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It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
 
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It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back [Explicit Lyrics] [Import]

~ Public Enemy
4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
Price: £15.19 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
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  • This item: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back ~ Public Enemy

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

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Product details

  • Audio CD (31 Dec 1993)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Format: Explicit Lyrics, Import
  • Label: Def Jam
  • ASIN: B0000024K1
  • Other Editions: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
  • Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 104,458 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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1. Countdown To Armageddon
2. Bring The Noise
3. Don't Believe The Hype
4. Cold Lampin' With Flavor
5. Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic
6. Mind Terrorist
7. Louder Than A Bomb
8. Caught Can We Get A Witness
9. Show 'em Whatcha Got
10. She Watch Channel Zero
11. Night Of The Living Baseheads
12. Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
13. Security Of The First World
14. Rebel Without A Pause
15. Prophets Of Rage
16. Party For Your Right To Fight

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

It Takes a Nation of Millions was the sign that hip-hop had exploded like a grenade. A rap record as abrasive, hard-core and eloquent as a Winston Churchill speech, the 1988 disc is one classic track after another: tense, multilayered, harmonically wild music. Chuck D declaims like a master preacher with foil Flavor Flav's voice darting around his. They have got the desperate energy of people fighting for their lives, and everything from their pumped-up rhetoric ("Prophets of Rage") to the group's quasi-paramilitary organisation, to the sirens and sax squeals in nearly every track declares how urgent their mission is. It is a hugely influential album, and it still sounds fresh and frightening after all these years. --Douglas Wolk


CD Description

The title says it all. In 1988, when this album was released, Public Enemy's music cut with a wholly revolutionary edge. Rarely has fear, anger, paranoia and anxiety been so masterfully compressed onto a record's grooves. The Bomb Squad's artistry is the keynote to the hard, lean delivery, while Chuck D's supremely pointed lyrics leave no stone of the blackexperience unturned. It is not comfortable listening, but on tracks such as 'Don't Believe The Hype', 'Night Of The Living Baseheads' and 'Rebel Without A Pause' the listener is left in no doubt that they are facing a fantastically potent force.

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Customer Reviews

28 Reviews
5 star:
 (26)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (1)
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Average Customer Review
4.9 out of 5 stars (28 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A TIMELESS CLASSIC, 9 Jan 2002
By A Customer
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.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Gansta-rap??? Shut up and listen, 22 Feb 2001
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.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the noise....do believe the hype, 7 Mar 2009
By russell clarke "stipesdoppleganger" (halifax, west yorks) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
Influential albums. Well there is The Velvet Underground and Nico( sold little but every one who heard it formed a band is the popular opinion) Never Mind the Bollocks Here's the Sex Pistols, Nevermind, Revolver Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968, Shaft: Original Soundtrack. Then there is the 1988 album from Public Enemy :"It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back".
Following on from their debut "Yo! Bum Rush The Show" ,in itself a notable album, this album took politicised rap to a whole new level. Along with N.W.A. ( whose rhetoric is more plainly aggressive, less socio-political and less lyrical) Public Enemy took the anger and disgust, at the way things were, of the original punk movement but allied it to the booming bass heavy rhythms of the burgeoning hop-hop movement. Sonically it's mighty but lyrically Chuck D ( still for my money the best hip hop vocalist) became the most vociferous and erudite commentator on life as part of the perceived social underclass in the U.S.
The now defunct music magazine "Melody Maker" likened listening to this album as "being beaten over the head in four/four time with a skip" and that's not a bad analogy of what it's like at all. Though in good way. Production team "The Bomb Squad" (Hank Shocklee and Carel Ryder) gave the sound a dense quality like all the instruments are coated in layers of code 5 lead and they also utilised up to 80 samples to create a multi-layered sonic palette comparable to a heavy guitar band using multiple overdubs.
The difference being that this music has a inherent funkiness way beyond the reach of most guitar based bands( unless you include a band like Chic) This is an album that could tear up the dance floor while tearing down the social barriers . It is profane, exciting ,visceral,apoplectic,uncompromising and quite brilliant . It takes the funk edge that crept into a lot of post punk music but ratchets the sound all the way up till the needles straining at the leash. It sounds like revolution but is in fact evolution of sorts. Taking the anti-establishment stance of punk and much post punk and putting it in the socio-economic climate for black Americans Public Enemy whip up a riveting cacophony , a righteous storm.
Along with Consolidated( far more liberal but still well worth hearing ) The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy the Def Jux roster and British rap artists like Fundamental and Blade, Public Enemy are one of the hip-hop bands who still sound fresh and relevant today. They sure do bring the noise. Do believe the hype.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Decent rap album from Public Enemy
Not as good as "Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age" but worth buying for every hip hop fan that wants little bit more than In Da Club or Jay-Z, Kanye West or gangsta nonsense.
Published 1 month ago by Pawel Zietek

5.0 out of 5 stars politics, great words,the best beats and THE FUNK -a timeless classic
Public Enemy - were staggering when they emerged back in the late 80's - in hip-hop's golden age of many musical + lyrical riches, but even with the other giants on the scene such... Read more
Published 4 months ago by simon mack

5.0 out of 5 stars MOST INTELLIGENT RAP ALBUM EVER??
First bona fide Rap album I ever bought back in the late '80s. I confess, it was Thrash Metal veterans, Anthrax constantly banging on about them that convinced me! Read more
Published 16 months ago by Adam Jackson

5.0 out of 5 stars The great pioneers of hip hop
these boys took hip hop from grandmaster flash and run dmc and turned it around to whirringsiren loops and cutting lyrics. Read more
Published 21 months ago by vincent brain

5.0 out of 5 stars the don mega
this is quite possibly the best rap record ever dropped!!!
everything is so perfectly realised, the beats are fast and fresh and very,very funky. Read more
Published on 13 Sep 2007 by whitetrashtrixie

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely AMAZING
This albums rocks...some truly revolutionary stuff from the founders of hip hop rap! Its fantastic, highly recommended.
Published on 28 Sep 2006 by Deniz

5.0 out of 5 stars The BEST
This is (in my opinion) the best album of all time. And that beats off some stiff competition.

if you don't own it, buy it. NOW!

Published on 26 Oct 2005 by Mark Taylor

4.0 out of 5 stars good but could have been better
If only a little quality control had been exercised and this would not sound so dated in parts. I would reccommend this to you parents out there who's kids have embraced some of... Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2005 by Half dead Fred

5.0 out of 5 stars (none)
Quite simply, hip hops greatest ablbum ever.
Published on 5 Jul 2004 by otiscliff

5.0 out of 5 stars a great album
get this album!

me first heard it in school, during the first weeks of its release, and me been brain damaged ever since!

important, funny, revolutionary! Read more

Published on 28 May 2004

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