DJ Shadow - Endtroducing..... [1996]

Genre: Trip Hop, Hip Hop, Electronica, Turntablism, Jazz, Funk, Psychedelia

MySpace: djshadow

My opinion & thought: This is my favourie DJ Shadow's album yet it's his debut, love it all these years. Here it is, the reissue edition of the album which is a double discs edition. It's amazing that this full-length album is fully sampled, completely! Just imagine how much efforts to sampling all good single tracks into a fine good song. Bravo!

Stands out track(s): Organ Donor, What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4), Mutual Slump

CD1, CD2

DJ Shadow (born Josh Davis; January 1, 1972) is an American music producer, DJ and songwriter. He is considered a prominent figure in the development ofinstrumental hip hop and first gained notice with the release of his highly acclaimed debut album Endtroducing....., which was constructed entirely from samples.

Endtroducing..... is the debut studio album by hip hop artist DJ Shadow. It was first released on November 19, 1996 by Mo' Wax Records, but was later reissued onJune 7, 2005 by Island Records. It is noted for being the first album created entirely from samples of other records. The album received near-unanimous worldwide critical acclaim upon release.

Endtroducing..... is structured completely out of sampled elements, including hip hop, jazz, funk, psychedelia, old television shows, interviews and percussion tracks. The entirety of the album was composed on an MPC60, a machine which Shadow would later pass on to Chief Xcel. The album has been cited in Guinness World Records as being the first album created entirely from sampled sources.

In 2005 DJ Shadow released a "Deluxe Edition" of the album with a second disc containing demos, alternate versions of original tracks, tracks exclusive to CD singles, and a vintage live set recorded on October 30, 1997.

The album's cover depicts Solesides members Chief Xcel (left) and Lyrics Born (right) in Village Records, a record store at 710 K Street in Sacramento, California. The K Street location of Village Records closed in December 2006, and have since relocated to the former Tower Records location at the corner of Broadway and South Land Park Drive.


Reception & influence:

NPR included Endtroducing..... in its list of the top 300 American songs and albums of the 20th century, and Spin placed the album at number 69 in its list of the 100 greatest albums between 1985 and 2005 in June 2005. In 2006, the album was chosen by TIME as one of the 100 best albums of all time.


Professional reviews:

  • Rolling Stone (1/23/97, pp.62-63) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "The DJ built songs out of layer upon layer of sampled instruments and other sound fragments, most of which he processed, looped and re-arranged far beyond recognition....funky rhythms that never sound like they've been cut and pasted together."
  • Spin (p.134) - "[T]his remains a stone classic, channeling Afrika Bambaataa's genre-splicing, DJ-booth mysticism into a fully realized studio epic..."
  • Spin (1/97, p.81) - 9 (out of 10) - "...layers slinky break-beats with sampled sounds--anything from church bells to War Of The Worlds and, egad, Tears For Fears....a cosmic-chamber feel complete with choruses of fallen angels, plucked harps, Mellotron, and cello."
  • Entertainment Weekly (11/29/96, p.92) - "Unfolding like a surreal film soundtrack on which jazz, classical, and jungle fragments are artfully blended with turntable tricks and dialogue snippets, Endtroducing... takes hip-hop into the next dimension." - Rating: A-
  • Q magazine (11/96, p.120) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "Shadow's brief is to develop a totally sample-based idiom, weaving a cinematically broad spectrum so deftly layered that the sampling-is-stealing argument falls flat."
  • Uncut (p.121) - 4 stars out of 5 - "It's an elegy from a vinyl mausoleum, a sonic fiction assembled by a keen-eared archaeologist."
  • Alternative Press (4/97, p.70) - 5 (out of 5) - "...an undeniable hip-hop masterpiece....DJ Shadow remembers that sampling is an art form."
  • Magnet (p.88) - "An instrumental album entirely composed of samples and influenced by both prog rock and Public Enemy was, at the time, revolutionary....Still unmatched in its carefree invention."
  • JazzTimes (4/97, p.65) - "Some consider...Endtroducing... a broadcast from hip-hop's near future. But that notion ignores how much this disc reaffirms the music's creative roots....Endtroducing is pretty damn good, with Shadow demonstrating an unerring ear for motif and texture, touching on everything from dub to funk to groove-jazz."
  • Option (1-2/97, p.73) - "Shadow makes records the way Robert Rauschenberg made his combines: from scraps, pop artifacts, the things other people throw away....While some of his tracks float serenely on a cloud of jazzy phrasing and ambient textures, Shadow always lands on his beat."
  • Melody Maker (9/14/96, p.49) - Bloody Essential - "...it flips hip hop inside out all over again like a reversible glove, and again, and again, and each time it's sudden and new. I am, I confess, totally confounded by it. I hear a lot of good records, but very few impossible ones....You need this record. You are incomplete without it."
  • Rap Pages (12/96, p.33) - "Innovative arrangements and structures of sound are present here, reflecting a mind that is constantly summoning collage forms."
  • Mojo (p.120) - 4 stars out of 5 - "A decade on, DJ Shadow's affirmatory essay on record collecting as a creative endeavour has lost none of its grandeur."

Tracklisting:
  1. "Best Foot Forward" – 0:47
  2. "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt" – 6:39
  3. "The Number Song" – 4:34
  4. "Changeling" – 7:16
    • "Transmission 1" - 0:35
  5. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)" – 5:02
  6. " " – 0:25
  7. "Stem/Long Stem" – 7:47
    • "Transmission 2" - 1:29
  8. "Mutual Slump" – 4:00
  9. "Organ Donor" – 1:57
  10. "Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96" – 0:44
  11. "Midnight in a Perfect World" – 4:58
  12. "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain" – 9:21
  13. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)" – 6:17
    • "Transmission 3" - 1:11

Deluxe edition bonus disc:

  1. "Best Foot Forward (Alternate Version)" - 1:16
  2. "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt (Alternate Take Without Overdubs)" - 6:43
  3. "Number Song (Cut Chemist Party Mix)" - 5:14
  4. "Changeling (Original Demo Excerpt)" - 1:00
  5. "Stem (Cops 'N' Robbers Mix)" - 3:48
  6. "Soup (Single Version)" - 0:44
  7. "Red Bus Needs to Leave" - 2:45
  8. "Mutual Slump (Alternate Take Without Overdubs)" - 4:21
  9. "Organ Donor (Extended Overhaul)" - 4:29
  10. "Why Hip Hop Sucks In '96 (Alternate Take)" - 0:54
  11. "Midnight in a Perfect World (Gab Mix)" - 4:55
  12. "Napalm Brain (Original Demo Beat)" - 0:35
  13. "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Peshay Remix)" - 9:24
  14. "Live In Oxford, England Oct. 30 1997" - 12:35

Samples:

The following lists some of the songs and sounds sampled for Endtroducing.

Best Foot Forward

Building Steam with a Grain of Salt

The Number Song

Changeling/Transmission 1

What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 4

  • "The Vision and the Voice, Part 1 - The Vision" by Flying Island

Untitled (Track 06)

  • "Grey Boy" by Human Race

Stem/Long Stem/Transmission 2

Mutual Slump

Organ Donor

  • "Someone" by Bill & Tim
  • "Tears" by Giorgio Moroder
  • "PM or Later (Instrumental)" by The New Breed
  • "There's a DJ in Your Town" by Samson & Delilah

Midnight in a Perfect World

Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain

  • "'Pon a Hill" by T. Rex
  • "Walk on By" by Joann Garrett
  • Dialogue from The Aurora Encounter
  • "Moment of Truth" by Charles Bernstein
  • "A Funky Kind of Thing" by Billy Cobham
  • "Let the Homicides Begin" by Top Priority
  • "2001: A Space Odyssey" by Daly-Wilson Bigband
  • "Soul Brothers Testify" by The Original Soul Senders

What Does Your Soul Look Like, Pt. 1: Blue Sky Revisit


Personnel:

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