The Message

Overall okay. It's influence on later hip hop is clear. There were some really odd bits, especially Dreamin, WTF was that.

Way more of a stylistic hodgepodge than anticipated, but I enjoyed it... even with the weird shift in the middle with "Dreamin'" and "You Are" (the dip in Spotify plays for those cracked me up).

The influence of The Message (the song) is undeniable. It’s a foundational piece of what hip hop even means as a genre. Additionally, She’s Fresh is a really nice funk influenced track, She’s Nasty is a catchy and well produced, and even Scorpio is innovative in its own right. HOWEVER, the three tracks preceding The Message are so bad that it throws off the entire listening experience. It’s a Shame’s hamfisted and simplistic political messaging might be forgivable if the song didn’t sound like garbage, but it does. Dreamin’ made me physically uncomfortable—it is so cringy and I honestly hope that Stevie Wonder never heard it. And even as a Christian, You Are comes off more as a “Jesus or my girlfriend” song than any sort of authentic worship or witness.

6/10. I enjoyed the mix between old school hip hop, Motown and soul

Dreamin' sounds like a song for an SNL skit and You Are is a snoozefest. The remaining tracks were a delightful trip back to the 80s.

Interesting to hear well known riffs. Not something that will be in my playlist, but it was generally entertaining.

I knew It's Nasty and The Message. The funkier songs were fun, and unfortunately some of their political messaging still rings true today. The middle of the album was not for me.

really fucked with this one. they do indeed have some funk. they're from new york like meeeee

4.5 even. not terribly impassioned on the matter but i quite liked it

Old school Hip-Hop

Smoother and more soul than expected

Disco, 80er HipHop und dazu eine Prise Funk. Ziemlich nervig, muss ich sagen.

Geht richtig gut los, aber nervt nach einer Weile mit übertriebenen Effekten

Thought this would be all hip hop; was a lot more soul/R&B than I was expecting. A LOT of samples recognized in future hip hop tracks. “Dreamin’” was a super creepy R&B ode to Stevie Wonder.

Nostalgia can’t save the fact that early rap / hip hop was very simple and not so great. One fantastic song. I get they laid the groundwork for a lot of future music. But it’s still a bit cringy.

Good album with some classic tracks. Less Hip Hop than I thought. I enjoyed. 7.1/10

This was, as expected, super old-school all the way through, and I fear I don't love that kind of hip-hop for 45 minutes in a row, as it can become a little repetitive for me. However, as forerunners of the genre, I have a ton of respect for this. Fun beats, lyrics that don't take themselves too seriously (most of the time), and exactly the flows you'd expect from an '82 hip-hop album. Reminds me of my dad, who is the one who introduced me to "The Message". Favorite tracks: It's Nasty, The Message

Things I was expecting: more rap, less singing. Things I wasn't expecting: dropping the "f-slur" a couple of times. All in all, not bad. Definietely a time capsule of early hip hop.

Don't.push.me as I'm close to the edge. The most unexpected record the week goes to The Message. On top of the classic title track, great stuff from opener She's Fresh, Tom Tom Club sampling It's Nasty, Stevie Wonder tribute Dreamin through to the mashup of Adventures of Grandmaster Flash. Would of been a 5 but the cheesy You Are pulled it down but 4.5

I have only heard the title track from this album before. Not really a massive rap guy, but reading about how influential to the genre it was was cool.

I have mixed feelings about this album. There are some really groovy songs on here that are very danceable that I enjoyed. A few of the songs were getting on my nerves though because of the drum machine and synth just sounding so 80s. Scorpio was the worst one. For some reason I didn't love the song about Stevie Wonder either (and I'm all for Stevie getting praised!). I found it strange that the main theme of the song is that they are dreaming about Stevie. Lol. The album finishes strong with The Message though - that's such a cool track. I recognized it from being sampled in the song Players by by Coi Larey. I also had a bonus track called The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels of Steel that is very funky with a bunch of different samples from other songs. Overall, I think the good outweighs the three less good songs in the middle.

Had to listen to this one on YouTube. But it was worth it!

I really enjoyed the groove of this album. Some of the songs weren't as good. But, overall this was a great album

Picture me doing the robot, for 5 minutes straight. Thats what occured in my kitchen during Scorpio. If I wasn't doing the robot to this song, this song would have annoyed me as it did with Karen. But I found becoming one with the drum machine and talk box really helped improve the vibes. This feels of its time, but unlike Run DMC, I really enjoyed the oldschool vibes this one brought to the table. Even though the drum machine at times got a little tiresome, they switched things up enough to the point where it felt fresh throughout. Grandmaster Flash was truly a pioneer of the turntable, and I pay respect where respect is due here.

Interesting album that maybe isn't as defined by its masterpiece title track as I originally thought going into this. There's some genuinely cool stuff to dig into here outside of that. I mean, just to get it out of the way, 'The Message' is maybe the most important hip-hop song of all time. Like a genuine gold standard for storytelling, flow, pacing, and production that was just unheard of at the time. And it's not really a "legacy" track either, like maybe "Rapper's Delight" is - a song that you kind of just need to hear if you're a fan of hip-hop history, but might not necessarily go out of your way in the day to play it. Nah, 'The Message' is a genuine bop that still stands the test of time, with a funky electronic groove and some damn solid rapping - the deliver of "It's like a jungle sometimes" alone just feels so prophetic and powerful. And I love how there's no real hook or chorus here; between all the verses, it's just the beat playing out with a whole lot of empty space, giving the listener a breath to reflect on what was just said. A genuine masterpiece and, again, the blueprint for socially conscious hip-hop as we know it. And the rest of the tracklisting, it's solid. I guess I just found it really hard to grasp what I was listening to here, it's just super varied. 'She's Fresh' sounds like a Funkadelic song frankesteined with your typical call-and-response emcee type hip-hop stuff from the early '80s. No real rap verses but the song's really dynamic nature more than makes up for it. 'Scorpio' for as repetitive as it was, was honestly really neat, clearly drawing a lot from the emerging techno scenes of Detroit from the time, not unlike Afrika Bambaataa's 'Planet Rock' - early hip-hop sure loved their electro. The spotify version of this album has a second version of 'Message' which also had this early techno feel, and some more really solid verses with some really pretty synth-pad work. It's like all the songs leading up to the title-track show hip-hop's various roots and influences, be they electornic, funk, or disco, and how they all manage to come together to form what we know as hip-hop today by that iconic closing track. With a genre as vast, varied, and complex as hip-hop, sometimes it can be hard to point to a record and call it a pillar-stone or essential building block. But I truly believe what Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five put together here is a bridge that truly took all of hip-hop's influences, from electronic to funk, and started really putting those pieces together to form the start of a wholly unique and incredible genre.

esta bueno eu

Started my day by trying to get to work but a train has broken down blocking the road. Frustrating. But this album is making me smile. Very nice energy. Well balanced: some very energetic and upbeat stuff, a few tender numbers, some harsh social commentary. I could do without the religion but it's a good message none the less. Solid album.

Innovative. Sometimes clever, sometimes not.

15 Oct 2026 · 8/10 This was so good! I really enjoyed it, it was super varied. I will be listening again. It's extremely goofy at times though, but charmingly so. It also feels dated, obviously.

Electric boogie! Klinkt heel basic tegenwoordig, maar dat was toen echt vet!!

They got me in the first half... At some point the bars got to real and scared me... Great flow and message 3/5

10/13/26. An album I always considered the birth of hip hop, but was surprised on how funky and soulful it was! It's truly feels like a mashup of black music at the time, with The Message serving as the anchor track.

Parts of the album are important to culture and the progression of hip hop, and other parts sound like a much less talented EWF. 3 stars.

i think that this album gets put in the bucket of “influential but not actually that worth listening to”, which i disagree with. the first two tracks are solid bangers and the genre experimentation that follows is always at least decent, if a little goofy. and then The Message is the closing track and it’s just such a great song. this album isn’t a masterpiece but it has the grooves it needs. remember: hip hop started off as dance music. deserves to be one of the 1001? it’s undoubtedly the most important hip hop album from the early 80s. which means it represents an inflection point where disco and rapping went hand in hand. obviously yes

Just got Tom Tom Club 2 days ago and now this one which samples it. Tom Tom Club did it better. This got a little boring but I appreciate it.

Ok, o álbum começa com "Scorpio" e essa batida eletrônica que me faz estranhar bastante no início, e fico sem saber o que esperar do resto do álbum. Como um bom amante e devorador de álbuns, eu fico. E sou recompensado com o início, ou podemos dizer, com o fortalecimento do rap social. "The Message Pt. 1"... cara, eu já escutei essa batida tantas vezes. Minha Nossa! Que som e letra incríveis! É o rap colocando o dedo na ferida e expondo a realidade dos marginalizados. Acabou a vibe positiva dos anos 80 no rap e é hora de convocar nossos irmãos para algo maior. É hora de nossa identidade ser evocada para o mundo. Aumenta o som desse carro e vamos botar pra foder! E é engraçado. Claro, não faço ideia se foi intencional, mas essa quebra que existe de "Scorpio" para "The Message" soa como se fosse algo do tipo: "Estamos indo para esse lado aqui, tá? Gosto da festa, mas sou maior quando tenho voz e pessoas que me escutam e se identificam." "Survival, only the strong can survive!"

JL : 3, The Message

Vaca catch up

Loved 'Scorpion' and 'New York, New York' was ok. I didn't really like the rest though. It went from electronic, to rap, to r and b, some gospel and then back to rap.

Really uneven. Some all-time classics here, but there are some laughable tracks too.

Oh this album suffered by showing up a day after an album of the same genre which felt much more rich and joyful. But I have to reining myself that this one was released four years prior. These guys were really early pioneers in hip hop. And so even though it hasn’t aged all that well, the others may never had achieved their heights without standing on Grandmaster Flash’s shoulders.

This album in on here because The Message, the song, is on it. There I one other great track and that’s Scorpio, which is an early electro sing with amazing vocoder. It’s Nasty is good but the Tom Tom Club sample is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The rest feel like filler songs. Dreamin’ and You Are were painful to sit through. The Message, being so significant, brings the album up to three stars.

Fairly inoffensive, but a good vibe.

Who's the extra dude on the cover?

The Message is good, but would not be a worse song if it were half as long. The rest was not for me.

The song The Message alone merits this four stars. Some of the rest is pretty good, although they frequently go too long in a song. The ode to Stevie Wonder was interesting, but got a bit much after not too long. I hope they got to meet him, though.

It's musical, but it's still rap, ya know.

AWESOME. It's Nasty + The Message are all-timers.

The message, it’s nasty, where is my ghetto blaster?

fine by me.

This album (original ) is great but I am confused by the remake aspect of it The first couple tracks feel like they are straight out of the club. Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five are hosting a dance party and it slaps. It’s Nasty and Genius of Love (one of my favorite songs) works for me. Scorpio is a great bit of Afro Futurism. Unfortunately they do try to sneak in one bit of pure garbage- I mean songs I don’t particularly like. You Are is sappy sentimental religious nonsense. Miss me with that. The record ends strong with their iconic social commentary tracks including the title track Survival, and New York New York. Unfortunately the inclusion of the above discussed garbage tracks keeps this album from getting the 5 stars it might otherwise deserve. Note that I am listening to this 2010 release but engaging with it as if it were the original album I grew up on. I don’t have the bandwidth to listen to the original and work out the nuance there.

A crucial document in American music history. Also a decidedly mixed listening experience. With early, groundbreaking work in any genre there is a certain amount of grace the listener needs to bring to the listening experience. That's baked in here. I never listened to this band in my formative days. I remember The Message being huge. I think I heard it here and there on the radio, but mainly from other people singing, NY, NY big city of dreams ... I was expecting this to be a two turntables and a microphone record. It is not. The arrangements are reasonably full, the music built out into a richer palette than I expected. The first four songs are all interesting. Hearing GM Flash interact with Genius of Love, Rapture, and It's a Shame is really interesting. The sampling and construction of the music itself is fascinating. None of it is great, but it's highly functional ... it's engaging. And of course groundbreaking. Then we get to Dreamin' (Quite Terrible and Seemingly Interminable) and having finally endured that, it's followed up with You Are (More of the Same). Good God. Those two songs are bad. Then the centerpiece, The Message. Outside of its famous "city of dreams / not always what it seems" bit, this is really not a good song. As with so much of the album, the vocals are just not good. And I think the performances are made to sound worse by the recording of them. We will never know. So thin, and not great at working within the music's timing, and ... lame much of the time, as far as writing. The vocals are just not good. Adventures is a fascinating tapestry, but ... kind of a grab bag, too. Overall, this album just isn't a great listen; throughout, it is hit or miss, cheek by jowl, soup to nuts. Bonus sidebar: Skip McDonald, Doug Wimbish, and Keith LeBlanc are all on this record. After playing in the Sugarhill Records house band, they went on to do a lot of work for On-U Sound, especially as Tackhead, as well as solo projects, session work (including with the Rolling Stones -- who hired vocalist Bernard Fowler on a permanent basis, putting an end to Tackhead), and in the fascinating ambient-dub-blues group Little Axe. Both together and separately, they each had a really interesting career after this record. Skip McDonald is for my money criminally underappreciated. I went through a period of watching a slew of youtube videos about This many or That many guitarists who ... should be better known, were left off some list of the greatest, blah, blah ... his name never comes up. Great musician.

Good grief I just wrote an entire review that got lost in a computer glitch. Dang it. Insert frustrated Marty emoji here! This was a real roller coaster. I didn't know what to expect, and in that sense the album delivered, because I didn't understand what the heck was going on. In another sense it didn't deliver, because more than half the songs on here were not enjoyable or interesting. The slow songs were unbearable, in particular. I always liked "the Message" and still do and I found a couple of the other songs interesting and pleasantly weird. Reading the wikipedia entry I'm surprised that the NYT critic in 1982 called this the album of the year (??). Maybe it just sounded so fresh and different at that time? A later critic in 2020 called it a "singles-plus filler cash-in" and that seems much more accurate. It boggles my mind that in the general 1001 album reviews there are people calling this a "masterpiece." Masterpiece of a cash grab!

Love that one of these guys is just "Cowboy". This is earlier than I usually associate with hip hop, but I'm guessing that's why it's here on the list. It's hitting all the big hip hop sounds, and all these guys seems like they're having a lot of fun making their music!

Do you guy think that Kidd Creole is innocent?

alright

Grandmasterful

The Message is iconic, but after listening, I was left with only one question. I’m dreamin’ about you…Stevie Wonder?

Brings back memories. The first rap album i heard. Totally awesome!

A bit of a mixed bag. It's bookended by great tracks, and I really enjoyed the electro funk of Scorpio too. But the fairly insipid soul tracks on side 2 really bring it down. The quality of the best tracks keeps it at a 4 though, despite the inconsistency.

A fundamentally corny hip hop disco album. While The Message is a decent track, I did not find myself moving or grooving to this one as a whole. 3/10

620/1089 - White Lines is what I know from them and is a cool song but it isn't on this album. Overall it was pretty alright. I think I like samples better when I'm ignorant on what's being sampled.

#485/1001. Some of the best electro-hip-hop and some of the cheesiest Stevie-Wonder-ballad-tributes ever on a hip-hop album. Super fun and super dated, but there is something cute in the early hip-hop to-the-beat-flow or whatever they call it. But I got the Message (three times), so don't push me

"Scorpio" and "The Message" keep this from being a downright bad album. The love song to Stevie Wonder, and the follow up "You Are" are two absolutely terrible tracks. The first couple tracks were passable, but forgettable. I liked the scratching on "It's A Shame" but almost everything else about it was, indeed, a shame. I'm giving it a 3, but it's a low 3. Disappointing

Not a fan, was pretty boring to me

No thanks. By the time I got to the penultimate track, I saw there was one more, and went "Oh, no!"

5/10

Fun and funky but doesnt really leave a strong impact on me. Also the track Scorpio sucked so much it almost tanked the rating to a 2 on it’s own. Standouts are She’s Fresh, It’s a Shame, Dreamin (i listened to wonder book on my last review, perfectly timed), You Are, The Message and new york.

This is a bit of an oddity that draws odd parallels with the early Beatles albums. Like them they’ve got key songs in the new style. In this case the message, but also a grab bag of other styles popular at the time including a very strange tribute to stevie wonder in the style of stevie wonder. It’s enjoyable enough but another I’ll never imagine myself going back to

This album defied my expectations. Silly and fun, and slow and soulful, some funk elements.

Fantastic album again. Massively influential, and some cracking songs. A fair few weaker ones on here though, knocking it from a perfect album. But overall just great stuff.

A bit too corny for me. The Message is a banger though

What a blast to listen through. This is just a nice pocket full of energy, positivity and joy. And a classic in its genre at that. Easy. 5/5

Like it 3/5

If I remember correctly, I had Encarta 97 in my family's first PC and one of my first searches was rap music, a 30 second snippet of this song came on. I used to play it over and over. The oldest of old-school hip-hop, and a massive track at the end backed by standard early rapping and beats. Shame that those slow jams in the end really killed the momentum leading to the title track.

I mean, it's not bad as pop, but as hip-hop, not my fav.

I was expecting it to be all primitive hip-hop, but it's actually mostly funk music. The hip is there in small doses, and very good it is too. Some of the other tunes haven't dated as well - the Stevie Wonder naming song is not good.

Right then. Well it was quite fun, The Message (track) is a classic of it's time. And as per track 2, was that really Kid Kreole without his coconuts? as I say it was quite a fun album, not great, but fun. I'll give it a 3

The Message is iconic. Not up for debate. Other tracks were enjoyably funky, but probably won’t be revisiting it any time soon.

What the fuck was this? It seemed like two mini albums all mixed into one. One comedy soul thing - was one of them going on about Stevie Wonder? Baffling and a bit disconcerting. I was expecting/hoping for proto-rap and the smell of the grime and crime ridden streets of NYC, some of crap like that. What I got was confusion and bewilderment, not a completely bad thing as it did evoke an emotion, just not a welcome one. I had to check whether I had put the right album on at one point. File under: a mess.

Started with a couple good songs, but holy crap did it get bad quickly. It’s a Shame and Dreamin’ are two of the cheesiest songs I have ever heard. Absolutely awful. The Message is great but overall this album is just too damn cringy and doesn’t hold up well at all.

Insane. So many songs I've heard and samples that still get used to this day, it's so influential that it almost feels like an FBI psyop for it to not show up more often next to albums like Sgt Pepper's or DSOTM, I can understand not liking the more filler-like songs, but who else could hate on this whole thing besides a white guy in a suit trying to keep a struggling man down?

"Open ses'ame!"

Great storytelling. The electronic rhythms still have plenty of bounce.

love she’s fresh. and i liked the stevie wonder one idc it was so cute :)

It was okay but wasn't for me

Timeless is not the word

I saw Grandmaster Flash and immediately expected 4 or 5. Sadly, this album doesn't do much for me outside of The Message and some of the beats. I wish it were a little more funk and a lot less robo electronica.

Morsomt, men…

Det er gøy, men det er også ganske kårny. Man kan i hvert fall ikke kalle det tidløst. Blir mer en kuriositet, enn noe man faktisk har lyst til å høre på.

The message is amazing but the other songs on here are unfortunately quite dated. Still deserves to be on the list, just not an amazing listen

3.5 rounded up to 4

Amazing! Fun, poignant, influential. It’s dated — obviously, hip-hop has traveled a long way since this album. But it’s also timeless— representing the foundations of an entirely new pop genre. Glad I listened. A 3.

actually raelly cute and funky

Pretty ahead of its time album - interesting electronic elements, very great bass, and catchy lyrics. A bit too much preachy god speak in some songs and the Stevie wonder bit is weird, but overall quite good. 4/5

#443 I was looking forward to this but perhaps the rest of the album doesn’t live up to the title track, which is an all timer. It’s clearly an important album in the evolution of hip hop and draws in lots of samples and covers, including The Genius of Love which couldn’t have been much more than a year old at the time. Dreamin’ and You Are probably the low points on the album for me but at least it finishes with the best track. Heard before? ❌ Would I revisit? ✅ Listen before you die? ✅ Fave track(s): The Message Rating: 6/10 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

didn't enjoy the singing songs. rest was pretty decent.

Fun to hear early hip hop. Upbeat but was a bit long

The title song is iconic and has influenced the entire rap genre. As a whole, though, this is one of those roots records that everyone should check out at least to gain perspective on where it all started. The technology for turntablists and techniques were all brand new which makes this record that much more impressive.

I have heard the Message. It is a good song. I like some early rap.I didn’t like rap when it got into that gangster stuff and the glorification of violence. Misogyny was also an issue. Nihilism too. Well, here goes. This is a good rap album. The vocals are great especially the five part harmony. The rapping is good. They actually use horns on the album! They have a combination of real and electronic instruments. They dedicate a song to Stevie Wonder. They love his music. So do I. There is a big soul influence on the album. All the songs are good. She’s fresh is a real fun song. The best song on the album is The Message. It describes what is going on in the inner cities of America. It is like an update of Stevie Wonder’s Living in the City. Great Lyrics: Don’t touch me I’m close to the edge/ I’m trying not to lose my head. This is a good rap album. A lot of early rap albums were good until rap lost its way. Five stars.