One: The Preface
Up until two months ago I had never heard of the album Endtroducing….. by DJ Shadow. As I was finishing up reading the 33 1/3 series on Facing Future by Dan Kois[1] I was looking at all of the other titles that comprise the 33 1/3 series and noticed the entry about DJ Shadow’s debut album. It dawned on me that I hadn’t bought any electronic albums[2] in what seemed like a long time (I think Push The Button by The Chemical Brothers was the last one) so I went to Amazon, downloaded it, and listened to some of it on the ride to work the following morning. So, if you are reading this and you’re thinking to yourself “You should’ve picked such-and-such song from The Private Press or The Outisder” or “You should’ve picked such-and-such single that Shadow did back in…” when it comes to this site, I apologize in advance. I realize that I am making a selection here while admitting that I have never heard DJ Shadow’s entire body of work. But, hopefully, this post will still make sense—as well as properly praising DJ Shadow in a historical context.
Two: Digestion
Two things hit me about Entroducing….. after first listen. 1) That the album contains no real continuity between two (or multiple) tracks; there are thirteen individual tracks that begin and end with virtually no intermixing. (There is intermixing here but not to the effect that a beat or melody completely bleeds into the next track. If that makes sense.) This is, to me, unique because, in my admittedly orange belt-level delving into of electronic music, most albums have some amount of intermixing and bleeding of tracks. 2) That “The Number Song” (the third track on the album) fucking blew me away. Repeatedly. It rivals some of the most masterful electronic works that The Chemical Brothers have produced, works such as “Let Forever Be,” “Life Is Sweet,” “Block Rockin’ Beats,” and “Leave Home.”
According to the person/people who edited the Entroducing….. Wikipedia page, “The Number Song” uses the following samples (in no particular order):
1) “Orion” by Metallica
2) “Breakdown” by T La Rock
3) “AJ Scratch” by Kurtis Blow
4) “Quit Jive’in” by Pearly Queen
5) “Baby Don’t Cry” by The Third Guitar
6) “Sexy Coffee Pot” by Tony Alvon and the Belairs
7) “Back to the Hip-Hop” by The Troubleneck Brothers
8) “Bad Luck” by Don Covay and the Lemon Blues Band
9) “Can I Kick It? (Spirit Mix)” by A Tribe Called Quest
10) “Who Got the Number” by Pigmeat Markham and the B.Y.
11) “Fantastic Freaks at the Dixie” by DJ Grand Wizard Theodore and the Fantastic Five
12) “Corruption is the Thing” by Creations Unlimited
13) “Flash It to the Beat” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
14) “Freelance” by Grandmaster Flash
15) “Get Ready” by He 6
A pretty diverse and unique set of samples to cull from. It’s almost Paul’s Boutique-esque, the way it integrates that musical diversity to produce a marvelous and indescribably creative sound.[3] This, however, would be the technical (and maybe even boring) approach in describing this song: to list the samples used, stand back and then say, “Isn’t that creative?” But this song is so much more than the sum of its parts and its individual genius.
Three: The Epiphany Reminder
Listening to the album I was reminded of why electronic music can be such a powerful and unique genre, and its power derives from the fact that it is one of the few genres wherein an artist can quite literally throw all of their influences and tastes onto a single song and, if it’s done right, it will sound like a direct auditory portal to that artist’s mind. Virtually no other musical genre can get away with doing this. Hell, virtually no other medium of art can get away with doing this. And if you think that I am making a crazy, broad generalization with the previous two sentences I ask you to consider these two points.
Why Virtually No Other Musical Genre Can Get Away With An Artist Quite Literally Throwing All Of Their Influences Into A Single Song — It is not uncommon for rock artists to have a very wide range of musical influences. Just as a random example, Win Butler of Arcade Fire said that, among other artists, Depeche Mode and Neil Young were inspirations for their latest album The Suburbs, which makes plenty of sense especially in the case of Depeche Mode as the height of their popularity coincided with Butler’s high school years. But on The Suburbs itself you don’t hear any exact duplicates of Depeche Mode or Neil Young melodies, or shout-outs to either by quoting their lyrics. A rock song that featured these things would sound kitschy to the point of transcending cheap. (Though, in rare instances, it can be pulled off to great effect.) Electronic music, on the other hand, can do these things effortlessly. If an artist is influenced by Depeche Mode or Neil Young, it would be entirely normal for them to use the melody from “Enjoy the Silence” as their own, to use the vocal tracks from “Words (Between the Lines of Age)” in the background. In many ways the voice of the electronic artist is the aforementioned portal into their brain and not their larynx.
Why Virtually No Other Medium Can Get Away With An Artist Quite Literally Throwing All Of Their Influences Onto A Piece Of Art — An example from cinema: Quentin Tarantino. The dude loves movies so much that his own movies invariably reach a point of masturbatory saturation, as if they cease to be movies at times and simply become a wish list of images (and songs) that Tarantino would love to cram together and pass it off as an ode to the original art. To be sure, it sometimes works like with Pulp Fiction and both Kill Bills but even when he is mastering his creativity he still has a tendency to overdue the literal love songs he’s trying to write for his influences on the screen.
Four: The Significance
Like all great electronic music that came before it and that has been made since, “The Number Song” is an example of a mosaic created out of sampled beats; a ready-made built out of a willingness to plumb through tens of thousands of songs just to use the fifteen listed above.[4] But there is also more to it than just that: “The Number Song” is a leveler and compressor on a large scale. It not only spans, in under five minutes no less, forty years of music but its essence plays on the most basic and fundamental quality of music—the countdown, the universal language that is One-Two-Three-Four.
The universality of One-Two-Three-Four starts as a learning block (think of all of those Sesame Street type songs that early childhood is partially defined by) and it forks itself out to the very foundation of music, whether it be as a mnemonic device that singers use for time scale of their song or as a red meat offering that singers use to get the audience more involved and hyped up during the song. “The Number Song” plays off of this to wonderful effect as it weaves in samples of old school rap countdowns (and even a countdown sampled from what sounds like children’s programming) all while riding the primary rhythm of Metallica’s “Orion.” DJ Shadow’s use of “Orion” intermixed with danceable beats is nothing short of genius; it not only proves Shadow to be a master craftsman and historian of modern music but it also provides a terrific landscape to the overall composition.
But the real show-stopping moment of the song, in my opinion, is at the 2:05 mark when the track shifts effortlessly and momentarily—and so fucking smoothly—to those golden horns of Pearly Queen’s “Quit Jive’in.” That transition is so silky and unexpected that it alone is probably all you need to know about the deft touches that DJ Shadow is capable of, if you were inclined to look for one thing that expresses an unrivaled sense of creativity. Consciously or unconsciously, great art aspires to be the first bookmark that people turn to when they think of, or want to comb through, a year, a decade, an era. Entroducing….., certainly within the realm of electronic music but also in music in general, is 1996. Not the 1996 that was defined by “MMMBop” or the unraveling of Stone Temple Pilots and R.E.M. and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden or the continued selling out of Metallica or the propped-up elephant of a joke that became Lollapalooza in the late ’90′s. No, the 1996 that you maybe weren’t aware of at all as it was happening. The 1996 that you discover years later and you find something really timeless and extraordinary in it.
The electronic music genre is filled to the gills with immensely intelligent artists and producers; men and women with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and the nuance of music. To the casual music fan and to the mainstream radio playlists they are the outcasts, the fringe, the faceless people cloaked in trendy clothes and surrounded by yards of stereo equipment and wiring and enveloped by the atmosphere of a club. And to a degree I guess this stereotype is an acceptable one to buy into, but every now and then a song or an album from this genre announces itself and all you can do is just marvel at the depths of its creativity. “The Number Song” (and Entroducing…..) is one of those marvels that demand attention.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
[1] Self-promotion alert: the review that I wrote of that book can be found here.
[2] What I mean by “electronic albums” is an album from what I call the Electronic genre of music. The Electronic genre is, to me, the genre that includes the following sub-genres: DJ, techno, house, rave, big beat, and old school electronic music like Kraftwerk. Basically, music that relies on a lot of sampling, relies on synthesizers and/or robotic type voices, and/or relies on guest vocalists (i.e.–The Chemical Brothers). But this is just me. Some people may prefer to categorize DJ Shadow as “DJ Music”; I prefer to categorize him as “Electronic Music.”
[3] If you have never heard Paul’s Boutique before, the sophomore album by Beastie Boys, just buy it now and let it consume you. Honestly, even if the cheapest price you can find for this album is $25 just buy it. If you have any love for music at all (or any love for discovering new-to-you music) this album is required listening. Seriously. Class dismissed.
[4] This song probably contains more than the fifteen listed above. Wikipedia is rarely definitive when it comes to these things but I am sure that the sampling listing above is probably pretty close in detailing what all was used in the track.
