What does /mu/ think of Run DMC?

Sound very dated now.

bit corny but good when they were good
Sucker MCs and Beats To The Rhyme are solid

>>71473311
I realized they were based when I saw an interview of Run DMC in the 80's and said they loved Purple Rain then threw a hot dog by the window without giving a fuck.
Alos, Miss Elaine is a very good song.

Overrated.

great band

didn't age well

Still shocked one of them was murdered

File: christgau1med.jpg (18KB, 400x266px) Image search: [Google]

18KB, 400x266px

Run-D.M.C. [Profile, 1984]

Though a bit upwardly mobile for the highbrow-lowbrows who regard money lust and the death throes of capitalism as two sides of rap's only fit subject--D.J. Run boasted about attending St. John's, of all things--the competitive fatalism of the spare, brutal "It's Like That"/"Sucker M.C.'s" was unforced and dead on, and Eddie Martinez's Hendrix-Funkadelic metal on the expansive "Rock Box" proves that even street minimalists can love guitars. But this does more than fill in around two of the finest singles of the past couple of years. It's 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. While their heavy staccato and proud disdain for melody may prove too avant-garde for some, the style has been in the New York air long enough that you may understand it better than you think. Do you have zero tolerance for namby-pamby bullshit? Do you believe in yourself above all? Then chances are you share Run-D.M.C.'s values. A-

King of Rock [Profile, 1985]

You can tell these guys are real rock-and-rollers because they sounded so much fresher before they got what they wanted, and you can tell they didn't get it all because their rhymes still make a lot of sense sometimes--especially "You're Blind," a protest for and at the ghetto rather than about it. But their well-timed "You Talk Too Much" routine runs aground on stupid insults ("nagging wife," gosh) and old jokes ("Why don't you find a short pier/And take a long walk," groan). "It's Not Funny" is either a perverse albeit well-named joke or a complete washout. Even the boasts run thin. "Take airplane flights/At huge heights"? I mean, what do sucker MC's do? Just taxi around the runway? B+

Raising Hell [Profile, 1986]

Like the Rolling Stones twenty years ago, they're middle-class lads who are into music that's hard above all--they're street because they want to be. Granted, the analogy is less than exact. Where the Stones dramatized their streetness by becoming bohemians, Run-D.M.C. remain defiantly and even paradigmatically middle-class, a much tougher trick. Run-D.M.C. project less respect for women than the Stones, and less interest in them, too. They commit more lyrical gaffes. And their music is a lot further out. Without benefit of a "Rock Box" or "King of Rock," this is their most uncompromising and compelling album, all hard beats and declaiming voices. They're proud to be black all right, but I don't think it has much to do with George Washington Carver. They're proud to be black because it means they can do this. A-

Tougher Than Leather [Profile, 1988]

Coming off their sophomore jinx and out to prove their mastery, they ended up celebrating it as well; coming off their triumph and feeling too damn big for their minor label, they merely demonstrate it. Technically, the kings are nonpareils--not a duff beat or a forced rhyme. But for the moment they lack desire. I'll enjoy the genre-busting side-closers anywhere, the original-metal title tune and anticrime message on the radio, and the rest later. B+

>>71474173
>>71474064
>Christgau actually writes intelligent, thoughtful album reviews
Are my eyes deceiving me?

This board is too white to appreciate them.

Boring af

>>71473311
Liked when I first got into hip-hop, pretty lame now

My Adidas is the only song I could ever get into.