Amazon.com essential recording: PE's third album is dense, heavy, and urgent as a bullet. Fear of a Black Planet single-handedly added half a dozen phrases to the language, and not just from Chuck D.'s troop-rallying bellow--Flavor Flav's "911 Is a Joke" is as catchy an indictment of urban policy as anyone has ever come up with. The Bomb Squad's music is complicated, challenging, terse, and totally funky, and Chuck matches it with one impassioned pronouncement after another: on Hollywood's racism, on miscegenation, on "real history / Not his story." The album ends with "Fight the Power," the group's ultimate statement of purpose, from its pounding, atonal sound collage to its furious politics. Put Black Planet on, and it's always a long, hot summer. --Douglas Wolk
Disc 1:
Contract On The World Love Jam (Instrumental
Brothers Gonna Work It Out
911 Is A Joke
Incident At 66.6 FM (instrumental)
Welcome To The Terrordome
Meet The G That Killed Me
Pollywanacraka
Anti-Nigger Machine
Burn Hollywood Burn
Power To The People
Who Stole The Soul
Fear Of A Black Planet
Revolutionary Generation
Can't Do Nuttin' For Ya Man
Reggie Jax
Leave This Off Your Fu*kin Charts (Instrumental)
B Side Wins Again
War At 33 1/3
Final Count Of The Collision Between Us And The Damned (Instrumental)
Unique This was my second PE album, I only knew 2 tracks from the cd. I bought this cd just because of the name op PE, and what a buy!
The Public Enemy style is unique. Chuck D with his raw voice and Flav with his more higher voice and light sense of humour, those two make a unique combination. Terminator X also makes the tracks immortal by mixing the beats with great samples and sort of solos in the chorus(like the drums in "Revolutionary Generation"). What also makes them unique is the "odd" tracks they make like the song "Pollywanacraka". A nice beat with a voice that actually seems to speak, but still telling the story in style. This cd contains also a pair of awesome pieces of rap history tracks like Fight the Power, Power to the People, Fear of a Black Planet and Welcome to the Terrordome. The tracks on this album are "hanging together", which makes the cd immortal, it contains no weaknesses and is just a piece of music history!
Even if you don't know the music of PE too well(I only had It Takes a Nation to Hold us Back), you should buy this one...there's no reason first to listen the samples to see if it's worth buying, because you can buy this album blind!
My Rating(1-10): 1:8, nice instrumental 2:8, solid track 3:7,8 4:7 5:8,2 6:7,5 ; bit too short 7:8,4 ; unique song/style of rapping 8:8,4 ; Song seems to contain 2 parts(instrumental and a part of raw rapping) 9:8, Solid track with Ice Cube and Big Daddy Kane 10:8,2, solid and a classic song 11:8,8 ; catchy song and great collaboration between Flav & Chuck 12:9, Great song, strong lyrics and impressive chorus(sampled) 13:9,3 ; Catchy, Terminator X deserves a medal 14:8,5 ; Flavor Flav flows great over a nice beat 15:8,4 ; Chuck flows over a real slow beat 16:8 ; Good instrumental by Terminator X, nice samples 17:8,8 ; Chuck flows in a unique way(sounding very distant), strong lyrics 18:8,5 ; Raw track, Chuck uses his voice real good 19:7,5 ; Instrumental 20:9,5 ; No comments needed, hip hop classic!!
This is by far the best CD I bought in 2008, should have done it way earlier...
Easy listening for the Black Intellectual... Without a doubt, THE BEST Rap record made in the nearly 30 year history of the genre. Few rap albums have come close to this gem, let alone touched the lyrical content & the raw abstract production of the Bomb squad. PE was damn serious & the genius of Flava Flav gave the message a perfect balance. PE was doing for rap in the late 80s & early 90s what Stevie Wonder did for Soul Music in the seventies. After "It takes a nation" exploded on the scene, they took it to the next level with 'Fear'.
There was a pivotal moment in rap music in the early 90s where the music was moving toward consciousness or gangster ignorance. Artist like KRS-One, X-Clan, Queen Latifah and other artists were 'kicking the science' & there was a pride in our culture growing in the music. Unfortunately, by the time PE released their 4th classic 'Apocalypse', popular taste had shifted almost completely to ganster rap, hence the state of rap today.
PE's Fear of a Black Planet is a testament to what rap music could have evolved into if the consciousness movement in rap would have been more popular than that ganster Bull-ish. A Classic.
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Timeless Classic From Public Enemy! What more can be said 18 years later from when this "Fear Of A Black Planet" album that hasn't been said already? This has been a vital part of hip-hop and music history in general with hall of fame songs like "Welcome To The Terrordome", "911 Is A Joke", "Burn Hollywood Burn", "B Side Wins Again", and "Fight The Power" which displayed Public Enemy at its peak conceptually and artistically, this is something that's gonna be remembered from many generations to come, one love, real music forever!
Five freakin' stars. Now this is how it's done. This album still gets constant rotation in my CD player. A classic album by talented guys who actually had SOMETHING TO SAY. A true classic.
Too bad NWA's style of gangsta nonsense had to win out in terms of mainstream influence, because hip hop could have become the new intelligent protest standard of music. Too bad indeed. But, for a short time, there was Public Enemy and their ilk. Get it.
Don't even like Rap/Hip Hop I'm not even a fan of Rap, and this is definitely in my top 10 records ever. What makes it great ? Everything. I learned more in 12 PE songs than in twelve years of public school. Have been a music listener for 25 tears, and I can truly say this is a masterpiece. Chuck D had the establishment worried. And for good reason. This is anti-racist, anti-stupidity musicmaking with the problems of our culture square in hand. All in a format which proclaims turntable spinner Terminator X as a certified musician, despite the inferior efforts of his contemporaries. This is an essential disc.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
