Reviews (page 7 of 8)
Was kind of enjoying it until I read the review about the guy.
Garbage
Una por y una onga
not for me :')
Crazy how boomers always complain about participation trophies when THIS album made the 1001 albums you need to hear before you die list cuz man I genuinely feel gross listening to this bullshit. Best: Soweto Worst: Jive My Baby Liked songs: 3/11 High 1
Rart å tenke på hvor innflytelsesrikt det albumet har vært, for i dag høres det ut som Banana Airlines med hiphopinnflytelser og Gil Scott-Heron-imitator.
This sounds like someone really tried hard to create fun and enjoyable music, but ended up achieving the opposite for me. These radio-style intros are genuinely annoying. I can't find any song I like, only ones I hate less.
Meh album, apparently terrible person. Last song is awful. It's tantamount to torture.
#958. Holy shit this is bad. Get this shit away from me. 1/5: absolutely not
Buffalo Gals Double Dutch Soweto
I was expecting Punk. I was not expecting Hip Hop and World Music. I was also not expecting to hear something that Eminem sampled in Buffalo Gals. My mood lifted when hearing Double Dutch and Punk it Up because of the clearly South African influence, only to be disappointed to read that it was plagiarised. The more i listened to this album the more i realised how almost this entire album has been culturally appropriated and plagiarised from artists around the world, and especially South African Artists in a period when they were already heavily marginalised. If it was just about the music then my view might be slightly different, but I can't look past this. How disappointing. 1 star Go listen to Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens instead
🎧Remove from list immediately.
This album promised so much with a fusion of multiple styles, but just falls flat. It’s at its best when the South African influence is at the fore. Unfortunately McLaren vocals (if you can call them that) spoil tracks like Double Dutch. Duck For The Oyster is a fun closer though .
I don't know what this is. I kept waiting for something to happen on each track, but it was a lot of jumbled clips of radio broadcasts and phone messages. Not for me. Not sure why its on this list.
Appropriation. Boo.
This is not hip hop, this is not world music, this is a boring white dude who suddenly discovered that black people make great music and he wanted to steal some of their pie. This is the first album on this list that I can say with 100% certainty was an actual waste of time and did not need to be listened to by me before my eventual passing. Give the actual musicians some credit, but this "album" is def a 0.
Id malcolm mclaren wasn't famous, this would never have been released let alone made this list. Its the noodlings of a man who has some interesting ideas but has 0 musical talent.
Bad, really bad.
I was not impressed with this on first listen and the idea of giving it my customary second listen filled me with dread. This is what everyone was always accusing Kanye of doing with sampling - stealing someone else's song and yelling over it. The oyster song at the end was particularly abominable. If you want a GOOD album that fuses Western and African influences where everyone was credited, Graceland exists. If you don't want the Western influence, The Indestructible Beat of Soweto exists. This sucks.
The Brits are at it again. It's kind of profound that the first "hip-hop" album on this list is a white British guy doing "world music" The music isn't bad, but it makes me feel gross that this is hear instead of the music it's largely inspired by. On principle this is 1.
I listened to the first few tracks and turned it off.
Unfortunately this seems to me like a big case of cultural appropriation in his purest form. I like the album, the album is fun but I can't ignore him being a big culture vulture.
Not my jam
p504. 1983. 1 star. Really badly dated cultural appropriation at its worst. And McLaren was a twat. Hard pass from me.
Did Malcolm McLaren write this list?
Stolen trash
What is this shit
Listened Before? N Wait... this was made by a nearly 40-year old (at the time) white guy? No thanks. Added to Library? N Didn't add a song.
McLaren’s usual exploitation shtick. Some of the stuff he stole for this was pretty good, listen to that instead.
Fresh from his appropriation and commercialisation of punk, Malcolm appropriates and commercialises African and Cuban culture. This is essentially an Art Of Noise album with Malcolm as "creative director", whatever that might mean. Forgettable, unremarkable.
It’s amazing how good the stuff that other artists do on here is and how fucking ass his stuff is. This also spawned the abysmal British white guy does parody hip hop song that was basically all over the UK until like 2007
This album felt very disjointed to me...hard to really explain it was just...not good.
Felt like noise
WHY
Nope
The music was catchy and enjoyable but the history behind this album was not.
Sigh... Let's ignore the fact that Malcolm McClaren is a complete piece of shit, and that this album is 100% appropriation of black and latin music with little to no credit given to the actual creators and performers. Even what he has curated here is mediocre at best. This era has so many better examples of EVERYTHING represented on this album. Thought I might enjoy this, but it's embarrassing and infuriating.
Cultural exploitation - the album. Didn't even like it, too confusing for my taste. And the way this guy just puts his name on other people's work is disgusting.
I guess this might have been a bit influential but it is a chore to get through in this day and age.
How the hell did this "bring hip hop to a wider audience in the UK"? If anything I'm surprised it didn't make British hip hop even less popular. Yea this is complete bullshit that can barely be considered hip hop in the first place. Favorite track: World's Famous 1.5/5
I suppose I can understand why this album was included on the list, it was ground-breaking in the UK at the time. But McLaren's rapping is awful, the mixing is ragged, it's a dumb mess. Worst was the use of African musicians without giving them due credit. That's basically stealing, isn't it?
WHAT WAS THIS WHAT
This album feels like flipping between channels on the GTA V radio trying to find a good song and yet never finding anything for 43 minutes straight. This album is a very novel idea of meshing together so many different sounds in an attempt to reach a loud of different audiences, but when those sounds being tested are even more niche for the time of this album's release than the already very niche genre of Turntablism you already know this won't appeal to very many people. This project is kooky and bizarre in a lot of ways I feel are very exclusive to the time and era this project came out and could never be effectively replicated in today's day and age. I did not get any sort of satisfaction or enjoyment out of this album and I truly don't think anyone will unless they are mentally stuck in the 80s and even then I don't think many people enjoyed this then either. Just a very strange project to deem as "essential" when it is one of the furthest projects from that on the entire list.
Real Phil Spector vibes. A window into 80s "world music," as told by some random British guy. Lacks cohesion.
yea i dont know. didnt like it. felt like every catchy bit was diffused by something weird or goofy. plays like a gta radio station without the songs, only the host insterstitials and weird parody ad breaks. best sounding thing was Double Dutch
Rating: 1/10 Fuck this guy! He didn't write or compose or produce any of the music created on this record and as a super early example of turntablism this thing might have been influential to Beastie Boys and whatever else after it, but the whole story of this album is lame as fuck. True turntablists and plunderphonics artists put in such heavy work to transform the art they're using into something unique and interesting. This dude just appropriated international sounds and styles and didn't pay any of them for the work they, not he, actually put into this album. And I really don't think anyone gives a shit about this album anymore, if they ever did
Of its time I guess, a couple of reasonable tracks but not enough to warrant a listen or being on this list
God this fucking sucked. Appropriative and annoying. The only decent elements of this did not even originally come from McLaren. Obatala is a nice track but now that I've learned about Malcom McLaren, it can not save this rating and I feel none the wiser.
Baffled by the choice of this album over any of the Art of Noise albums, who worked on this album, but were much more influential on their own records. It was the Art of Noise albums that were essential to long term music history, not the lame Malcolm McLaren. I would argue that his girlfriend Vivienne Westwood was a much more influential to the popularity of punk and new wave than anything that McClaren personally did by himself. But Art of Noise was influential to how everyone writes and records albums all the way up to today. I respect the artists who were sampled on this record, but do not respect Malcolm McLaren's bullshit take on their efforts. This album has no place on this list. And it does not exemplify hip hop at all much less the good to great hip hop from the 1980s.
First record I couldn't make it through. I really tried, but it was actively killing my mood, and eardrums.
Feels more like cultural appropriation than a fusion of musical styles.
DNF. Fuck this Best Song: N/A Rating: 1/10 Stars: 1
Can't take thiss seriously..doesn't deserve to ve here though a couple of catchy tracks.
It’s like a caricature of an album, as if someone went on vacation to an exotic place, fell in love with the music there, and then rushed home to create something that mimicked the sounds of their trip.
White Boy Listens To World Music once:
Like the Art of Noise but somehow worse.
Not my thing
wtf was that
1 star because fuck this guy.
Man, I just can’t with the cultural appropriation here. Some of the songs sound great, but my understanding is that that’s primarily thanks to the uncredited artists of color who aren’t named Malcolm McLaren….the songs where McLaren is most present are the worse ones. Apparently the album is an important historical document in the introduction of hip-hop to a UK audience? Yeah cool, I still can’t say it merits inclusion on this list. Or, at the very least, there should be an asterisk next to the artist’s name. Not coincidentally, McLaren is also the exploitative “architect” of the Sex Pistols (i.e., the guy who put them all in a band together and decided how they should dress, then took near-total credit for their success and talent even though he was basically just their marketing department). This album is the same type of exploitative shit, but with hip-hop and South African and Caribbean music instead of punk. McLaren is like a pretentious curator in an art gallery where all the names on the artwork are crossed out and “Malcolm” is written in crayon. BOOO.
Lacked cohesion
1. McLaren is a horrible person 2. Idk what I'm listening to here. 3. What did McLaren actually do here in terms of production? All vocal/speaking sections are definitely not him, and none of the sounds were created by him because it's mainly sampled/plagiarised. The second half is better, but I will not accredit that to McLaren
Weird, the genres of the songs were all over the place
Upsiii. Da ist wohl aus Versehen ein total beschissenes Album in diese komische Liste gerutscht - schon wieder … 🐣 bald kann ich das Buch bzw. die Liste wirklich nicht mehr ernst nehmen - halte es für unwahrscheinlich, dass ich bis zum Ende dabei bleibe. Ich schätze, es lässt sich an jedem Tag eine Platte finden, die eine hier gelistete verdrängen kann.
This album feels like an exercise in how to make the most annoying music possible. 0.5/5.0: Unlistenable
i was actually enjoying the world music aspects of this album until learning about how the actual creators of the music went uncredited and didnt receive any royalties. the other components of this album were straight up bad and annoying. not to mention, the last song, duck for the oyster might be the worst thing ive heard through 581 albums on this project.
What the hell did I just listen to? I knew Malcolm McLaren was utterly crap as a person and an impresario, but to credit him with "bringing hip-hop to a wider audience in the United Kingdom" according to Wikipedia, seems way too much. I mean, Derek B. did a whole lot more for hip-hop and rap in the UK than this persona non grata. Add to that the fact that he never paid any royalties to the South African and Caribbean artists, who made this album at least a kind of appreciable, and the utterly lame rap, the '80s production by Trevor Horn, and the pirate-radio samples that were supposed to make this a genuine experience, and you've got all the ingredients of an incompetent, unimpressive, and totally misplaced album on this list. 1/5
Uma metralhadora giratória sem pontaria. Atira pra todo lado e não acerta em nada. Perda de tempo.
Wow. This is bad. It's cultural appropriation at best and plagiarism at worst. But even beyond that, it's just put together terribly. A few of these tracks would be ok on their own, maybe on albums by the artists it was appropriated from. I see a lot of comparisons to Graceland. I guess they are both 80w albums with "World" influences. Paul Simon at least made the appearance of working with the artists he narrowed from. He also has talent, which is very much lacking here.
WTF is this? When did he do this? And why?
# Album Name: Duck Rock # Artist: Malcolm McLaren # Rating: 1/5 # Comments: Absolute dog shit. Not sure about all these comments saying he ripped off the black genre's as his own. He obviously picked the wrong content. # Top Tunes: # Would I listen to it again? No
Wow this is terrible!
A random selection of samples put together into a rancid gumbo that is sure to get the limbo party jumping! we might even see a white boy try to breakdance! This works best as the backing music for a group of roller-skating buskers in the Florida Keys who milk an unimpressive trick for a long period of time in order to get the maximum guilt donations at the end. Chango is rolling in his grave. Get this away from me. 0 HIGHLIGHTS: X-Games crashes compilation 2013 (VIOLENT)
Bad
Bråkigt och iband helt galet, men lyssnade tyvärr inte så fokuserat så den fick TRE VARV! Fortfarande inte bra, men Punk It Up har NÅT!
Inget emot tidig, lite gladlynt och campig hiphop, men varför lyssna på det här när man kan lyssna på sugarhill gang eller grandmaster flash? Inget emot diskant afrikanskt gitarrplock, men varför lyssna på Graceland från temu när man kan lyssna på Graceland? Värst är det väl när McLaren själv rippedirappar.
Vad hände här egentligen... Kan det här ens klassas som ett album... Måste vara det fulaste omslaget jag sett... Och det sämsta namnet på ett "album"... Aldrig igen...
80-talet var så fackat…
80-talet strikes back! Tänkte ett tag att "jag gillar ju lite sväng" men den världsfrånvände britten i örat tar för mycket plats.
eh not really my jam, a bit of a mix of sounds but none of them really landed well.
My garbage can makes sounds more pleasing than this record.
Officially the worst album I've ever listened to.
This would be "World Music" if the world in question was full of old sunburnt drunk white Englishmen. Disgusting.
Worst album of all time
This is fucking dogshit
Pretty cheeks album. I didn’t hate the first few tracks. Very avalanches vibes. It became hard to listen to. Maybe I just don’t love “world music” that much. I can appreciate the notion that this album introduced hip hop to the UK, but that doesn’t outweigh not crediting artists in the album.
First two songs were kinda cool but I didn’t really like it at all.
yeah.... i get it, 1001 albums, its supposed to be diverse and enhance your view on music.... this just makes me wish another album was recommended and i can get my 50 minutes back
Måske et af de mest UK-brained valg til listen overhovedet, hvilket ik siger så lidt. Lyder mest som at lytte til en enormt irriterende radiokanal i tre kvarter, og produktionskvaliteten på det egentlige musik var meeeh langt det meste af tiden. Lille 1er.
Awful, some genres are meant to be separate. I listened to a couple of his top 10 to see if he could redeem himself but he failed
Awesome!
This felt like a schizophrenic attack this whole album. Not for me. Did not tickle the tism
Not impressed, will not be listening again
It’s a no from me 👎
Okay, so there’s a lot to unpack here and none of it’s good. We’ve McLaren, a Brit, mixing South African melodies stolen from Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens with New York talk radio, then he throws in a dash of hiphop, square dancing (!?), and the odd pan flute to capture a vague sense of exotic “otherness.” It’s so phoney and uncool that I’m baffled anybody could find this listenable, especially with McLaren’s saying words like “ebonettes” and “mambo” with his thick North London accent. I cringed so hard I may have given myself whiplash. Hard pass.
Interesting album, but kind of a mess overall. Taking into account the fact proper credit was not given to the musicians, easy 1/5
Dire, self indulgent, rubbish. How did this crap make the list?
Gross untalented appropriation. There are fleeting moments of fun but overall this album needs a shower.
I could skip this.
There's aspects that are fun and funky, but a lot of it is annoying and kinda off putting so I have to give it a 1
This is one of the most useless album I've ever listened to.
Gear: 64 Audio Duo Artwork: 📻🐍✴️ Production: 🎧🤔🤷 Music: ♻️🗑️❓ Ratinng: 🦆/5
Duck Rock? More like Duck Sh**. "Obatala" is pleasant listen. The rest of the album is as already stated.
There feels like there should be some cool stuff here, but it never really materializes for reasons directly connected to the cultural web of shit Duck Rock is embroiled in. From the research I've done, it truly seems that anyone unfortunate enough to interact with Malcolm McLaren feels slighted in one way or another. If you just give his wikipedia article a brief look, it seems that nearly every band who he was involved with felt mismanaged. He's not even a musician really, he's a businessman, an organizer and a curator, which is admittedly a kind way to put it. And this is his debut album. I think he does some vocals here, but aside from that, I don't think he contributes a whole lot. It feels like a DJ Khaled situation, where it's more that he uses his money and industry status to summon talented artists into a room together to make music for him. And that's on the songs where he isn't just ripping songs by African artists wholesale, slapping some percussion on them, and yelling a little (I'm not even sure if he's doing the yelling). Like even on "original" composition Buffalo Gals, someone else programmed the drums, scratched the records, and recorded a lot of vocals. And his part, as far as I can tell, is just yelling out squaredance calls. I even found an interview with Trevor Horn in which he describes the process of physically forcing McLaren to stay on beat to just record *this*. In fact, more often than not, it doesn't even feel like McLaren's really doing much that's transformative at all. Which compounds with the fact that this album was created without any attention given to ethics. McLaren manages to exploit the African artists he samples, the American hip hop artists he was working tangential to, and probably the studio musicians he gathered to pull it together. And just to set ethics aside for a second, he exploits hip hop for the first three songs, and it doesn't sound bad, all things considered. But then he turns to world music, and his laziness really hurts the album. The majority of Duck Rock feels directionless and sloppy. Who would have thought that when you rip a bunch of songs from people without doing anything transformative, the "collage" approach doesn't really work. Nothing is incorporated with anything else, a cohesive picture never forms. And any goodwill I feel towards this project isn't due to the contributions of McLaren. This has the distinction of being one of the albums to introduce Hip Hop to The UK, so it's place in the history books is set. But, even though I didn't hate listening to it, I'd honestly rather just check out the artists featured and sampled. Artists like The World Famous Supreme Team, Boyoyo Boys, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, The Roan Mountain Hilltoppers and any other uncredited contributors to Duck Rock. I'm not feeling particularly kind to McLaren: this just feels lazy, and we know he knew what he was doing, because he did it with punk a decade earlier.
Dit was vreemd.
I usually don't let other people's opinions of things weigh on mine. But after reading some of these reviews, I almost didn't want to listen to this at all (ie: I did't want to give him the "plays"). But I did skim through about 30 seconds of the first 5 tracks before I decided that I wouldn't continue because my heart just wasn't in it at all. I can't overlook racial appropriation to this degree. As someone who is a fan of the punk scene and British second wave ska... It's sickening to see someone try to monopolize in this way. It's very much the opposite of what those two scenes as well as Hip Hop stands for. The very least I can do as a white person to help end traditions such as this is a hard "pass". Eff this dude.
wtf was that
Remarkable. The album belongs to the two genres that annoy me the most. Nevertheless I listened to the first track with interest and was excited to hear what was coming next. By the second track, I knew. To confirm my impression, I listened to a few more tracks. I'm not interested in this rubbish. 1/5
ok s sind es paar bekannti produzente debii. ähm. ich lies zerst emol wikipedia bevor ich komplett abhate. yo buffalo gals isch vlt es bitz en hit gsi und de eminem hets vlt es bitzli interpolliert. buffalo boys go round the outside und so. ok das slappt no. double dutch au en hit gsi anschinend. ich unterstehe. es het afoch de malcolm mclaren sich de trevor horn gschnappt und mol öpis gmacht. komischh merengue?? was lauft do?? das album isch meega acclaimed? sie hend anschinend d lüt vo südafrika wos ufgnoh hend nöd credited. super. soweto isch wieder huuere fun. aber die wichser hend nöd credited. merci what the fuck isch das album? wer isch de guy wo redt? wiso hets son hillbilly track als letsts? zwei. vlt 1. huere ass.
Nah, started off pretty well but lost interest over time. Guy sucks big time too.
Just quite boring for what it could be. Not sure why this didn't click with me the way other sample based records work. The opening track is somewhat interesting, but then the album just completely loses me. I guess this is historically significant? Oh well.
Hoover rock. Because it really sucks.
Kudos for being an innovator and creative champion for unrecognized and unrepresented in the art and music community. But, he was self-serving and exploited many of the artists he produced. His nihilism just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I like some of the music on this album, but that is tempered by my negative opinion of the man. The music has good qualities. The man didn't.
Vrøvl
non mi è piaciuto e non è manco rap
an absolute waste of time and effort. mclaren should’ve put this effort into making sure that sid vicious stayed alive longer.
Cant even finish it
Not my thing at all
Honestly, it was awful. Just noise.
A very annoying album
Horrible, horrible album - how did this make the list?
Oh absolutely not
Fear I had to skip through this. Guitarist was killing it though!
What the serious fuck is this shit?
A stain on humanity
1. obatala - 1 2. buffalo - 1 3. dutch - 0 4. juanera - 0 5. menera - 1.5 6. punk - 0 7. Legba - 0 8. Jive - 0 * awful 9. Chango - 1 10. Soweto - 0 11. Famous - 0 12. Duck - 0
During the listen I was thinking, this sounds unfocused like a mixed bag of stolen goods. Sounds like colonialism. Not required listening. If the other albums on the list were a bowl of party mix this would be the crumbs left in the bottom of the bowl.
Colonizer theft ... But it's okay because hEs A vIsiOnAry... Uncomfortable listen, feels like McLaren recorded this whole album while wearing blackface.
I dont like this at all
I heard this before. I get that it's hip hop from the beginning, but I don't like it.
This is some white people culture vulture shit. And I also dislike world music so... yeah no
I prefer Duck Stab. At least that was original material.
For the life of me I can’t figure out what this guy was going for. It wasn’t good though, and forgettable.
Really clunkily thrown together old school hip hop, and reading how shady the making of it was makes it an extra turnoff.
Unbelievable, that's just not right. How does such crap get on a best-of list? What was etched onto vinyl under McLaren's aegis is, at best, a collection of cheap attempts and test recordings. It's unbelievable that something like this could even be released. Absolutely unlistenable for me. Whether someone was exploited or everything was stolen, I can't judge, but I know that musicians and musical styles influence each other; it always has been and always will be. This is simply garbage.
??????????????????????????????? WHAT THE FUCK LMFAO
I did not need to hear this album before I died or at any other time.
19/1001 :: Duck Rock - Malcolm McLaren Heard before? ❌ Would I revisit? ❌ Rating: 1 Fav Tracks: - Alrighty…this album is NOT good. The best thing about this album is the cover art which is kinda cool but has some stereotypical 80s graffiti stuff on it which is pretty lame… I hate to say this, but this album was almost unlistenable for me. It’s early hip hop DJ work. Lotta record scratching and samples and frankly the songs are not good and for the most part nonexistent. There must be some historical significance to this album because It does not deserve to be on this list based on quality.
scuffed drums
I am readint that this guy stole the music. So I choose not to listen to it
This was a mad mix of sort of African beats, square dance country and house music. Really didn't gel very well was like listening to three bad albums on shuffle sometimes. Radio phone in bits added nothing. I was more confused than an annoyed while listening but looking back I very much did not enjoy this.
Lots of stolen polka, folk rhythms and radio noise, Beach Boys-esque bits... No cohesion, other than the pursuit of greed. Taking that out of the equation, just not for me; some of it was bad holiday park entertainment.
Absolute shit
What an annoying prick
Turns out ducks listen to shit music.
While I respect the vision on Duck Rock, this album isn't for me. This album feels both sophisticated and amateur at the same time. While there are bits of production here and there that grab my attention, as a whole, the album is so disjointed that the ideas either are far too fleeting or overstay their welcome. If the record were at least a bit catchy, then it'd be fine to put on in the background, but this is yet another area where the album fumbles. There aren't many good melodies or interesting ideas on display to grab my attention. Maybe if you're more into novelty music, you'd dig this. Otherwise, stay away.
This asshole 100% edited his own Wikipedia page to describe himself as an “impresario”. I’m still not quite sure if he actually did anything artistry-wise on this album. Reading his page - yup, just a dude who made a bad album that ripped off more talented artists and took credit for all of it. He’s basically an 80’s DJ Khalid.
shite
Strong dislike
Buffalo gals has the Eminem sample but not my jams
Some consider this a unique mash of African music and hip hop. I consider it colonizing shite that co-opts Black music without the proper respect or credit. When I start to enjoy the music, there usually some bullshit talk vocals, radio interjections, or other useless crap that ruin it for me. Basically, what is true to the origins of the music is joyful and exciting. Unfortunately there’s too little of that and it’s too often interrupted. I really didn’t like this.
Malcolm McLaren is a giant POS, but Buffalo Gals is a good song. 1.5/5, but I think I’ll round down anyways.
Some cool samples and music, but through research, questionable if McLaren did anything to be credited as an artist.
This set of songs based on samples & others work, has no attributes and is just a mess, don't love it.
A record of shit samples. Just a white owner of a fashion store ripping off black folks. Cool.
Cultural appropriation is an anagram of "corrupt liar papulation". This album manages to be both. Fuck Malcolm McLaren!
Too much is happening here for me. was grateful for the end
Hearing a white man “discover” Black music is not revolutionary, I’ll pass.
Graceland for dickheads
Artifice. Pure and simple
british moment
gets a 1 on principle. who cares
Rubbish
This is basically the textbook definition of cultural appropriation in music
not sure how to explain this album other than it sounds like kids music in everything but lyrical content (and sometimes also in lyrical content)
A couple of familiar pop songs on this
Is this an album you must listen to before you die so you know what not to do if you make an album of your own? Yow.
Dogshit album, can’t even call it hip-hop when there is no lyrics💔
Nah, no good -- if you were also wondering what this this is and also only recognize Malcolm McLaren because he was the manager of the Sex Pistols, I guess it's a weird mix of early hip-hop with some turntablism and different music from Africa and the Caribbean. Could be really cool in theory. I don't like it because it's so corny and all over the place that it borders on novelty music, and I think that's kind of a disservice to all the different styles of music it pulls from. Feels less like it's trying to make something cool and more like it's presenting these things as weird and exotic and wacky. It just doesn't work in a way that is annoying to me.
Terrible. Painful to listen to! A lot of non musical crap worked into this album!
A boring and messy record
Meh
Shite
Hot garbage
The Good: terrible ‘80s pop-art over classic ‘70s pop-art? The Bad: that the music is worse than the pop-art… The Ugly: a boom-box with horns sticking out of it… I was unfamiliar this morning with this album, and I wish it had stayed that way… what utter crap. I know that there are people who can see the genius behind all this, even if half of the content is stolen—the amount of people screamin’ cultural misappropriation is enough to make me giggle! Anyway, for me, this is crap. Couldn’t enjoy it at all, so you know what that means… 1* for F
Albummet med verdens højeste CO2 aftryk. Det flyver jo rundt mellem Bronx, Carribien, Afrika, Arkansas og har endda en afstikker til Frankfurt med et Kraftwerk agtigt nummer. Inter er godt i sig selv, sammen er det en katastrofe
Not for me, sorry... I wouldn't think of this as one album to listen before die, as a matter of fact :-/ Also, can't remember a thing from McLaren worth listening :-(
Sorry, i don't get what anyone sees in that Album. Can't listen to it.
Felt like an incoherent mish mash of songs just thrown onto a single album. The album didn't flow and most tracks felt like an intro that was building to something and just never went anywhere.
Wtf
Not sure what that was all about. Not music. Just sounds.
What the hell am I listening to?!
yikes
That started out alright before descending into utter madness. Not for me. Best song: Obatala
Ništa mi nije jasno kod ovog albuma. Kao da se netko zajebava, evo. Zvuči kao skup rendom semplova i zvukova koje je dijete složilo u wannabe pjesme. Not today brudi. 1/5; 1.5/10
This is rap/afrobeat music for people who don't want black people living in their neighborhood. Malcolm McLaren sucks on multiple levels
Infuriating to listen to - especially the radio host / DJ segments which really ruined the flow again and again.
That one shit radio station in every GTA you scroll past every time.
Cultural Appropriation The Album! That is all this is. Malcolm McLaren steals a bunch of music from various cultures, sings poorly, and yes, even raps poorly. But he used artists from those cultures to help make this album you say??? I did a bit of research on this album to learn that even though he brought in artists from those cultures, he left out many of the black and brown musicians from the credits. He also didn't even understand how some of the genres work, including what a "bar" is in rapping. As someone who actually listens to a lot of the various music styles and genres he tries to reproduce here, I’ve heard much better from actual genuine artists. Fuck this dude and this album.
not my thing
A pretty gross album that just samples a load of South African and Caribbean musicians without credit (and inexplicably combines them with playground chants). And not samples in a real hip-hop producer kind of way, where they’re flipped and combined and used to create the backbone of a different piece of music - they’re regularly just played in full while a load of random sound effects shoot off in the background. Some of the rhythms work together really well and the chaotic nature of it was quite fun - it’s l almost like channel-hopping through different stations on three different radios at once - but the fact that the most interesting musical ideas are stolen really takes the fun out of it. Also the album cover sucks
So McLaren stole pre-existing music from black artists, claimed it as his own, then spoiled it with his annoying bleating and making it sound like parody. I'm sorry that this is how Brits were introduced to 'hip hop' - but that doesn't make this a must listen for anyone.
McLaren is such a weird person in terms of pop culture. I guess the closest modern comparison is Simon Cowell. He's a great bellwether, though. You know a scene is just about to get lame once he shows up. And this album is... yeah, pretty lame. I'll give it credit for playing with multiple different genres and sounds, but it's incredibly cynical about it. It just takes the broad sounds of a few genres and mashes them together. It's a giant pool that's an inch deep. I'm finding it hard to give it a number, because I tend to save 1's for music that I just find deeply unpleasant. This isn't that, it's too tame to really sink its teeth into the suck like some McLaren proxies can. Still, I don't want to give it even that much credit. At least it gave us one of the weirder Shady samples, which, by the way, is also a pretty lame song, but Eminem is great at being simultaneously lame and cool.
what is this
Didn’t really listen to it properly but was just a bit odd for me.
forgettable
Malcolm might be the lamest person of all time and l will never understand why people don't hate on the sex pistols for that very reason.
Scratch Nummer zu Begin der 80er. Das Album hat keine Seele und keine musikalisch anschaulichen Element. Während die ersten Song als Laune der Popgeschichte zu verzeichnen waren, wird es am Ende fast schmerzhaft. Der “Song for Congo” war nach fast 300 gehörten Album - mit einer der schlechtesten Sound überhaupt.
Horrid Henry wouldn’t make people listen to this
McLaren managed to create something worse than the sex pistols
Still no Bob seger
Não entendi o que estava tocando, pareceu-me apenas um programa de rádio mal feito.
There's nothing here for me and based on the total listens on streaming, I can't imagine why this record is on this list.
This felt like a barely-connected string of hip hop ramblings, world music, and a radio show? Not even sure I'd call it eclectic, just confusing and honestly pretty bad.
The music is pretty cool (although I am not really a fan of hip hop)...BUT...I am giving this a 1 rating based on finding out he had taken music from South African musicians and failing to credit them for their work. NOT COOL, NOT COOL AT ALL!
Definitely never listed to anything on this album before. It was also definitely not what I expected based on Malcolm McLaren and his influence on late 70s punk music. This is the 80iest of 80s. Definitely the source of a lot of samples. I'm not sure what's with the "live radio DJ" stuff, but it's definitely a time and place. I also hate how they use "female" as a term. I think this will fall heavily into albums I've listened to, but won't ever listen to again. Not sure that I'll ever spin any of the individual songs either. Though the first half did make me feel like I was at a party on the ocean shore, the album really starts to drag on it's second half. Legba is terrible, and it doesn't much improve from there. By World Famous I was just waiting for the album to end, and...suddenly square dancing? What?? Ok. This is stupid. 1/5
Well… this is basically just a mixture of sounds made by a man who never credited the people he stole from. It sounds good but it’s just all over the place
A ginger slaps his name on a bunch of work by black artists. Got it.
1.5☆/5 08.14.2024
OK all you "Those Brits stole our music" types, this is what artless theiving sounds like. This is cultural appropriation. Funny thing is he clambered aboard the hip-hop / break-dance trend so quickly he's almost cutting edge (for a UK artist). I would say though as a South London kid when this came out I do rememeber Grand Master Flash, Break Machine, Rock Steady Crew around the same time. But it's bad, really bad, reprehensible, this overtakes Bon Jovi for most cringeworthy by a mile. And it doesn't just bust it's way into the black american music scene of the time, it also bizarrley heads off into the land of country jigs and hoedown. Then there's the childish "scratching" obsession and the tapping away at the same single vocal sample repeatedly. Jesus. Just painful.
this was all over the place - I didn't like anything about it
No
Enjoyment level = zero. Desire to ever hear this again = zero.
Meh
Que bosta
Don’t know what the fucking point of this is
What a weird collection of tracks. With the exception of the weird radio DH call excerpts (which sounded terrible and weren't funny or interesting at all), it seemed like each one was completely different from all the rest. Which is kind of interesting, except that each one was either severely jarring and annoying to listen to or very amateurish and crappily recorded, or both. The only tracks that were somewhat decent were Obatala and Double Dutch, but I doubt I would ever listen to either of those again either. One star.
The western gaze
What the duck is this doing on a must hear list. Never Mind The Bollocks is classic, but the only good thing anyone in the group ever did. This is absolute garbage and I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be a joke on the listener or not. Duck you, list makers, you suck again!
This really came out of nowhere and I don't know why it's on this list. A mix of south american/african sounds and this guy 'singing' about jumping rope? I looked it up and it was supposedly influential, I don't see how it influenced anything besides maybe being out of the box at the time. Malcolm just took sounds from other cultures and didn't add anything to it, and to top it off he also did not credit any africans that worked on the record so he was just a bad person. Bad person, confusing and derivative music, 1 star.
Hypocritical cowardly creep with music that reflects that. Zero stars. Rounded up because whoever was in charge of buffalo girls did manage to write a decent pop arrangement.
I suppose it was influential, but it's not great to listen to now. Some good instrumental bits, but better to go back to the sources
this was an incoherent mess
influential in brining hip hop to the UK - think it would have been fine anyway
Doesn't feel authentic.
Kinda fun with how bonkers it is. Left me wondering wtf genre is this album.
Horrible. No idea what this shit is. There may have been a decent song buried in here somewhere but way too much bullshot surrounding them
0/5
Until there's a word that specifically means "worse than awful", referencing this album will have to suffice.
No
Well.. Not sure what to say about that to be honest... Like some others I saw in the reviews, I was hopeful with the 1st track "Obatala", but then things quickly devolved from there... I get that setting up an album like a radio show might have been creative back then, but that's why we have radio stations - as I'd rather listen to that if that's what I'm in the mood for... In fact, this past weekend I was listening to 104.1 HOT FM in The Cayman Islands, as we travel there a lot, and it was a very similar in terms of DJ interruptions and comments over the music et al - except with Reggae & SOCA music... 104.1 HOT FM is authentic - "Duck Rock" absolutely was not in my opinion... Only other song that I enjoyed was "Legba", as the rest of the tracks just seemed less-than-authentic to me - like the artist was TRYING to be like someone else - as opposed to being true to what they were about... Also loses points, because I heard that many of those who made the music on this album - were NOT credited, and that's where the money is - so definitely big-time shady if you ask me... I was sort of perplexed me that "Buffalo Gals" & "Double Dutch" were apparently hits - so I listened to each a few times to make sure that I wasn't missing anything - but other that the "Buffalo Gals" chorus that sounded like Eminem's "...please stand up... repetition in 2000's "The Real Slim Shady" (i.e. not sure if Eminem got that from this song or from somewhere else...) - there was absolutely nothing compelling about either in my opinion... BTW - there was a tie for WORST song on the album - among a lot of them, but it was a race to the bottom between "Jive My Baby" & "Duck For The Oyster" - as both were among the most dreadful songs I've heard on the 1,001 to date... Finally - pretty sure that one of my group participants is going to absolutely love this album... Hope I'm wrong, but that's my vibe... : )
I have no idea what I just listened to.
I don't like instrumental music.DNF
couldn't get past first three songs, unlistenable
I tried. This album is awful. Like zero stars awful.
Not for me
its rly weird probably good for some! not i!
Album cover is funny as fuck but what is this? Why is it on the list? Is it bad? No. But it's noisy as hell, makes me feel nothing but desire for it to end. More like a 3/10 but I can't justify putting it with other 2/5s. Fav tracks: - .....
Too eclectic and all over the place. 1/5
Manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls. Interesting, experimental soundscapes + world music. But, not really for listening.
The hip hop side of this album was not my favorite. If it had been more focused on the world music aspect I think I would have enjoyed it more. It felt like it didn't quite know what it wanted to be. 1 star because I wouldn't ever recommend this album to someone I know, and I don't think I'll listen to it again.
Just… no. [0086/1001]
👎
I do not get it.
urgh
This is hairable. Elmo instruments.
a garbage dump if you will.
Na
Sorry it was bad then and it hasn’t improved.
Yup, not my gig.
I was actually angry that I had to listen to this album.
- meh
Didn't like it.
Remote Malcom McLaren from this album and let everyone else cook. Also, a lot of those performers didn’t get any credit which is whack. I appreciate the use of African and Caribbean music tastes, but some of it comes off tone deaf and a bit offensive to me in 2023. I wasn’t into this one. Worse one yet for me 1. not at all what I was expecting. Odd instrumental drives by a keyboard or synthesizer? Nice drum beat. 2. What the fuck is this? Is he a DJ? Is my man rapping? I dig the samples and the radio cuts. This is not what I was expecting but I’m letting it breathe 3. The instrumental is great. I don’t know about the lyrics tho. The background singers are great tho 4. Why is he trying to sound Spanish. This is offensive 😂 the instrumental is fire tho. The radio interludes are a nice touch. Keeps a theme going 5. There’s nothing Punk about this track so what’s with the title. I think I’d like this more if Malcolm mcksren wasn’t singing 6. The use of African and Caribbean beats is all over. No shitty vocals on this track 7. No shitty vocals on this track 8. Another song from the Caribbean. This is only decent because of all the background folks. I hate everything about McLarens vocals and lyrics. He is very annoying. Remove him and I would actually dig this 9. I find most of the instrumentals on this very interesting are the least. Some I even like but I don’t love that most of the folks were uncredited 10. Same story here. 11. Love this instrumental 12. What in the square dance shit is this. This is the closer???
What?
Siger mig ikke noget.. Den ene stjerne for verdensmusikviben og Keith Haring.
I enjoyed some of the music but the whole package was just bizarre. I also read that he initially didn't credit a lot of the musicians at all somehow and they had to sue him. Weird all round
This music is really fun and interesting and clearly had a big impact on music in the UK by introducing many people in the UK to hip hop in the 80s. However, it's a bit mad that it was just ok to blatantly appropriate an entire album of music and not even credit the musicians or make any changes to it to make it your own or bring any creativity. Kind of grim. Cool idea to bring music from the Mahotella Queens around the world but not if you're not going to credit them or even mention their names on the album... Weird. Soweto is a great tune but it doesn't belong to Malcolm.
Nah, after reading Grace's review I looked into the album and yeah she's absolutely right. I think this is just some rich bloke who ripped off a load of stuff to make an album. I get what he was trying to do and there are positives to the music etc but he seems like a bit of a dick.
Didn’t like this or the radio show
Ni
horrible
Awful, Malcolm Mclaren approriates without skill or class.
BL: never heard of Malcom McClaren before but seen that he had a lot of connections to the underground art rock scene, so will be interested to see how this one turns out. AL: i can appreciate what this was going for. But as I also do not like the sex pistols or the new york dolls, who he was responsible for a lot of their fame alongside westwood. This just felt like it was trying way too hard to say or do something, and in turn just ends up being too experimental - but not even in the way that it pushes boundaries, its just odd for the sake of being odd. I'm so happy I wasnt alive in the 70s and 80s because this wave of punk pseudointellectualism is absolutely mindnumbing and id be happy if i never had to think about it again. FT: "Buffalo gals" (the only one i found catchy) 1/5
Such a weird album. Very little of it anything to do with Malcolm Mclaren. And then the bits that are - his inability to sing is just the start of the problems
Bozo ass music. I want to shove this album in a locker and force it to do my homework. Oh, Eminem sampled this? Alright cool, guess that makes it worthy of being one of the 1001 albums you have to hear before you die. Thanks Robert Dimery.
This was not good. Many drugs were presumably involved, but creativity did not flow in a positive direction as a result.
pity zero stars aren't available
Couldn’t make it through this one. I had an immediate negative reaction to the first song and pushed through a few more songs. It didn’t age well and wasn’t enjoyable.
I don’t purposely hate world music but I just do this is weird and yeah unique but rubbish 1/5.
It's just not for me. Experimental stuff by a dude that was mainly produced by another dude (Trevor Horn).
Nope.
You are kidding me
Terrible
Not for me. Self indulgent, privileged, superior.
Really oldschool hiphop, not my thing
Nope.
Really not my jam
Recognized several jams but it was a hard listen
Not my style, would not listen again
This album is ridiculous. Basically just makes a mediocre song from many genres
Jeez this album sucks, I was gonna give it 2/5 but the last track reminded me of why this album sucks. It makes me gag.
1.75
This album contains music from South Africa, North, Central, & South America, and the Caribbean, all compiled together with an underlying hip-hop vibe by Malcolm McLaren. This album is credited as bringing hip-hop music to a wider audience in the UK. It is a great collection of world music mixed with hip-hop, released during the early years of that music genre. I didn't really care for any of the songs, but overall the music was interesting. I believe that if I was from the Caribbean, South America, or South Africa then I would like this album a lot more.
1st one has a nice drum beat but annoying that same word repeated over and over. 2nd all over the place musically lot of sampling. I wasn't expecting a rap album if that what this is? 3rd song. Just sounds like a bunch of random stuff was sampled together. Not enjoying the vibe of this at all. Early 80s hip hop that just doesn't sound like its a serious composition.
This is pure garbage
No thank you
not my cup of tea
Vast van een genialiteit waar ik geen weet van heb.
Teveel een carnaval voor mij.
Als ik DJs tussen de muziek door wil horen praten en over de telefoon met luisteraars suffe dingen wil horen bespreken, dan zet ik Q-music of 538 wel aan. Maar dat doe ik nooit want ik heb daar een hekel aan.
keep the rock in the duck please
Listened to 2 songs, didn’t like it.
Not a fan
Weird!!!
Might have been evolutionary for hip hop, but not my jam.
Frustrating mix of styles in a very 80s package, pretending to be a radio show
Not a fan
Felt like I hit the button from play music to play radio?! Especially when looking at the album cover. I did have two tracks I liked: Obalata and World famous. Did not understand this album, was it just music put together for a audience that loved a DJ? I did not appreciate the collage of tunes My guinea hens loved Duck for the Oyster.
Shite