Songoftheday 6/5/19 - It's another record check it mad methods, to put my brothers and sisters on a deathbed...
from the album Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #33 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from the revolutionary hip-hop collective Public Enemy, one of the most (if not the most) important hip-hop groups of all time. Rappers Chuck D (Carlton Ridenhour) and Flavor Flav (William Drayton) founded the group when they were classmates at college. Bringing in a trio of producers (brothers Hank and Keith Shocklee along with Eric "Vietnam" Sadler) named the "Bomb Squad", rapper/spokesman Professor Griff, and DJ Terminator X, they named themselves "Public Enemy" after one of Chuck and Flav's first collaborations. After being the opening act for the Beastie Boys, they released their debut album Yo Bum Rush The Show in 1987. From it they actually scored their first charting single overseas when "You're Gonna Get Yours" slipped in at #88. But with the album reaching the charts, word of mouth spread quickly about their mix of angst and political commentary, and by the time of their second album It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back, they were getting national attention. The record itself peaked right below the top-40 on the albums chart (#42), while Britain they landed their first top-40 single with "Rebel Without A Pause" (#37 UK). That was followed by their American breakthrough "Bring The Noise", which was featured in the movie Less Than Zero, and went to #32 on the British singles chart and was their first on Billboard's R&B chart at #56. The third release from the record, "Don't Believe The Hype", not only let the group claim their first top-40 R&B hit at #18 (where it also peaked on the British pop list), but also crossed over to their Dance Club Play chart at #21. With five classic hits from that album, demand was off the charts for their third release, Fear Of A Black Planet. The lead single, "Fight The Power", was one of four top-20 R&B hits from the record, which itself reached the top ten on the albums chart.
Public Enemy started the 1990s with their fourth seminal album in a row, Apocalypse '91...The Empire Strikes Back. The lead single from the record, "Can't Truss It", became the group's first foray into mainstream radio, landing at #50 on the pop Hot 100 as their first entry in Billboard's "big" chart in the fall of 1991. Three years later, they reemerged with their fifth studio record Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age, which would be their last with DJ Terminator X. The first single released from it would be is "Give It Up". Resting on a foundation of a sample of blues rocker Albert King's "Opus De Soul", a Stax Records instrumental nugget from 1969, the song contains pieces of their history inserted in subtle tags throughout the track, while the music video may have dulled it a little with its puppets...
"Give It Up" became Public Enemy's biggest pop hit, landing their sole top-40 entry in August of 1994. The song also climbed to #30 on Billboard's R&B chart, their eighth and final release to reach that level on the chart, while peaking at #5 on their Rap Singles list. Internationally, the single made the top-40 in New Zealand (#14), Australia (#16), Finland (#16), the UK (#18), France (#36), The Netherlands (#36), and Switzerland (#37). None of the other singles from the album made any mark on the American charts (mostly due to their distribution company being shuffled from Sony to Polygram at the time), but in Britain, the double-sided single "I Stand Accused"/"What Kind Of Power We Got?" went to #77, followed by "So Whatcha Gonna Do Now?" which did a little better at #50.
After the departure of Terminator X, the group didn't return until 1998 with a new DJ, DJ Lord, and a special project, the soundtrack to the movie He Got Game starring Denzel Washington. Although the Buffalo Springfield-sampling title track "He Got Game" missed the pop Hot 100 (it "bubbled under" the chart at #105 while going to #78 on the R&B chart in Billboard), the record was Public Enemy's second highest-charting success in the UK, topping out at #16. But with the laid-back production and enlistment of Stephen Stills from the Springfield himself to sing on the record, I'm sure they were expecting a much better reaction in America. Leaving Def Jam behind and going independent, their next album the year after in 1999, There's A Poison Goin' On, which was only available on their label website (therefore missing the albums sales chart requirement). Even though it got a little bit of critical love, it went pretty much overlooked, with only the single "Do You Wanna Go Our Way" becoming a minor hit in the UK at #66. A few more albums were released, including a "concept" rework of Rebirth Of A Nation in 2006, but they were mostly ignored. It wasn't until 2007 that they came back big in the UK with the single "Harder Than You Think", which went to #4 thanks to publicity from its use on the TV ad. They continue to tour and record music; their most recent studio record Nothing Is Quick In The Desert arrived in 2017. But Chuck D is more known as a hip-hop historian, while compadre Flavor Flav more notorious as reality-show fodder.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
And here's the group appearing live on Letterman to promote the single in 1994...
and another one from the Jon Stewart Show that same year...
and finally, live in concert in Barcelona in 2011..
Up tomorrow: A Journeyman strikes out solo for a second time, requesting a little patience.
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