Raising Hell

About

Raising Hell is the third album by hip-hop group Run-D.M.C.. This breakthrough album trumped standing perceptions of commercial viability for hip-hop groups, achieving triple-platinum status and receiving critical attention from quarters that had previously ignored hip hop as a fad. Time Magazine, naming it #41 of the 100 best albums of the past fifty years, has stated that the album was "rap's first masterpiece". Notably, Raising Hell features the well-known cover "Walk This Way" featuring Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith. While the song was not the group's first fusion of rock and hip hop (the group's earlier single "Rock Box" was), it was the first such fusion to make a significant impact on the charts, becoming the first rap song to crack the top 5 of The Billboard Hot 100. Raising Hell peaked at #1 on Billboard's R&B/Hip Hop Album chart, and at #6 on the Billboard 200. The song "It's Tricky" would later be featured as the theme song of the game SSX Tricky, and later redone by the band Bloodhound Gang. It ranked fourth on Chris Rock's list of the Top 25 Hip-Hop Albums of all time, and the comedian called it "the first great rap album ever" In 1998, the album appeared in The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums. Q magazine (12/99, p.162) - 5 stars out of 5 - "...the apex of pre-Public Enemy, beatbox-based hip hop, a monument of massive, crisp beats plus the genre-bending 'Walk This Way'." Vibe (12/99, p.162) - Included in Vibe's 100 Essential Albums of the 20th Century. Uncut (11/03, p.130) - 4 stars out of 5 - "An album that forced the music biz to take rap seriously." Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.126) - "The pioneering trio took hip-hop into the upper reaches of the pop charts, introducing mainstream to a new urban thunder: rap rock." (It is the earliest hip-hop album to get a 5-star review from Rolling Stone). AllMusic - 5 stars out of 5 - "...the music was fully realized and thoroughly invigorating, rocking harder and better than any of its rock or rap peers in 1986..." In 2003, the album was ranked number 120 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2006, the album was chosen by TIME as one of the 100 greatest albums.

via Last.fm