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Run-D.M.C.Albums ReviewedRun-D.M.C. (1983)Raising Hell (1986) Tougher Than Leather (1988) Run-D.M.C.(1983)Often heralded as one of the greatest and most influential hip hop albums ever made, Run-D.M.C. was notable as the first hip hop album to be released on CD and the first hip hop album to feature live guitars. It's often acclaimed as one of the seminal albums of its genre, spawning hits 'Sucker M.C.'s' and 'It's Like That', and launching the careers of Run, D.M.C. and the late Jam-Master Jay. But twenty years later, this material from the first wave of hip hop sounds painfully dated; while Run and D.M.C's MC skills are without question, often they're restricted to rapping over paper thin backing. It's regarded as important, as it's the first album to capture the sound of street hip hop, with just a drum machine and a DJ to support our two Adidas wearing heroes. Welcome to a world dominated by budget drum machines and the occasional tinny keyboard; it might have sounded revolutionary in 1983, but in the time that's elapsed since there's been a substantial increase in the lushness of sound collages and it's all for the better. Even if the thinness of the sound is ignored, the quality of the compositions is uneven. 'Rock Box' sounds far less dated than anything on the disc, because it features an actual guitarist, Eddie Martinez, and shows what the group could do when the budgetness of the groove wasn't a distraction. 'Sucker M.C.'s' is also decent, a boast of Run-D.M.C.'s origins and credentials. But the rest of these songs are hard to take. The lyrics are often clever, and often positive and affirmative, but they're hard to listen to with such bare bones backing. Some of this material would also sound better if they picked up the tempo; the duo's skill at trading lines becomes more impressive at breakneck speed, while '30 Days' and 'Hard Times' both particularly drag at a slow speed. Run-D.M.C. may be an excellent document of the hip hop school of 1983, but 20 years later it doesn't impress. Actually I haven't been particularly impressed by a Run-D.M.C. albums yet; there's a handful of great tracks on each, but they're really uneven. If you're interested in checking out this group, I'm pretty sure that a compilation is the way to go. 
King Of Rock(1985)Guess I shouldn't write this group off completely without hearing all their major albums, right? Raising Hell(1986)"There's a band playing on the radio," sung Bryan Ferry on Roxy Music's 'Oh Yeah', "with rhythm and rhyme and guitars." Ignoring anachronism, Ferry may well have been singing about Run DMC. The group blended hip hop rhythms and rhymes with rock guitars to create cross-genre appeal, years before Rage Against The Machine let alone Limp Bizkit. The transcending song from Raising Hell is the fantastic cover of Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way', while 'It's Tricky' acquires the guitar riff from The Knack's 'My Cherona'. Raising Hell gets off to a flying start with the super sequence of 'Peter Piper', 'It's Tricky', 'My Adidas' and 'Walk This Way', before it loses momentum almost entirely. Most of the remaining tracks sound like they were conceived, recorded and produced in ten minutes flat, and are performed over relatively sparse backing, rendering the irritating vocal hooks of 'Dumb Girl' and 'Perfection' even more irritating. Raising Hell is an entertaining album, but feels like a wasted opportunity. The best parts of Raising Hell show Run DMC firing on all cylinders, yet the album is uneven due to the tossed off and charmless nature of second rate material like 'Dumb Girl' and 'You Be Illin''.
Tougher Than Leather(1988)The soundtrack to an apparently hideous film, in which Run-D.M.C. unwisely attempted to revive the blaxploitation genre. Despite the lack of progress from Raising Hell, an imprudent inertia in the quickly evolving hip-hop scene of the late 1980s, it's by no means their worst album. In fact, it's an improvement from the previous album; there's nothing on the level of 'It's Tricky' or 'My Adidas', but on the whole the album's more substantial and more texturally convincing than its predecessor. Released just four years after their debut and the progression in hip hop is staggering; Run-D.M.C. was released on the cutting edge of hip hop in 1984 and sounded like it was made using a drum machine and a cheap casio, while Tougher Than Leather, in the vanguard of the genre just four years later, sounds positively futuristic in comparison. There are a few guitar heavy tracks that sound like they're exploiting the 'Rock Box' and 'Walk This Way' formula, but since they're two of the group's best tracks to start with, there's little cause for complaint. More damning evidence in a case for a lack of inspiration include using an obscure Monkees' song as the basis for the album's first single ('Mary, Mary') and sampling their own 'King of Rock' for 'Soul To Rock And Roll'. There's also a lack of political intent; everything's either bragging or party fare, apart from some social commentary in 'Papa Crazy'. There's nothing too exciting on Tougher Than Leather, but I prefer it slightly to the albums listed above; the sound is fuller and more exciting than the debut, while there's far less fluff than on Raising Hell. Key tracks include the opener 'Run's House', which sets up an uncharacteristically intense sound collage, and 'Beats To The Rhyme'. The rockers are generally predictable, but among the most enjoyable tracks on the disc; "Unconceivable, unbelievable/Grammar like a hammer information receivable/Sent by the Lord, here and abroad/with words well adored now they can't be ignored" the title track declares brashly, while the simplistic 'Miss Elaine' keeps proceedings pumping along nicely. 'Ragtime' provides the diversity (you'd think that 'Soul to Rock and Roll' would too, but it doesn't) while the slightly preachy 'Papa Crazy' is the only real source of irritation. Tougher Than Leather does suffer from the lack of a major song, and I still wouldn't bother going to too much effort to track it down. There's only just enough good material spread through the three Run-D.M.C. albums reviewed on this page to make one really good album.
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Written 2001-2007, Graham Fyfe
