What we were listening to…

5 years ago (interesting album this)

10 years ago (may they long live)

20 years ago (it’s a bit difficult today to convey how different this album sounded to everything else going on at the time. DJ Muggs’s lush and intricate soundscapes. B-Real’s antagonistic and nasal vocals, and Sen Dog’s (Mellow Man Ace’s brother) powerful expultations (yes, english nerds, i just made up that word – it’s an exultation that must needs expelled – like the only way Sen Dog could truly express his joy was to let it build to a point PUFFIN’ ON A BLUNT! where he could no longer hold it in and he was just lucky to time it perfectly for whatever song they GET YOUR FACE DOWN! happened to be working on – and yes, his non-expultative work was nice as well, but not as WHEN THE SHIT GOES DOWN! fun as when he played the punctuative hype man.) gangsta rap fans loved it. latino rap fans loved it. alt-rap fans loved it. and for some reason – perhaps it was the weed – metalheads ended up loving this record. i kid about the weed. i really think non-rap devotees liking this record had more to do with the blending of rap and rock genres that had been gaining momentum around this time. this records falls into a web spun by early RHCP, Fishbone, Beastie Boys, UDS, and FNM’s The Real Thing (and to a lesser degree Run DMC and Aerosmith’s Walk This Way). Cypress Hill’s debut sits in that web, as will House of Pain’s, Rage Against the Machine’s, and the pinnacle of what will become known as rap-rock: the Judgement Night soundtrack, which took as its conceit the logical conclusion reached by following these prior albums’ leads. that record then delivered that conceit to an awaiting mass audience via a Hollywood vehicle – which then spewed all the crap-rock bands that sullied the late 90s and early 00s (shudder, shudder). (no, there’s no real accounting here for what happened to 311 after ’94 but i will save that for a later date.) at any rate, i wore this tape out.)