It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back [Enhanced, Original recording remastered]

There is a case to be made that this album is the greatest ever recorded. Period. I listen to it now and it still sounds awesome. Every song makes a valid statement on American society and the problems which exist. Contemporary, powerful, brilliant. Buy it now.

In todays world of multiplatinum, woman clad,bling blinging hiphop there is no album that can match the raw power, agression, storytelling, in yer face attitude that nation of millions can offer. Chuck D and Flavour flav honour Terminator X's flawless production with the verbal onslaught that it deserves. "rebel without a pause" can take a claim to the greatest hiphop track ever written, while being supported by classics like "dont beleive the hype" and "night of the living baseheads". They even sample a gut churning riff from slayers "Angel of Death" for "she watch channel zero. All in all a true masterpiece.

What can I say? If only hip-hop wasn't ransacked by gansta (similar thing that happened to grunge after Nevermind) then it would still be an essential music form. This album brims with more politics than 10 Houses of Lords and more funk than Aerosmith on a pub crawl. Countdown To Armageddon announces "This time the revolution will not be televised!" and you believe Chuck too! This track also gives birth to the Manic Street Preachers classic Repeat. The definitive hip-hop track comes next - Bring The Noise. Never has a song overflowed with so much content and brilliance, it is a screamed assault to everything that modern culture stands for and leaves you astounded. Ditto Don't Believe The Hype. So much manifesto and exchanges from Chuck to Flav, it fills me up with revolution. Falva Flav Cold Lampin' is hilarious (don't you just love this dude?), a light hearted interlude from the rhetoric and much appreciated. Not so for Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic: "Right the power is bold, the rhymes are politically cold/And who gives a **** about a Goddamn Grammy?". Fantastic. Mind Terrorist is just an interlude but we get back on the track again with Louder Than A Bomb, a seething attack on the FBI. Caught, Can I Get A Witness?! is another absolutely suberb beast of a funkster that has you singing along "Your singers are spineless/As you sing your senseless songs to the mindless/Your general subject love is minimal/It's sex for a profit". What other bands sing that, please? Another interlude in the form of Show Em Whatcha Got and then She Watch Channel Zero, which actually combines heavy metal riffs in with the verse to great effect - the ultimate moshing track! Night Of The Living Bassheads starts with a Martin Luther King or Malcom X (sorry Chuck, I can't quite remember(blush)) but other than that it's not as ground breaking as the others. After that comes the meanest, darkest track on any album I know, Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos. It is so biting and true, I just can't praise it enough. Unfortunately there's another interlude after that but it's back to form again with Rebel Without A Pause and Prophets Of Rage. Finally, the sprawling, awe-enspiring Party For Your Right To Fight. The last track to send a shiver down my spine with a mixture of white-hot lyrics and bastardized slap funk. The only hip-hop album worth buying.