow was a crate digger...as if there had never been one before him. Oh yeah, that's right, Shadow became THE faceless white crate digger, finally giving white dudes their means to trump the mystical black beat knowledge of the Univerisal Zulu Nation and the like. It's alright, whiteboys, to admit this stuff, even if only now. Shadow made you go, yeah...we white dudes can really know this deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit too! And maybe that's why it's a "landmark", correct?
perhaps a crude way of explaining it, but yeah...I think this has always played a big role in the albums mystique and acceptance. With that said, after 15+ years, I think now the trick is being able to determine how much this album matters solely because of music, and trying to divorce yourself from this "other" notable component.
chalk that up with a lot of shit re: music/art and acceptance/importance.
I rest my case.
+1
although it wasn't necessarily for lack of trying. I remember hearing his music on the "Dark Days" soundtrack and thinking what's the big deal? Then I heard other songs from the album and to me it was just :ehhx2:
not that later on I wasn't guilty of buying the stuff that followed in its wake like The Herbalizer, Kid Koala, and even Prefuse 73
entroducings mystique > entroducings quality
which if anything, seems like it would be higher on the list of :
Cosign.
I'm always a bit bemused at how quick some people are to try and distance themselves from this record whenever it's brought up. Yeah, I know, different strokes... but it's kinda suspect sometimes.
Do you want people who have learned and moved on to keep it around for 20 years before taking it to it's inevitable home at the goodwill?
.
However, I think there's a larger point being missed: More than making "deep behind-the-scenes hip-hop shit" accessible to whiteys, Endtroducing made said shit accessible to the lonely and the isolated. I know that the post-internet ecosystem has blunted the idea of the single-handed masterwork, the strictly personal bedroom masterpiece with no co-writers, no band members, no MCs, no other fingers in the pot, but back in 1996 that shit was still kinda like a big deal.
If that record's impact was just about making whiteys comfortable, it would not still be spoken of like it is. It was a technological work that got at something really human, and managed to evoke a sense of musical tradition and continuity without resorting to familiar samples or vintage instruments or slavishly recreating old studio textures or whatever. It stands as an epic-sounding thing made by one dude, and made from the inside out, powered by individual obsession and a great deal of knowledge. It didn't sound like it was looking for friends or waiting for an MC to lace it with a verse or needing anything at all from the outside world.
It was like Songs In The Key Of Life For Bookish Dudes Who Were Born Too Late and/or Paul's Boutique For The Asocial. For anyone who lived through the cultural fragmentation and social withdrawal of the last couple-few decades, I'd think the lasting appeal of something like that would be pretty understandable.
I'm just curious why some folks are so vocal about not digging it.
There's a lot of "i was in to it before it was cool man" / "oh yeah well it never WAS cool" posturing that pops up around this record and I think it's kinda amusing, is all.
Trust that when casting applicable stones, I've already cast them upon myself.
And yeah, we went from dj's covering up the labels on records to internet databases citing every sample ever detected in quite a short span of time. It also transformed from this-is-the-music-I-grew-up-with-as-an-inheritance to this-is-the-music-I-was-able-to-purchase-just-yesterday-as-a-well-researched-consumer just as fast.
Of course, it wasn't his superior cratedigging alone that made Shadow. He obviously had a healthy background as a dj in hip-hop pre-Solesides and also exhibited quite a bit of creativity in each selecting samples and doing something creative with those samples.
But, Shadow undoubtedly did become the poster boy for novices jumping into the game as if they were born experts. Dudes who were shy one day, then trying to tell you what's what the next.
^^^Good point.
But it's really only whitey's speaking like that.
Again, good point. But how few actually listen to music like that, where they are even considering how it was made? For most music listeners, the end-product is the end-product. And again, while Endtroducing is indeed a pretty darned good album...it takes a whole lot of side-talk to justify its worth beyond just that.
Typically, a great album of music is merely bolstered by its back-story, whereas with Endtroducing, the opposite seems to be the case.
But yes, I do agree that Endtroducing belongs on the Strut top100. Of course it does. Every bit as much as Big Bear.
Couldn't have written it better myself, but the above is exactly why that record was an important work. He was ahead of his time and really was an innovator in the craft of sample-based music, and it was clearly put on display in Endtroducing. No, it hasn't aged well. But that's not the point of SS100. There are a bunch of other records on the list (this one included) that I don't care to revisit. But I would argue that not many on the current list have had as big an impact to 'digging culture' (whatever that is), or beat-making as Endroducing.
Kindly,
parallax
For me, because same dudes propping up DJ Shadow hate DJ Screw...lol.
Not at all. I'm just able to recognize when my caucasian brothers get on their own dicks too much at the expense others.
I had been on Shadow's dick ever since I read about his demo tapes in The Source. I didn't actually hear the dude until I bought a copy of the HollywoodBasic Sampler and heard his Basic Megamixx at the end. I loved the way he layered the differenct records on top of each other, and his fucking scratching was just incredible, reminiscent of some of the funkiest scratches I'd heard from like Jazzy Jeff or DJ Too Tuff. The next time I heard of him was in Spin, where they had reviewed "Lost and Found", and I was like "whoa, someone sampled 'Sunday Bloody Sunday', that's ill".
Needless to say I was all over his pre-Entroducing Mo' Wax shit (man, "What Does Your Soul Look Like" was my record of choice to blaze up and zone out to), and was squealing like a schoolgirl when my local record store called me to tell me that my copy of "..Entroducing" had arrived.
That fucking record didn't leave my turntables for months. My roommates were so sick of that shit.
Yeah, some of the record sounds dated now, but I'm getting down when "The Number Song" comes on, no matter what.
I know this isn't the thread to voice my displeasure for Shadow's work post-Entroducing, but I must say that I don't think I've ever been as disappointed in an artists' "evolution" as I am with Shadow.