It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

Preferred this to FOABP in pretty much every way

Cold Lampin' With Flavor was my favourite track

I'm not overly familiar with rap, it's never quite been my thing. I get why this album is important but it definitely feels dated.

I was genuinely surprised when I found out this was the 80s. The beats and energy was unbeatable. Great consistency with a couple songs that just went on a little too long.

Boring grandpa rap

It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back is a vital piece of rap history. Chuck D and Flavor Flav are both fantastic presences here. The energy is high, the lyrics are smart, and the flows are creative. There is a lot that holds up really well. But, as this is a hip-hop album from before 1990, it does wear its age very blatantly. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's kind of unavoidable. This age mostly comes out in the beats. On one hand, this album has a really incredible sampling palette. There is really cool implementation of jagged guitar and dentist drill synths and implacable noise. I think one of the songs where it comes together best is She Watch Channel Zero?! which is built around a Slayer riff. It has tons of texture, and still sounds fresh. And a lot of songs here have great texture and a good feel, so I can certainly appreciate the construction. But when I actually sit down with the whole album, I just don't find myself that into the sound of it all. That being said, the rapping here is amazing, which does a lot for the album. So I'd say it all evens out to be about a 4 for me.

A tour de force of boom bap beats, hardcore sampling, DJ scratching, full blast raps from the machine gun mouth of Chuck D, and hey booiiiii hype. They've absorbed and remediated a political textbook in Black rage and radicalism. Sonically innovative when it came out, it now feels extremely dated, samey and overlong, albeit very exciting in small doses.

Super cool. The second disc has always been my favorite, but it's all in all a very solid no-nonsense record.

Naast album 3 en 4 van Public Enemy nu ook album. Ik liet al weten, bij uitzondering geen enkel bezwaar te hebben. Al die albums hadden en hebben enorme impact. Zowel maatschappelijk als muzikaal. Ik ga niet teveel herhalen. Maar om het muzikale te onderstrepen. Dit album lijkt mij het meest gesampelde album ooit. Elke zin is geloof ik wel door een andere muzikant gebruikt. De meeste zinnen door de vele andere muzikanten.

Public Enemy Pure perfection. Important band with an important and yet brilliant album

Flags a little in the final 1/3 but “rebel with out a pause” is an angrier “don’t believe the hype”

5 stars only because I can not give more

Legendary! Great start for a week, absolutely easy 4 stars, maybe even max, we will see what album tracks will be like

I get that it is an important piece in Hip hop history but the alarm and whistle sound that are on every godamn beat make it hard to listen today

The German philosopher Carl Schmidt said "Damn, this shit straight fire, son."

Without sounding too cliche... I'm a simple man; I see Public Enemy, I give 5 stars.

Ganz nett, aber nicht unbedingt mein Fall

Don't believe the hype? Naw, BELIEVE the hype. This is a hard hitting time capsule of the tension, the noise, and the raw energy of late 1980s America. The production by The Bomb Squad is a dense, claustrophobic wall of sound with sirens wailing, James Brown samples colliding with Slayer guitar riffs, and media snippets cutting in and out. It perfectly mirrors the sensory overload of the era and the rise of 24 hour news cycles, the crack epidemic, and the boiling racial tensions of the Reagan years.

There is zero filler here, from "Bring The Noise" to "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos", the album moves with the relentless pace and the interplay between Chuck D’s booming authority and Flavor Flav’s chaotic hype-man antics created a dynamic that has never been replicated.

This isn't just music for your ears... it's a history lesson for your nervous system.

Very early in my life—I must have been about 10 or 11—there was a phase when I voluntarily listened to hip hop. That was ages ago, but I can still remember Public Enemy fairly well. I don't like the music anymore, but I recognize that “It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back” in particular had a significant influence on the development of both this genre and various crossover styles.

excellent beat throughout

I’m very familiar with this but I’ve never thought about what I’d rate it, exactly. I told myself that whatever I thought it was leading into the final three songs, which I know to be some of my favorite songs ever, I’d add one to that score to account for those final three. I thought it was a 4 before those, I’m adding one, 5.

I just wasn't that into it. I dunno

A landmark that deserves to be heard by anyone, even people who mostly listen to rock or pop. 𝘐𝘵 𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘢 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘏𝘰𝘭𝘥 𝘜𝘴 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬 isn’t just a classic hip-hop record — it’s one of the defining albums of modern music, period. The dense production, the political urgency, and the sheer force of Chuck D’s delivery make it impossible to ignore. You don’t have to be a hip-hop fan to feel the impact: without 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴, it’s hard to understand why the genre exploded in the 1990s and became a global cultural force. Not an easy listen, not a comforting one — but absolutely essential.

I guess I just "Don't Believe the Hype" as I found this totally unlistenable. Way too obnoxious and in your face with no pockets of breathing room, riddled with irritating noises and the beats were fairly rudimentary/unvaried. I appreciate that the lyricism could be seen as cutting edge for the time, but it's all delivered in such an unpalatable way for my tastes.