So I found “The Message” to be an incredibly odd album, but it was an interesting journey to be sure… Had heard a few songs from this album, but was not aware they were from this one – so it was all new to me until those tracks came on… First thought was how exceptional the audio quality of the recording was – as that is not a given in the world of rap, especially in the early 80’s… Second thought was, the top vocalist delivered some awesome vocals, and I really appreciated his style – as he was head and shoulders above the other singers on the album… “She’s Fresh” opened the album just fine, nothing exceptional – but fairly well done for what I thought was going to be the 80’s version of a late 70’s funk album… Then “It’s Nasty” came on, and the familiar keyboard riff that I always thought was created by the Tom Tom Club comes on… Nice touch, and really helped the track – but turns out – they Grandmaster Flash just lifted from the Tom Tom Club’s 1980 track “Genius Of Love”… C’est la vie, but rap sorta does that – and it is a great riff, but would have been more impressed if Grandmaster had created it… “Scorpio” & “It’s A Shame” were fine, though pretty dull – but I guess the synthesized lyrics must have been inventive for 1982… Maybe not – but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt… Then it was as if someone scratched their fingers across a chalkboard, and the decent vibe of the album came to an abrupt stop… “Dreamin” was apparently a song they felt they needed to record as an homage to Stevie Wonder… Sure Stevie probably deserves some love – but NOT like this, and I doubt that Mr. Wonder appreciated this dreadful excuse of a song… Words cannot even begin to describe how truly horrific this actually is… As my good friend Keith is fond of saying, “…That is fucking terrible…” That was followed by another miserable effort called “You Are” – which was some sort of religious dirge… Not like some old-time church experience, just an awful preachy, “…do you accept Jesus Christ as your savior…” sort of experience… I didn’t need that experience… It was clear on those two truly awful tracks, that the artist felt REALLY compelled to record them… Sorry – but this little detour came pretty close to totally ruining the entire album for me… And then we got to “The Message” – which I have always held in high regard, just don’t think I even knew the exact title… Love the vocals, love the backing track, love the lyrics – and overall, it’s just a magical song… Also really appreciated the genuineness of the lyrics…. Just describing the experience, no bragging about how “fire” their rhymes were, no glamorizing “thug life” – just authentic portrayals of a unique life experience… So well done all-the-way around… The last track “The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash On The Wheels Of Steel” was just a fun a way to close the album… Enjoyed all the snippets of tracks that mentioned “Flash”, as well as the Queen backing track for a good portion of the song… Probably would have given this an easy 3 if it weren’t for the dreadful tracks in the middle, so that bumps it down to a 2.50… However, “The Message” seems like it was such an incredibly influential track – I’ll go with a 3…