It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Idk it was fine ig. Fav track: Louder than a bomb

The absolute prototype for what a rap album should be.

Doing the generator I have come to appreciate rap more than my starting point which was hating it and I have heard quite a few hip/hop rap albums on here but this really shows rap at its purest form, rhythmic poetry and I am blown away by how much I like it.

Better than Coldplay

Golden age of hiphop ass. Albumet låter mye mer modent enn andre plater fra samme tid. Syns ofte tidlig hiphop kan bli litt medley-aktig med sin samplebruk, men her låter det mye mer naturlig og som en integrert del av lydbildet. Flowen til Chuck D sitter og Flavor Flav er såklart tidenes hypeman

The early hip hop stuff on this list continues to be consistently great.

This list has really got me back into classic hip hop in a big way

You can't make a good album and also have annoying shit all over it, I'm sorry, that's just the rules.

The beats and the lyrics both hit just right. It’s a classic for a reason. Full respect and full five stars.

Not interested.

“Hard, my calling card.” ~ Chuck D

This is a groundbreaking album from a foundational pillar of our collective musical identity. Personally, Public Enemy showed me that music and social justice could powerfully co-exist. They shaped what I came to expect from music and defined what I grew to love. Although this is their second album, I came to it after hearing Apocalypse 91 and then, working backwards to Fear of a Black Planet and then to this.
Put simply, music didn’t sound like this before PE came and they changed the game for real. To this day, Chuck D remains my favorite Microphone Controller, despite the thousands I have listened to since then. His intelligence, clarity, depth and density when rhyming are peerless and his political activism is among the most successful examples of “speaking truth to power”. Terminator X cuts these samples with an intricacy and deftness that keeps our ears guessing and our heads bobbing.
While the album runs long, it’s hard to find fault with any of the individual tracks on this one, except maybe that Flav “bass for your face” song, but that ends quickly enough. Although it lacks the polish and production of their later albums, this is a stone cold original, more honest and forthright than almost any other album on this list, and a classic 5 coming “straight from 88”.
Public Enemy. Word. rap rap rap rap rap rap.

This album is great. It was absolutely the wrong day to get this album, as I had a huge headache in the back half of the day, and this is just an album chock-full of bombast, but that's completely fine. So, where should I start? Chuck D's flow and lyricism are both insane. Not just for its time, but just in general. "Bring the Noise," despite repping Louis Farrakhan, who is a nasty-ass bitch, is a perfect example of this. The way he raps is ridiculous, and makes it completely clear that he is a master of the craft. Even the admittedly outdated production doesn't take away from how much of a genius Chuck is. You see this in other songs such as "Don't Believe The Hype" (which is also notable for being interpolated in The Roots' "False Media"), "Louder Than A Bomb," "Rebel Without A Pause,"et cetera, et cetera. Another thing this album does surprisingly well is the beats, which are relentless and aggressive, and often hammer down on you for the song's entire duration, a real nice touch. An album this old, for today it's still incredible. For its time, hell, it's astronomical. Is it long? Yes. Is it beautiful? No. Is it incredible? Absolutely.
9.6/10

Pre Listen:
Haven't heard of these guys before, but this will be the first rap/hip-hop album reviewed on here. For that reason, I'm looking forward to listening to it.

Notable Tracks:
Bring The Noise - Incredibly solid start to the album. I dig it. It's funky, the sample mixing is solid. BRING THE NOISE.
Caught, Can I Get a Witness? - My favorite track. I love the beat, I love the samples, and most of all I love the lyrics. Good shit.
Night of the Living Baseheads - Weakest song on the album. Solid lyrical work, good beat, but whatever sounds like a broken clown horn in the backing track got to go. Slightly headache inducing.

Post Listen:
YEEAAAA BOOOIIII.

I absolutely loved this album. It was a fun listen, the sample work is incredible. The lyrics got several laughs out of me, and has some decent political commentary too sprinkled about. Nothing crazy deep, but I always appreciate a good call to action. Terminator X is a clown, one I can appreciate. This is classic Hip Hop, and I can recognize their influence in several more modern artists I like, that I never knew was there.

I'll definitely be revisiting this album, and will likely add some tracks from it to my playlist. I may revisit this review and bump the score after a couple more listens. I believe the hype, 4/5.

I want to like Public Enemy. I find their image cool, and they have great energy. Flavor Flav is iconic. But their beats are so damn annoying. Repetitive irritating sounds.

The reviews on this record split almost perfectly between 1s and 5s, which tells you something important — this is music so uncompromising and specific in its vision that it either fully claims you or leaves you at the door. Landing in the middle with a genuine 3 is actually a more nuanced response than either extreme, and it feels like the honest one.
The Bomb Squad’s production is unlike anything else in hip-hop history — dense layers of samples, sirens, and scratching stacked so tightly the whole thing sounds like controlled chaos. The disorienting quality is the point. Chuck D isn’t making background music or party records. He’s making arguments, dense and urgent and delivered with a rhetorical force that’s closer to oratory than rap in any traditional sense. The sonic discomfort is the message made physical, and understanding that makes it easier to respect even when it makes the listening experience genuinely unnerving.
The honest data point is personal history. Straight Outta Compton — same year, same cultural moment — embedded itself in adolescence in a way this record simply didn’t. NWA’s visceral street-level anger connected where Public Enemy’s more intellectual and political urgency didn’t quite reach. That gap isn’t a judgment about which record is objectively more important. It’s just honest information about where the personal connection actually lives.
A strong three that sits close to the four border — fully respectful of the ambition, the politics, and the historical weight, without pretending to a personal connection that isn’t there.

Fucking awesome

This is such s good record, delivering on good beats and strong lyrics. I’m not sure i appreciated som of the meaning behind the lyrics as a ten year old kid growing up in Yorkshire, but i loved it then and i love this now.

You cant deny that an album that opens with ‘Bring the Noise’ and ‘Dont Believe the Hype’ is not here to play and the quality is maintained throughout.

It is however difficult for me to hear the opening refrain without expecting James Dean Bradfield to come in screaming’repeat after me fuck queen and country’

I spent most of this album, thinking was a good strong 4/5, but at the end i realised this couldn’t be made any better and comfortably deserves to be a 5/5

Second Public Enemy album during this project and another album where I got to enjoy playing spot the sample. I particularly enjoyed Fame by Bowie, the Flash Gordon theme and Son of Shaft turning up. And the intro being from a BBC DJ was a surprise. And sampling Slayer! I keep saying it, but sampling is such an impressive skill to me - creating a completely new thing from disparate scraps of other songs and it sounding like it always should have been like that.

I really appreciate the topics and Chuck D's style of rapping too. As a whole, I think I liked it a tiny bit less than Fear Of A Black Planet, but it's still very much worth:

3/5

Absolute classic. Sounds good today, but in its time it was mind blowing. Sadly some of the things talked about are still issues today. First album so far in the project where I’ve added the album to my vinyl wish list.

I love the meaning of this album, and the grooves and rock elements are infectious. Really impactful and quotable lyrics as well. Unfortunately, Terminator X repeats high pitch squeaky noises waaaay more than is needed which brings this experience down a bit. Still very good, though. 4.3/5 -> 4/5