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Endtroducing.....

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Untitled

Endtroducing..... is the debut studio album by hip hop artist DJ Shadow. It was first released on November 19, 1996 by Mo' Wax Records, and later reissued on June 7, 2005 by Island Records. It is noted by Guinness World Records for being one of the first instrumental albums created entirely from samples of other records.[1]

Structure and release

Endtroducing..... is structured completely out of sampled elements, including hip hop, jazz, funk, psychedelia, old television shows, interviews and percussion tracks. The entirety of the album was composed on an MPC60, a machine which Shadow would later pass on to Chief Xcel. The album has been cited in Guinness World Records as being the first album created entirely from sampled sources,[citation needed] although the liner notes of the outtakes album Excessive Ephemera note that vocals were contributed in the studio by Lyrics Born and Gift of Gab.

In 2005 DJ Shadow released a "Deluxe Edition" of the album with a second disc containing demos, alternate versions of original tracks, tracks exclusive to CD singles, and a vintage live set recorded on October 30, 1997.

The album's cover depicts Solesides members Chief Xcel (left) and Lyrics Born (right) in Records, a record store at 710 K Street in Sacramento, California.[2] The K Street location of Records closed in December 2006, and has since relocated to the former Tower Video location at the corner of Broadway and South Land Park Drive.

14 years after the initial release, Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt found new life when it was featured in the 2010 video game Splinter Cell: Conviction.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[3]
Entertainment Weekly(A-)[4]
Pitchfork(10.0/10.0)[5]
PopMatters(10/10)[6]
Robert Christgau(A+)[7]
Rolling Stone[8]
Slant[9]
Spin(9/10)[10]

NPR included Endtroducing..... in its list of the top 300 American songs and albums of the 20th century,[11] and Spin placed the album at number 69 in its list of the 100 greatest albums between 1985 and 2005 in June 2005.[12] In 2006, the album was chosen by TIME as one of the 100 best albums of all time.[13]

In 2010 the song "Midnight in a Perfect World" was included at number 20 on Pitchfork Media's Top 200 Tracks of the 90s.[14]

Rolling Stone (1/23/97, pp. 62–63) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "The DJ built songs out of layer upon layer of sampled instruments and other sound fragments, most of which he processed, looped and re-arranged far beyond recognition....funky rhythms that never sound like they've been cut and pasted together."

Spin (p. 134) - "[T]his remains a stone classic, channeling Afrika Bambaataa's genre-splicing, DJ-booth mysticism into a fully realized studio epic..."

Spin (1/97, p. 81) - 9 (out of 10) - "...layers slinky break-beats with sampled sounds--anything from church bells to War Of The Worlds and, egad, Tears For Fears....a cosmic-chamber feel complete with choruses of fallen angels, plucked harps, Mellotron, and cello."

Entertainment Weekly (11/29/96, p. 92) - "Unfolding like a surreal film soundtrack on which jazz, classical, and jungle fragments are artfully blended with turntable tricks and dialogue snippets, Endtroducing... takes hip-hop into the next dimension." - Rating: A-

Q magazine (11/96, p. 120) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "Shadow's brief is to develop a totally sample-based idiom, weaving a cinematically broad spectrum so deftly layered that the sampling-is-stealing argument falls flat."

Uncut (p. 121) - 4 stars out of 5 - "It's an elegy from a vinyl mausoleum, a sonic fiction assembled by a keen-eared archaeologist."

Alternative Press (4/97, p. 70) - 5 (out of 5) - "...an undeniable hip-hop masterpiece....DJ Shadow remembers that sampling is an art form."

Magnet (p. 88) - "An instrumental album entirely composed of samples and influenced by both progressive rock and Public Enemy was, at the time, revolutionary....Still unmatched in its carefree invention."

JazzTimes (4/97, p. 65) - "Some consider...Endtroducing... a broadcast from hip-hop's near future. But that notion ignores how much this disc reaffirms the music's creative roots....Endtroducing is pretty damn good, with Shadow demonstrating an unerring ear for motif and texture, touching on everything from dub to funk to groove-jazz."

Option (1-2/97, p. 73) - "Shadow makes records the way Robert Rauschenberg made his combines: from scraps, pop artifacts, the things other people throw away....While some of his tracks float serenely on a cloud of jazzy phrasing and ambient textures, Shadow always lands on his beat."

Melody Maker (9/14/96, p. 49) - Bloody Essential - "...it flips hip hop inside out all over again like a reversible glove, and again, and again, and each time it's sudden and new. I am, I confess, totally confounded by it. I hear a lot of good records, but very few impossible ones....You need this record. You are incomplete without it."

Rap Pages (12/96, p. 33) - "Innovative arrangements and structures of sound are present here, reflecting a mind that is constantly summoning collage forms."

Mojo (p. 120) - 4 stars out of 5 - "A decade on, DJ Shadow's affirmatory essay on record collecting as a creative endeavour has lost none of its grandeur."

Personnel

Track listing

  1. "Best Foot Forward" – 0:48
  2. "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt" – 6:42
  3. "The Number Song" – 4:39
  4. "Changeling" – 7:52, "* Transmission 1"
  5. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)" – 5:09
  6. – 0:25
  7. "Stem/Long Stem" – 9:22, "* Transmission 2"
  8. "Mutual Slump" – 4:04
  9. "Organ Donor" – 1:57
  10. "Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96" – 0:42
  11. "Midnight in a Perfect World" – 5:03
  12. "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain" – 9:24
  13. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)" – 7:29, "* Transmission 3"

Deluxe edition bonus disc

  1. "Best Foot Forward (Alternate Version)" - 1:16
  2. "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt (Alternate Take Without Overdubs)" - 6:43
  3. "Number Song (Cut Chemist Party Mix)" - 5:14
  4. "Changeling (Original Demo Excerpt)" - 1:00
  5. "Stem (Cops 'N' Robbers Mix)" - 3:48
  6. "Soup (Single Version)" - 0:44
  7. "Red Bus Needs to Leave" - 2:45
  8. "Mutual Slump (Alternate Take Without Overdubs)" - 4:21
  9. "Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)" - 4:29
  10. "Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96 (Alternate Take)" - 0:54
  11. "Midnight in a Perfect World (Gab Mix)" - 4:55
  12. "Napalm Brain (Original Demo Beat)" - 0:35
  13. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Peshay Remix)" - 9:24
  14. "DJ Shadow Live In Oxford, England, Oct. 30, 1997" - 12:35

The bonus disc was also released as the vinyl only set "Excessive Ephemera", limited to 1500 copies.[15]

Samples

The following lists some of the songs and sounds sampled for Endtroducing.[16]

"Best Foot Forward"

"Building Steam with a Grain of Salt"

  • "I Worship You" by Lexia
  • "I Need You" by H.P. Riot
  • "I Feel a New Shadow" by Jeremy Storch
  • "Soul Food" by Frankie Seay and the Soul Riders
  • "Planetary Motivations (Cancer)" by Mort Garson
  • "George Marsh on Drums: Interviewed by Terry McGovern" from the LP Music Makers Percussion, released by the Chevron/Standard Oil Company of California

"The Number Song"

"Changeling"

"Transmission 1"

"What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 4"

  • "The Vision and the Voice, Part 1 - The Vision" by Flying Island
  • "Monica" by The People's People
  • "Numbers" by Kraftwerk
  • "Nights In White Satin" by The Moody Blues

Untitled (Track 6)

  • "Grey Boy" by Human Race

"Stem/Long Stem"

"Transmission 2"

"Mutual Slump"

"Organ Donor"

  • "Tears" by Giorgio Moroder
  • "PM or Later (Instrumental)" by The New Breed
  • "There's a DJ in Your Town" by Samson and Delilah
  • "Someone" by Bill & Tim

"Why Hip Hop Sucks In '96"

  • "Snap" by Cleo McNett

"Midnight in a Perfect World"

"Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain"

  • "'Pon a Hill" by T.Rex
  • "Walk on By" from Jo Ann Garrett
  • Dialogue from the film The Aurora Encounter
  • "Moment of Truth/Ghetto Shakedown" by Charles Bernstein
  • "A Funky Kind of Thing" by Billy Cobham
  • "Let the Homicides Begin" by Top Priority featuring Percy P
  • "Space Odyssey - 2001" by The Daly-Wilson Big Band
  • "Soul Brother's Testify" by Chester Randle's Original Soul Sender's
  • "Fun and Funk (Part II)" by The Fantastic Epic's

"What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 1: Blue Sky Revisit"

References

  1. ^ [1] Retrieved on February 20, 2011
  2. ^ www.the-breaks.com • View topic - who are those two dudes on the endtroducing cover?
  3. ^ http://www.allmusic.com/album/r248969
  4. ^ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,295206,00.html
  5. ^ http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/2377-endtroducing-deluxe-edition/
  6. ^ http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/djshadow-endtroducingdeluxe/
  7. ^ http://robertchristgau.com/get_album.php?id=1050
  8. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=lRgtYCC6OUwC&pg=PA247
  9. ^ http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/review/dj-shadow-endtroducing/232
  10. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=xGB0iIRXtJEC&pg=PA81#v=onepage&q&f=false
  11. ^ "NPR 100: Master List of top 300 Songs". National Public Radio. Retrieved 2007-09-03.
  12. ^ "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005". Spin. 2005-06-05. Retrieved 2007-11-26. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ Tyrangiel, Josh (2006-11-13). "The All-TIME 100 Albums". TIME. Retrieved 2007-09-03. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ Pitchfork Top 200 Tracks of the 90s
  15. ^ http://www.discogs.com/DJ-Shadow-Excessive-Ephemera/release/653870
  16. ^ "TheBreaks.com album samples". Retrieved January 27, 2007.
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