Self-titled debut album by Queens hip-hop group Run-DMC, consisting of Joseph "Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels and Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mizell. They grew up in Hollis, Queens. As a teenager, up-and-coming hip-hop promoter Russell Simmons recruits his younger brother Joseph, initially as a DJ for Kurtis Blow, a rapper managed by Russell. Under the name of "DJ Run, Son of Kurtis Blow", the young Simmons begins to perform together with Kurtis Blow. McDaniels goes from athletics to DJing, getting into hip-hop after listening to Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five and taking the name "Grandmaster Get High", so Joseph Simmons convinces him to be a rapper and McDaniels starts under the name "Easy D". Simmons and McDaniels begin going to Hollis Park in order to rap for the local DJs that were playing there, the most popular being Jason "Jazzy Jase" Mizell, with whom the boys become friends. Russell Simmons helps his brother Joseph to record his first solo single, "Street Kid", but the song does not get attention. Joseph insists on rap and decides to record again, this time with McDaniels, but Russell denies him help this time, because he doesn't like McDaniels' style.
In 1981, McDaniels first changed his moniker from Easy D first to DMcD (acronym of his name with which he signed his works at school) then to the definitive DMC (acronym of "Devastating Mic Control" and of "Darryl Mac", his nickname in school days). The boys continue their studies and manage to convince Russell to let them record as a duo with Mizell, now known as Jam Master Jay, as their official DJ, who joined the group around 1982. In 1983, also supported by Larry Smith (producer of Kurtis Blow and then also of Whodini), who had paid Joseph for a set of lyrics for Kurtis Blow, Russell agrees to let them record a single and also get a record deal, and chooses the group name Run-DMC, name that Joseph Simmons and Darryl McDaniels don't like, because they prefer names like Dynamic Two or The Treacherous Two.
The group signed with the independent New York dance music label Profile and in 1983 released their debut single, "It's Like That/Sucker MCs". The single gets a positive response from the public and reaches the box number 15 in the rnb chart. The boys embark on a tour to open the concerts of funk groups and at the end of the same year the second single, "Hard Times", is also released, received even better than the previous one by the public. The success of the two tracks convinces Profile Records executives to release a Run-DMC album, having already several tracks recorded. The boys start writing pages of rhymes, which are then scanned by Russell Simmons and Larry Smith, which exclude texts containing violence, drugs, weapons and various profanity.
The group's lyricism is predominantly braggadocio centered with some socio-conscious passages, and is quite simple both lyrically and metrically, with simple rhyme schemes. Run & DMC prove to have excellent chemistry, nevertheless their rapping is pretty questionable, slow, graceless and even cumbersome. The two emcees don't have a properly fluid style and they compensate for it with an aggressive, strong, energetic, but light-hearted and unmemorable delivery. They are the first to recite lyrics with a style that can be labeled as "hardcore". "It's Like That", their first single, inserted here as the opening track of the B-side, is considered the first hardcore rap song in history and the first song of the "new school", as well as being one of the first hip-hop songs of social protest. With this track, Run-DMC set themselves apart from the hip-hop music scene that was until then dominated by Sugar Hill Records, with its sound and its artists.
The production created by Russell Simmons and Larry Smith is revolutionary for the time, it's simple, minimal and skeletal, it basically doesn't use the sample, unlike all the other hip-hop albums and singles released before. Jam Master Jay plays percussion, keyboards and he does the scratches. Eddie Martinez plays guitar. The drums take center stage instead of the bass, arriving with a hard and punchy sound, solid and robust, which gives a raw and rigid aspect to the entire production of the album, totally dissonant compared to the other hip-hop records which were focused on melodic sounds close to those of disco and funk.
In 1984, Run-DMC decides to release their first self-titled debut album, the two previously released songs, "It's Like That" and "Hard Times" are included, which introduces the disc and is a direct cover from Kurtis Blow's self-titled debut album (1980), and three more singles, "Rock Box", "30 Days" and "Hollis Crew (Krush Groove 2)" were released, all of which charted. In doing so, Run-DMC became the first hip-hop group to place four singles released in the same year on the charts — at the end of the year Grandmaster Melle Mel & Furious Five will also manage to put four in the charts, but in the UK instead of US.
Among the tracks featured in these forty minutes, "Jay's Game", "Jam-Master Jay" and "Sucker MC's" also stand out. The latter boasts the same rhythm as "Hollis Crew" and it's one of the first rap dissings in history, against weak rappers, a purely braggadocio track. The album is energetic, heavy, very hard, one of the most influential in history and is considered a masterpiece, the «first classic hip-hop album» in history. The record demonstrates that hip-hop can become an LP-oriented genre rather than singles, as it had always been up to that point, moment in which the rap albums could be counted on fingertips. Out of nowhere, this trio pioneered hip-hop into mainstream music and established the birth of hardcore hip-hop and rap rock. The debut of the group from Queens gets a positive response from the public and ends up in the charts, without extraordinary results (#53 Billboard Top Pop, #14 R&B), both the Fat Boys and Whodini a few months later will do better. In mid-December 1984, "Run-DMC" became the first hip-hop album certified gold by the RIAA.
The second song of the tracklist deserves further study, which completely changes the history of the hip-hop genre.
"Rock Box" is the album's second track, released as the third single. Run, DMC and Russell Simmons aren't convinced to create a whole hip-hop album, because the product has never had an important response in the market, furthermore the group is influenced by rock and metal sounds. In particular, the trio is influenced by the sound of heavy metal band Riot, which precedes them in the studio, and they try to retain that sound by creating a guitar-based track. Originally, DMC wanted to use Billy Squier's "The Big Beat" as a sample, but Smith is against it and decides to devise a slightly different rhythm, using a rich live instrumentation, including guitar, bass, keyboards and tambourines.
Eddie Martinez also joins the session to record layers of guitar solos to combine with lyrics from the two rappers and production from Larry Smith, who plays bass on the track. Run-DMC promote a version of the song without guitar and one with guitar, the latter soon becoming the most popular. Considered as one of the first groundbreaking rap rock songs, fusing hip-hop and rock, along with the Treacherous Three's "Body Rock" (1980), the song is lyrically braggadocio like other pieces of the trio. Initially, it's considered a curious track both by Profile executives and by Run and DMC themselves, who don't like the guitar version, as well as from radio stations, however, the public keeps asking for the song which soon turns into an unpredictable hit for the group and one of their best known songs.
The music video for "Rock Box" is the group's first music video, their first from Profile Records and becomes the first hip-hop song to get regular airplay on MTV. The song becomes relevant over time, because musically it brings a new original wave in hip-hop, charts a new path and paves the way for the "new school" movement, permanently wiping out all previous hip-hop artists, making their sound obsolete and practically spelling the end of Sugar Hill Records. "Rock Box" also rewrites history from a cultural and aesthetic point of view of hip-hop: before that, "old school" artists wore flashy attire that was inspired by the discodance and glam rock acts of the era, with chest-baring shirts, tight leather jackets, leather boots, gloves and hats with rhinestones and spikes, while Run-DMC arrive with a totally different new look, representing the New York street fashion of the eighties through the video of the single, wearing black Kangol hats, Cazal glasses, black Lee jeans, black T-shirts and leather jackets, plus gold chains and white Adidas shoes, inspired by Jam Master Jay's personal style, recommended by Russell Simmons.
The clothing worn by the group in the video also gets credit for advancing African-American fashion, remained connected to disco and the early years of hip-hop. Run-DMC are not confident either in the video or in the MTV channel, they soon had to retrace their steps, because the television airplay guaranteed by the video allowed it to rise above the rest of the hip-hop scene of the period. Released a few weeks after the release of the album, the single obtained the favor of the critics, who consider it one of the best songs of the year, and above all the favor of the public and of the duo's acquaintances, this convinces Run-DMC to continue creating songs based on rock sounds. The rapping style and the back and forth delivery of line after line of the two emcees is also applauded by the specialized critics, and allows the group to further distinguish themselves from the rapping of the other most popular artists on the circuit. It's considered one of the most influential songs in hip-hop and progenitor of the entire rap rock subgenre.
Must-listen for hip-hop fans, although due to its minimal music, it doesn't hold a very high replay value. 9/10.
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