Duck Rock

Wow, this was a cool change of pace. A bit of world music, mixed with our first venture into hip hop. Very rudimentary hip hop, but it's a start. Oh but of course our first "hip hop" album would be British. I really dug the opening three tracks. I had no idea Eminem sampled "Buffalo Gals," but now I know. It also sounds like El-P may have sampled part of that track on Killer Mike's "Go!" but it's not quite the same. Anyway, the album lost steam for me after the first few songs, but it's still a cool cultural and historical piece. It's weird that this is partially classified as a "novelty" album, but I guess it makes sense to ease '80s Brits into hip hop lest they lose their lunch. Favorite tracks: Obatala, Buffalo Gals, Double Dutch. Album art: Really cool and creative. An insanely tricked-out boombox. I love the colors and design of this one a lot. 3.5/5

What is it with these Baby Boomers thinking it was okay to just take music from black people and give themselves writing credits? Zeppelin essentially covering Willie Dixon, changing a lyric here and there and coming up with a new title and claiming it's their new song is pretty bad but McClaren and Horn using actual recordings of African recording artists and not even mentioning them is especially gross. If it wasn't for the chutzpah or hubris or straight up racism if this I'd probably give this four stars because it is a pretty important document. I've always felt that Zeppelin were just naive kids who thought they were paying tribute to their heroes, however misguided, short slighted and wrong that was. McClaren on the other hand was a business man, he knew what he was doing was exploitative.

I’m glad this helped to bring hip-hop to Britain, especially as early as 1983, and a lot of the songs are catchy to be sure, but I simply cannot like this album because Malcom is such an awful person. Some people say he’s a genius- he’s a genius alright, he was genius enough to realize he had no talent himself so he stole the talents of others and put his name on it. First it was the Sex Pistols, now it’s black artists. While listening to this album, the whole time I’m thinking “who did he steal this from” and that we should just be listening to the original albums instead. I recognize that all music is essentially stolen, but it’s important to give the influences their due. McLaren had no intention of ever doing that.

I was thinking as I listened to one of the songs, this sounds a lot like Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. And of course, it was. At times, this seems like a collection of African Music vs a MM LP, yet he doesn't credit the original musicians. If you were to compare this to efforts we received by Byrne/Eno or Moby, (who do credit the original artists) they used only snippets of the original material, completely transformed them so that the accompanying instrumentals could stand on their own. MM doesn’t do much to the original tracks and his actual “original" compositions sound like square dances.

What a mess. I think the fact that ol' Malcolm calls himself an "impresario" and not a "musician" is telling. This album is just a jumbled mish-mash of musical concepts. Nothing really works and it never really comes together into anything coherent. Also, the wiki article states that this album "proved to be highly influential in bringing hip hop to a wider audience in the United Kingdom." The thought of this being anyone's introduction to hip hop makes me just SO. SAD. I'd flunk "Duck Rock" on principle but the actual musicianship isn't terrible and there are some fun concepts on display... even if they are poorly executed.

to anyone who’s reading the reviews and hasn’t listened to this album yet, this dude is a culture vulture who stole from black artists and exploited drug addicts. beyond that, the album is okay at best and maybe out of every album ive heard so far on here the least necessary to be put on this list. whoever made this list grew up in the UK during the 80s and 90s cause there’s a lot of absolute bullshit on here that no one else would tell you you need to hear before you die. “oh yeah you really need to check out this brit pop band the cheeky chimneys” no the fuck you don't. these artists were important to no one with proper dental care. get different people making this list. please.

This is the first album that I don't know either the album or the artist and I'm pretty glad for that. I have a hard time listening to this album because it's a British white guy appropriating musical styles from South Africa, Central and South America, and hip hop. The Wikipedia notes mention that it was influential in making hip hop popular in the UK. It's not even that great a representation of any of those styles. It's pretty difficult to listen to a lot of these albums with a musical appreciation and NOT think these things. I didn't even make it through the whole album I was so annoyed.

5.0 - Fucking SHIT, why am I JUST discovering this album? It's a non-stop party with the most stylish flair courtesy of the early 1980s, back when British gay culture was probably peaking (on that count, only time will tell). And, just WOW, the radio samples are INCREDIBLE. Even if this album is baldfaced English cultural appropriation, I give Malcom McLaren a huge pass for rearranging so many elements and creating a BULLWHIP of a record!

1001 Albums Generator Day 8 Firstly, Keith Haring painted the pink background of the sleeve, and yesterday marked 32 years since he died. He was just 31. If you only have a few minutes to spare, don't read my waffle, go and look at some of his work instead. Duck Rock makes me think of Malcolm McLaren as a rock ‘n’ roll fan who was slightly too young for the first wave. It was the era before pirate stations, when radio meant The Light Programme, so it would have been big brother music. It wasn't until he was 18 that Radio Caroline and Radio London started up, and I can only imagine how exciting that was. Perhaps as a teenager he shared singles with friends, and went to pubs that turned a blind eye to hear local bands who’d got hold of an import no-one else had to cover in their set. By the time of the British Invasion, maybe there was a new confidence among British pop fans that they too could innovate and take the lead but, even for The Beatles, there was nowhere more fascinating than America. When Malcolm visited New York and saw first-hand that pop was being reborn he wouldn’t have wanted to miss out again. With the samples of the World’s Famous Supreme Team woven through the music, Duck Rock captures some of the excitement at the beginning of the rap era with the feel of a lovingly compiled mixtape. The blend of diverse traditions – funk, mbaqanga, toasting etc – unpicks some of the threads of the culture McLaren was exploring. The addition of merengue, square dance and his own fake American accent emphasises the sense of an outsider looking in, trying to take in the whole city at once, and understanding hip-hop as a folk-dance culture while trying out something that could easily have sounded as corny as H-E-double-hockey-sticks. The mix of a white country tradition with Black South African music reminds me of the blend of televangelists’ frenzy and west African funk on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, but with a less anthropological and more playful feel. Of course, McLaren was always a provocateur, and for him the appeal of piracy was in the romance of rebellion and the celebration of theft. Never being in an underdog role, that pretty much always led him to some degree of exploitation. His advocacy of home taping through Bow Wow Wow is defensible; his ideas about “noble savages,” treatment of Anabella Lwin and the abandoned Chicken magazine much less so. Duck Rock brings up some huge issues with ownership and authorship in the emerging “world music” market which were already present in folk and blues and continue to be discussed with regards to hip-hop today. There’s also the question of how much McLaren had to do with this record musically. Vocals aside, I imagine him as the forerunner to Paul Morley in the Art of Noise, suggesting the concept, sitting in the studio chatting excitedly with Trevor Horn about their favourite records and then letting him get on with it. For a record made by a super-producer team, it has the feel of something a friend made for you by hovering over the pause button, and perhaps that’s where McLaren earned the credit he is due.

I know this came out before it but this is just a worse version of Graceland with some dodgy rapping thrown in for good measure.

More style than substance, which tracks for McLaren.

Exactly what I’m looking for an in album and exactly what I hope for Every single day when I load up this website. Thanks.

I’m not sure how important this album was in the timeline of what was going on when it came out, but I feel like it captured an environment pretty well. Very cool and interesting throughout.

"Duck Rock" is an album from impresario (love that word) Malcolm McLaren. He is credited as a singer and figure caller though. This album mixes styles from South Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean and the US (hip hop, country). The musicians included Trevor Horn (beats, mixing), Anne Dudley (keyboards, strings), J.J. Jeczalik (synthesizers) and Thomas Dolby (keyboards). Horn, Dudley and Jeczalik were recording The Art of Noises' first album "Into Battle with the "Art of Noise" at the time in a side studio and you hear a lot of what I would call Art of Noice music throughout. Also, The World's Famous Supreme Team, rappers/DJ's Sedivine the Mastermind and Just Allah the Superstar, contribute in songs and between songs. Somehow uncredited but just as important is the South African group Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens. The songs they are involved in are some of the best on the album. This album was very influential in world music and hip hop. It is a great album, tons of fun. Every song changes style to some extent but flows throughout very nicely. The first single and biggest song on the album is "Buffalo Gals" which has rapping, scratching, back-up female singers and a rapper calling a square dance. Sampled and influential in the future to/by Neneh Cherry and Eminem. "Double Dutch, the third single, has South African beats, Malcolm McLaren doing the singing/calling and Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens supplying the back-up singing. This song would not sound out of place on Paul Simon's "Graceland." Speaking of Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, they take the lead on the second single and my favorite song on the album, "Soweto." This is a very happy-sounding song. It is South African in style but I thought I heard a Caribbean vibe. Just an incredible chorus going by the Mahotella Queens. And how can I not mention the last single, "Duck for the Oyster," in which McLaren is calling a square dance and it sounds like it belongs on a chipmunks album. This is a totally ridiculous song yet I loved it. Do-si-do anyone? This was a blast. I had no idea what I was in for. The hip hop, world music and country-tinged music all combined perfectly fine.

It was probably ground breaking at the time of release and introduced different musical styles to new audiences but in terms of quality it's not doing much. How is Malcom McLaren credited with this album? It's a compilation.

You can tell the bits they stole because they are the good bits and not Horn and Dudley doodling in the studio. I've never liked Malcolm McLaren but I never had much of an opinion on Trevor Horn until this month when I have learned he was party to this act of larceny and just how badly he ripped off Frankie Goes to Hollywood on their deal with ZTT. The idea that this introduced the UK to hiphop sounds like McLarenesque self aggrandising bullshit. The Message was a hit the year before and White Lines the same year. Even Blondie's Rapture was a big hit in 1980. But no it was the intrepid English white explorer charting the dangerous realms of New York city. Your arse!

From the second I saw this guy was the Sex Pistols’ manager, I knew this would be scummy. A plagiarized pastiche of various cultures that somehow manages to steal without making anything interesting of the loot, an LP that sounds like a world music sampler thrown in a blender - however you slice it, this is not good music or a good look in any way.

Fun fact: It seems that nobody likes world music until someone appropriates it for them.

Malcolm McLaren doesn’t add a whole lot. Most of what’s worthwhile here is better appreciated from the original sources. Hip-hop is a very misleading description for what this is—mostly a compilation of music stolen from different African musicians.

This was very interesting! I listened to this while running errands in my car, over the span of two days. It was fun and engaging to have on. This isn't the type of thing I normally listen to but I enjoyed it. It was so musically dense, I feel like I need to listen to it again at least once.

cool

Weird that this was mainly nerdy white Brits introducing me to this music way back then. Listening back now it's well produced, clean, marshmallowy and very 80's. Still, it's pretty good and certainly made a splash in 1983. It's a corny, catchy collection stolen from other continents and is a one-off oddity of Hip Hop, Latin and African beats. This chart captures moments like this. It's a 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 just to irritate the baby chick zoomers who give this one star.

I've told anyone who cares to listen that my favourite genre is Soweto music from the 80s / 90s. As such, this album had me excited and clicking around to find some ZAR tunes to intersperse with the songs on Malcom's LP. I also learned the proper name of the genre I like is mbaqanga. I'll forget that by tomorrow. Wiki says he didn't give credit to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens for vocals. It's more than just vocals isn't it?  It sure sounds like Mahathini's lead guitarist Max Mankwane's licks on Double Dutch.  (Listen to Gazette by Mahlathini and you'll see what I mean.) I suppose David Birch, the only guitar player credited, could have played this style of guitar. He lived in South Africa and was John Lennon's cousin so he has the resume / lineage to have studied and learned the style. A moderate amount of rapping comes out to play on World Famous and is well received.  To close,  Duck for the Oyster brings out the fiddle and gets the ole barn floor  rockin. Finally, the faux radio show clips are kinda fun. This was bizarre but it's my kind of bizarre.

Nr. 150/1001 Obatala 4/5 Buffalo Gals 2/5 Double Dutch 4/5 El San Juanera 2/5 Merengue 4/5 Punk It Up 4/5 Legba 4/5 Jive My Baby 4/5 Song for Chango 3/5 Soweto 5/5 World's Famous 4/5 Duck for the Oyster 3/5 Average: 3,58 Well this was a surprise. Unconventional, but ultimately really fun. Unpredictable at every turn. Glad I was exposed to this.

I enjoyed this. Undoubtedly of its time - synth drums and the global music which Paul Simon and David Byrne embraced around the same time. But I had never heard it before (or don't remember it), and the songs made my commute pleasant 42+ years after they were recorded.

This was cool and something I'd never even heard of before. I recognized Buffalo Gals from Eminem, but aside from that this was all new territory. What a bizarre album. I don't love that Malcom's name is all over this and not the musicians, but whatever, it's cool and the musicianship was on point. Fun examples of early hip-hop and various world musics.

Interesting, very interesting…seeing McLaren’s name I was afraid it would be a shambles…but no…it’s very listenable, very catchy, a very subtle way to start people listening to genres they might not otherwise have explored

A conceptual piece as much as a recording of music, Duck Rock represents Malcolm McLaren's insistence that he was at least as much a creative drive as the bands he (mis)managed, and that the ideas behind the music were usually far more important than the music itself. So yes, very meta. I should explain a bit of history as to the genesis of this album, or, if you will, what Malcolm did after what Malcolm did next. The Sex Pistols' film, The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, sought to present McLaren as the great Svengali not so much managing a band as forming a sculpture from living people, his campaign of cynical bad taste revealing the hypocrisy of the industries in which he traded. But before its release, John Lydon had quit the band onstage, sick of, amongst other things, the attempts at manipulation by the manager. Later, Steve Jones and Paul Cook had wised up to McLaren and walked out themselves, leaving Sid Vicious to his nihilistic death-spiral. With the Sex Pistols defunct and McLaren having lost control even of the aspects that were legitimately his, he retreated to his beloved Paris to score softcore pornography with African music. Whilst there, he developed two very dubious ideas. The first was to form a new band, but this time with people more easily manipulated. The second was to continue the aesthetic of shock and bad taste, but this time based on underage sex. To combine these two ideas in a really, really grim fashion, he founded the band Bow Wow Wow with a 14-year-old singer, Annabella Lwin (he was also managing Adam Ant around this time, and the rest of Bow Wow Wow came from former Ants). In McLaren's ambition, Bow Wow Wow were to represent both a bitten thumb against the gloom of PiL, Joy Division and their ilk, with a return to bubblegum pop infused with African polyrhythms (stick a pin in that for later), and also an overt statement that pop surreptitiously trafficked in imagery of sexualised children (think Britney Spears in the Baby One More Time video, an example McLaren would certainly have proposed himself). That is, McLaren saw himself as merely saying the quiet part loud. You may think, with real justification, that McLaren had already crossed several lines with this use of paedophilic conceits, but he stomped ever further onwards. At one point he ordered the band to take Lwin's virginity in order to make her more compliant (they did not), he had the band recreate Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe for an album cover, which involved Lwin stripping naked, and he talked about founding a magazine which would serve as a Playboy for children, to be called Playkids and later Chicken. Despite all this, Bow Wow Wow never quite became a succès de scandale like the Pistols, and so McLaren became bored of the group. Believing that Lwin was inadequate as a spokesperson for his schemes, he decided to forgo the chores of managing a band and make an album of his own. One point to note about McLaren's work is his skittishness, his tendency to fire out ideas continually without developing them further. This often resulted in half-baked takes mashed together, as McLaren would flit from pirate clothing to Appalachian square dancing. Duck Rock was originally conceived to exploit McLaren's grasshopper nature by incorporating the multitude of ideas that appealed to McLaren at that time, such as Cuban rhythms, Cajun, Soweto, scratching, hobo iconography, skipping, and Puccini (the working title was Folk Dances of the World). Crucially, McLaren enlisted the then-hottest producer in pop, Trevor Horn. On paper, the two men should have found each other detestable: McLaren saw the pop Horn specialised in as safe and passionless, whereas Horn had always thought Never Mind the Bollocks was all artifice, a studio creation by the producer with no authenticity whatsoever. However, both charmed each other and were genuinely engaged by each other's ideas and suggestions. McLaren and Horn wanted to travel the world recording, well, world music, but slim finances meant that they had to make do with just South Africa and (thankfully for the project, highly multicultural) New York. This focus (well, as much focus as you could say a project of this nature could have) begat the hip-hop/world music fusion we have here. What is McLaren's role in this album? A legitimate question. It's oft tricky to discern what McLaren's impact on a song is. McLaren was in no way a musician, and was so rhythmless that Trevor Horn resorted to beating out the rhythms on McLaren's chest as he sang. Indeed, a more accurate accreditation may well have Horn's name alongside McLaren on the cover. Horn found that McLaren's lack of expertise (or even competence) enabled Horn to indulge himself in seeing what the studio could do. In fact, the whole album can be considered an indulgence. McLaren's compulsive flicking between whatever ideas he fancied at that instant is indulgent. Attempting to weld together musical traditions of several cultures separated by continents is indulgent (also, there's a slight, sour resonance between McLaren's use of African music and how European scholars used to label African art as "primitive art"). Asserting that the music is the least important part to your record is indulgent. Believing that the youth of the world would turn your way when you click your fingers is indulgent. A critical person would say it's also delusional. But aside from that, Duck Rock, as much as it is a conceptual piece, is also a recording of music. And as that, separated from McLaren's artsy shenanigans, it's rather good. Remember that indulgence usually brings pleasure, if the occasional stomach-ache. The attempt to swipe music from all around the world does make the album feel vast and ardent. Employing then-nascent hip-hop techniques does feel visionary. Seeking a music beyond the battered stencils of rock and pop does feel laudible. Of course, the attempts to innovate in 1983 inevitably leads occasional moments to sound passé in 2022, so Duck Rock settles at 4 stars. Maybe 20 years down the line, the dissipation of time will make Duck Rock sound as alive as a teenager, but maybe not. I'm not Nate Silver, am I? NoRadio, signing off.

Funny album. Quite hard to decide if I like it or not but it's fairly pleasant to listen to.

What a strange album. I didn't really get into any of the songs, but it was pretty fun to listen to

This feels like what would happen if Microsoft's marketing department produced an album to promote diversity.

I do love Double Dutch and Buffalo Gals. I also admire MM for going completely left field after the punk explosion. He did some very interesting things - his later version of Madame Butterfly was stunning. The rest I found very samey but I still love those singles. More a case of admiration rather than enjoyment.

Hmmm, tricky one. Ambivalent about the whole project. Real sense of unease about creepy old Malcolm appropriating the sound of young black and hispanic New Yorkers. That said, quite a few tracks are genuinely good, and it hangs together quite well as a piece despite the random mash-up approach. I hope all the artists got paid properly I suppose, not just the old swindler.

This album is kind of all over, but I get that he was influenced by basically everything so... I enjoyed it well enough, and found myself dancing a bit, but who doesn't dance to the Merengue?

Malcolm McLaren was wrong to not give fair credit to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, because they absolutely make this album. The music is so fun and funky that it makes me want to get out of my chair and dance. I could have done without all of the radio interludes, they make this record extremely dated (and a little creepy to be honest, got some rapey vibes from the announcer). All in all, a fun record, but I'd only ever go back to listen to some select songs: Buffalo Gals, Double Dutch, Punk It Up and Duck for the Oyster. Favorite Song: Double Dutch Least Favorite: Jive My Baby

A festival of cultural appropriation! This was a really surprising album and I really enjoyed it! Best song: Double Dutch

This is a fun album. Combining old school hip hop with world music. "Buffalo girls" and " Double Dutch" are really fun songs.

Important to hip hop but all over the place

intro dialog is annoying but the music is great; interesting variety

interesting album, quite diverse, has an eminem sample

It's like listening to a radio station of music from around the world, but you are better off making your own playlist.

Almost feels like a parody of international radio. This album is like listening to GTA World Radio where the DJ talks over the entire song with nonsensical hype. I like the world music itself, but I'm not sure how to listen to this. Messes with my ADHD.

Not particularly entertaining. I'd rather hear an album performed by ducks, a concept album about ducks or maybe the sounds of ducks being hit with rocks before going back to this again. It wasn't particularly long, but its runtime felt double what it actually is. I just don't see why I should give a damn about this. There's so much better that could be on this list instead.

Wow, what an album! Of course I'd heard of Malcolm McLaren before (who hasn't), but I didn't think I'd heard any of this. As it turned out, so much was recognisable. How much of this is due to McLaren's ripping off of other artists I couldn't say, but to rate this album poorly based on McLaren as an individual (as so many other reviewers have done) does a grave disservice to the musicians that created and performed this wonderful music. I will be separating the art from the (alleged?) artist and voting 5 stars and then will be looking into more music of this style, in particular the uncredited artists listed in this section of McLaren's Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_McLaren#Royalty_payment_controversies

Yes

Loved the conceit of the latenight radio show, fits the absolute incredibe variety of the album well. Truly marvelous sound.

Due to how absolutely wild this album is, I’m giving it the crown. It Is just SO interesting, so fun, an absolute joy.

Absolutely groundbreaking mix of world and the emerging electronic music.

good

New to me. I’ll keep it on rotation.

Found this whole thing very silly (I love) and good party nonsense (more love) - a good lesson in why it’s sometimes better to not have any contextual knowledge of the “artist”

What people might not appreciate in 2024 is that ideas traveled much more slowly in 1983. It took people like Malcolm McLaren to go out and find new material and then encourge musicians to experiment with it. And what exciting ideas he discovered. This album shows the enthusiasm and consideration with which MM undertook the task - very different from the algorithmic fire hyrant of randomness and cat videos that replaced him.

Wow! What a gem to discover this album. Pure aural delight. I listened to this two times and I see many more spins in my future. Jive my Baby is gonna be today’s ear worm

Really fun album, something you can shake your ass too! I love the Caribbean influence in some of the songs, and it was cool hearing the original song for that famous sample!

I've loved this from since its first release.

Hip hop roots. 5/5

Definitely a change of pace. I enjoyed the idea of it feeling like a radio show with chatter between music. In the streaming era we don’t get that anymore.

I really love this album. It is a bit quirky for something to recommend to everyone to listen to, but the first track is really sublime and feels timeless. If you would have played that first track and said it was a new song by Damon Albarn, I would have believed it! The rest of the album is very early hip-hop, compiled seamlessly like the DJ's that wouldn't really show up for years later. The album, as a whole, really does feel like a lost link or precursor to so many other hip-hop and DJ acts that I've loved for two decades.

Wait, where did this come from?! Might be the most eclectic album I've heard in a long time. Thought it was going to be some kind of early hip-hop sample based album kind of like Entroducing, but then it switches to a pop banger on 'Double Dutch', then a wild salsa song, a synthpop kind of song, and it's all tied together with this radio show concept with little skits appearing throughout. I love it. And it was made in 1983, insane. A 2.73 average rating though, you people should be ashamed.

Weirdest album I've ever heard.

Sound track for shopping at 10,000 Villages.

Delightfully entertaining variety of styles here. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Dit is een ontdekking! Ik vind dit echt een superalbum. Het heeft met zijn Afrikaanse invloeden af en toe wat weg van Graceland Paul Simon, maar dan hiphop. Ook leuk om de originele nummers te horen waar zoveel samples vandaag komen.

What a lovely unexpected surprise. Eclectic - perfect length, great tunes and I actual like the radio show inserts - frames the variety well. Who knew. One of the best and nicest discoveries of this exercise to me - at album 599.

That was one batshit insane PARTY! This is exactly the kind of stuff I came here for. Too crazy, I loved it.

5/5. Honestly a pretty rockin album. I have no idea what the genre is but it’s cool nonetheless. It has aged, with the use of “Female” constantly but the switch between radio and songs is really smooth. And the influences this album takes is numerous, from African to Indian to Jazz and Soul to Electronic sampling finishing it off with hip hop. A pretty cool experience. Best song: Double Dutch, Duck for the Oyster (mainly for the insanity that is this song)

Great crazy act, scratch and Latino dance. Love it

I was going to say that this is some pretty bland pastiche . . . but then I read that it was recorded 40 years ago and holy fuck this was ahead of its time!

Never new about this. And I love the shit out of it.

Surprisingly interesting one

This is a really fun album. I've never heard of this one but really enjoyed it. Lots of upbeat songs with a unique theme and flow to the album. The interstitial radio-style talking and introductions give everything a really cohesive feel. I can definitely see the influence this album has had on modern music. Glad this one came up in my feed today. Standout Tracks: Obatala, Buffalo Gals, Double Dutch, Merengue, Punk It Up, Jive My Baby, Soweto

Well this is just loads of fun, especially when McLaren isn't speaking. You've got the Art of Noise, you've got Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens (massively not cool that they were uncredited - wtf), you've got Thomas Dolby, you've got the pirate DJs the Supreme Team all smooshed together by Trevor Horn and the gang. There's so much to love. Keith Haring cover art as well. It's so ubiquitously 80s, it's kind of wonderful. Even if McLaren comes across as one of the creepiest dudes ever, and most of this album is magpie-ing shit from everywhere - and although that is kind of the entire point, see above, pay those people! They made half the record pop. Also love happening upon another PWEI sample (end of Merengue = end of 88 Seconds...and still counting) Man From Delmonte stole the Makgona Tsohle Band sound (specifically on Water in My Eyes which I still love) and mixed it with Marr/Orange Juice guitar, and although no-one seems to have heard of them these days I still like them. This album sent me off on a journey of listening to all of the above over the course of the day. Therefore, inspirational.

Loved it, wasn’t expecting it to be as interesting as it is.

I've never heard this one. It's great.

Having skipped out on this for two weeks - life generally having got on top of me - I come back to this after being recommended the absolutely dismal Urban Hymns by The Verve. Well. Is this seriously from 1982? Like seriously? And from the former manager of The New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols? Wow. This album is piggin' great. It comes at you from every direction - hip hop, hodown, electronic, African - it's all over the shop, yet still completely coherent and cohesive. I'm genuinely impressed.

This album was one of my gateways into hip hop. A classic, with a star-studded cast. This listen through I found the eclectic nature of the various styles a little jarring in places, but it sounded revolutionary at the time. I’d give this 5 stars just for the joyous bounce of Double Dutch, but this is still a great listen and a hugely influential album.

There's so much more to this album than simply Buffalo Gals and a song about skipping. It's rich in styles, piecing together different cultures and seeing where it takes you. Yep, Malcolm was the great magpie. A musical thief who lifted other ideas for his own benefit. But he had the vision to look a little further afield whilst others stayed at home. I had no idea Thomas Dolby was involved in this. The best album artwork ever?

Wasn't too sure about this at first but it turned out to be a solid fun album. Once it got going it reminded me a lot of street festivals/carnivals I had been to in my youth with all the exhilaration of the communal party atmosphere that they had. Really didn't like that last song 'Duck for the Oyster' but the rest of the album I would happily listen to again.

Loooooved it. In my top 5 so far

Yes! Easy 5. Especially listening to it on duckduckgo. Problem is - this is an album of carefully crafted transitions that need to be fully appreciated on hard media, not via YouTube with ads dividing every fucking track. Keep that in mind while experiencing this album in a format that's kind of antithetical to it.

1983 Hip-hop

Wild and fun. I don't think I've ever heard an album quite like this one. A breath a of fresh air

I don't want to give the excuse that this didn't land because I'm British; but this bland country-rock simply didn't connect with me at all. Boring music, boring lyrics, happy to see the back of this - my Steve Earle comments, but the app glitched. Duck Rock - this was an unexpected joy. Who knows how much of that old charlatan McLaren's input actually made it to the record? Should I care? This is a kaleidoscopic blending of all kinds of influences, yet sounds surprisingly coherent. Love it!

legit. probably some complications with attribution etc, but the sound biz is so good on my earholes.

Full of fun, varied tracks with a consistent theme of “radio show” throughout that helps you get accustomed to the variations on display.

Never heard of this but I'm all about finding weird random crazy shit like this! The instrumentals and various interludes were cool and it's ahead of its time being from the early 80s. The "World Music " vibes pretty good too.

So strange and such a pleasure to listen to. This album is why I like this project so much. Would never know this album if not for this list.

Oh wow... what a ride, what just happened here? Starting off with 'Buffalo Girls', I thought we were off in some kind of early-hip-hop direction. But then we took a left turn onto "latin up-tempo music", which seems to make up the majority of this record. But before arriving in "weird american rodeo town" represented by 'Duck For The Oyster', we had to take a quick detour into an 80s synthpop-ville, with 'World's Famous' (which might have been my favourite song of this record). This album was really all over the place, and I mean that mostly in a good way. It is always fun to hear something that you don't expect! If he could have just managed to tone down the craziness a bit and keep it a bit more cohesive I think it could've gotten a higher rating easily! As it stands, the best songs were the ones that were not really representative of the album; 'World's Famous' and 'Buffalo Gals'. I enjoyed the mid-section to some degree, but that wasn't the best. Not everything is great on this record, but for once I actually think this might be an example of when it actually paid off to to just break all boundaries and go crazy. Interesting album that takes you on a weird journey, and rewards you with some cool songs and an overall nice feeling!

This album is crazy. How have I never heard of this guy before?

How much of this album was actually by Malcolm McLaren and how much was just plagiarised or others' work that McLaren claimed is debateable. He always was a slimy shit of a man. That said, the actual music was enjoyable. A four star album by a one star human being.

This felt kinda like a fever dream. Like someone was stuck in a radio room in a time machine

7.5/10

Fav: Obatala Least Fav: El San Juanera

A bit quirky, but it was fun. I really liked Buffalo Gals.

Very original, opened my eyes to how he exploited other musicians without giving them credits. The 4 stars are for those who actually wrote the music.

Now that's what I was talking about when I said something about stealing from artists who are actually good

This was quite an interesting listen. Blends of rock, jazz, world music, hip-hop, punk… it’s quite the melting pot of influences, and created by the manager of the Sex Pistols. To be honest, I like it more than anything by the Sex Pistols. I debated between 3 and 4 stars, but it has enough interesting moments to justify 4. It was also interesting to hear the genesis of Eminem’s “trailer park girls” verse from Without Me in McLaren’s song Buffalo Girls. I didn’t know who McLaren was as I was listening to it, and thought for sure he was an obscure New York City artist. I was shocked when I read he was British and managed the Sex Pistols before his solo career. Interesting!

Super different from anything I've heard before, I can see how this precedes hip hop in some markets. I didn't love every track, but a lot I really enjoyed, good discovery. Maybe it's white people appropriating black music again (what isn't in the 20th century), but it is catchy. 4*

There’s a lot of good stuff here. McClaren has an ear for talent and he’s very good at promoting different ideas. I think the issue is with McClaren himself, whose vocals feel more like PT Barnum hosting a circus. When it’s just music, it’s actually very good. He’s just a super weird man. 4/5

This album is surprisingly musical for a hip-hop album. Many of the songs don't include lyrics and are purely instrumental. It's a nice mix actually, and this is from someone who doesn't normally listen to hip-hop. I really appreciate the African and Latin influences with the drums and melodies. They give it a very unique kind of sound, especially for the time. Sometimes it sounds like it's from the 90's instead of the early 80's. Favorite song: "Legba" Best representation of the album: "Buffalo Gals"