Run-D.M.C. (album)

Released in the spring of 1984, Run-D.M.C. had the same kind of impact on the hip-hop generation that Meet the Beatles! had on the rock generation. It announced a new group, a new sound, a new look, and a new attitude all at once. From that moment on, the whole of history of hip-hop has been divided into pre-Run-D.M.C. and post-Run-D.M.C. The album is filled with such classics like "It's Like That", "Sucker M.C.'s" and "Rock Box".

The music on the album was created by Larry Smith's group Orange Krush using the drum machine Oberheim DMX and Jam Master Jay's scratches mixed in a guitar riff.[12]

The album is dedicated to the memory of DJ June Bug (1958 - 1983) - one of the greatest DJs in the world who worked as a DJ in the Bronx at the club Disco Fever, selling drugs at the same time.[13]

"Rock Box" video became the first rap video played on MTV in the summer of 1984.[14] The video was filmed in the famous New York punk club Danceteria. In the video, the trio are seen decked out in what had become their signature look by then: black Kangol hats, black Lee jeans, black t-shirts and leather jackets, white Adidas sneakers, gold chains, and, as always, D.M.C. is wearing his trademark glasses.[15]

The song "It's Like That" was performed on stage in the 1985 Warner Bros. film Krush Groove, in which the Run-D.M.C.'s members starring in April 1985.[16]

• The Observer – no. 40 at "50 albums that changed music" (2006)[17]
• NME – no. 25 at "101 Albums To Hear Before You Die" (2014)[18]
• Rolling Stone – no. 51 at "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" (1989)[19]
• Rolling Stone – no. 242 at "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" (2003 and 2012)[20][21]
• Rolling Stone – no. 26 at "100 Best Debut Albums of All Time" (2003)[22]
• Rolling Stone – "The 40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time" (2013)[23]
• Spin – no. 11 at "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time" (1989)[24]
• Spin – no. 7 at "The Ten Reasons We Wish Spin Had Started In 1984" (2005)[25]
• The Source – "100 Best Rap Albums" (1998)[26]
• The Source – "Albums Rated 5 Mics (Out of 5)" (1998)[27]
• The Source – "100 Best Rap Singles" (1998)[28]
• Beats Per Minute – no. 73 at "The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s" (2011)[29]
• XXL – "40 Years of Hip-Hop: Top 5 Albums by Year" (2014)[30]
• Uncut – no. 33 at "50 Greatest New York Albums" (2015)[31]
• Complex – no. 37 at "The Best Rap Albums of the '80s" (2017)[32]
• Complex – "The Best Hip-Hop Producer Alive, Every Year Since 1979" (2018)[33]
• The Village Voice – no. 10 at "Pazz & Jop: Top 10 Albums By Year, 1971–2017" (2018)[34]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[35]
Chicago Tribune	[36]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[37]
Pitchfork	8.1/10[38]
Rolling Stone	[39]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[40]
The Source	5/5[41]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[42]
Uncut	[43]
The Village Voice	A−[44]

Debby Miller of Rolling Stone complimented Run–D.M.C.'s boasts about "messages that self-improvement is the only ticket out" and viewed their style as a departure from most hip hop acts at the time; stating "they get into a vocal tug of war that's completely different from the straightforward delivery of The Furious Five's Melle Mel or the everybody-takes-a-verse approach of groups like Sequence. And the music ... that backs these tracks is surprisingly varied, for all its bare bones".[39]

In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau described it as "easily the canniest and most formally sustained rap album ever, a tour de force I trust will be studied by all manner of creative downtowners and racially enlightened Englishmen".[44] Christgau commented on the group's "heavy staccato and proud disdain for melody", writing that "the style has been in the New York air long enough that you may understand it better than you think".[44]

The album has been regarded by music writers as one of early hip hop's best albums and a landmark release of the new school hip hop movement in the 1980s.[44][45] According to journalist Peter Shapiro, the album's 1983 double-single release "It's Like That"/"Sucker MCs" "completely changed hip-hop ... rendering everything that preceded it distinctly old school with one fell swoop."[45][46] Run–D.M.C. rapped over the most sparse of musical backing tracks in hip hop at the time: a drum machine and a few scratches, with rhymes that harangued weak rappers and contrasted them to the group's success.[46] "It's Like That" is an aggressively delivered message rap whose social commentary has been defined variously as "objective fatalism",[44] "frustrated and renunciatory",[47] and just plain "reportage".[38]

In 1989, the album was ranked number 51 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s.[9] In 2003, the album was ranked number 242 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[10]

In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums.[48]

"It's the first rap album that broke big," observed Ice-T, "which paved the way for everybody into being able to make rap albums, not just singles." [49]

Musicians

• Jam Master Jay – percussion, keyboards
• Darryl McDaniels "D.M.C." – vocals
• Joseph Simmons "Run" or "Rev Run" – vocals
• Eddie Martinez – guitar

Production

• Orange Krush – composer
• Russell Simmons – producer
• Larry Smith – producer
• Rod Hui – Producer/engineer

Bibliography

• Shapiro, Peter. Rough Guide to Hip Hop, 2nd. ed., London: Rough Guides, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84353-263-7
• Toop, David. Rap Attack, 3rd. ed., London: Serpent's Tail, 2000. ISBN 978-1-85242-627-9

• Run-D.M.C. at Discogs
• Run-D.M.C. at RapGenius
• Official website
• Run–D.M.C. (Adobe Flash) at Myspace (streamed copy where licensed)