1986 studio album by Run-D.M.C.
Raising Hell
is the third studio album by American
hip hop
group
Run-D.M.C.
, released on May 15, 1986, by
Profile Records
. The album was produced by
Russell Simmons
and
Rick Rubin
.
Raising Hell
is notable for being the first
Platinum
and
multi-Platinum
hip hop record.
[2]
[3]
The album was first certified Platinum on July 15, 1986, before it was certified as 3× Platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) on April 24, 1987.
[1]
It is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most important albums in the history of
hip hop
music and culture.
Raising Hell
peaked at number three on the
Billboard
200
, and number one on the
Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums
chart, making it the first hip hop album to peak atop the latter. The album features four hit singles: "
My Adidas
", "
Walk This Way
" (a collaboration with
Aerosmith
), "
You Be Illin'
" and "
It's Tricky
".
[4]
"Walk This Way" is the group's most famous single, being a groundbreaking
rap rock
version of Aerosmith's 1975 song "Walk This Way". It is considered to be the first rap rock collaboration that also brought hip hop into the mainstream
[5]
and was the first song by a hip hop act to reach the top 5 of the
Billboard
Hot 100
.
[6]
Raising Hell
has been ranked as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 1987, it was nominated for a
Grammy Award
, making Run-D.M.C. the first
hip hop
act to receive a nomination.
[7]
[8]
In the same year, the album was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Rap Album at the
1987 Soul Train Music Awards
. In 2017, it was inducted into the
National Recording Registry
by the
Library of Congress
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
[9]
The album was reissued by
Arista Records
in 1999 and 2003. An expanded and remastered edition was released in 2005 and contained 5 previously unreleased songs.
Selling more than three million copies,
Raising Hell
is credited with heralding the
golden age of hip hop
as well as hip hop's
album era
, helping the genre achieve an unprecedented level of recognition among critics and mainstream audiences.
[10]
Background
[
edit
]
Returning home to Queens in late 1985 after their extensive touring, they soon put themselves on lockdown at Chung King studios in Manhattan for three months. In place of producer Smith, a cocky new maverick was brought in:
Rick Rubin
. Even though Rubin's and Russell's names were on the production marquee, the two non-group members oversaw and added to the music on Raising Hell more than created it. "Rick and Russell got production credit, but we [the group members] really did everything", DMC states. "We did that album in like three months. It was so quick because every rhyme was written on the road and had been practiced and polished. We knew what we wanted to do. Rick was all music and instruments. Jay was music and DJing. And me and Run was lyrics. We definitely had a game plan."
[11]
Raising Hell
features the well-known cover "
Walk This Way
" featuring
Aerosmith
(largely the work of its leaders,
Steven Tyler
and
Joe Perry
). While the song was not the group's first fusion of
rock
and hip hop (the group's earlier singles "
Rock Box
" and "
King of Rock
" were), it was the first such fusion significantly impacting the charts, becoming the first rap song to crack the top 5 of The
Billboard
Hot 100
.
Raising Hell
peaked at No. 1 on
Billboard
's
Top R&B Albums
chart as the first hip hop/rap album to do so, and at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
[6]
Reception
[
edit
]
Raising Hell
was voted fifth best album of 1986 in the
Pazz & Jop
poll of American critics nationwide, published by
The Village Voice
.
[22]
Robert Christgau
, the poll's creator, wrote in a contemporary review: "Without benefit of a 'Rock Box' or 'King of Rock,' this is [Run-D.M.C.'s] most uncompromising and compelling album, all hard beats and declaiming voices."
[21]
In the
Los Angeles Times
, Richard Cromelin wrote: "If the same old boasts are wearing thin and the misogyny gets grating, the beats are infectious and varied and the vocal trade-offs can be dazzling."
[23]
It ranked number 8 among the "Albums of the Year" in
NME
.
[24]
In 1987, the
Soul Train Music Award for Best Rap - Single
was jointly awarded to Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith for "Walk This Way".
[25]
In 1989, the
Toronto Star
music critics took to look over the albums they had reviewed in the past 10 years to include in a list based on "commercial impact to social import, to strictly musical merit."
[26]
Raising Hell
was placed at number four on the list, describing it as "the record to move rap from the ghetto to the suburbs. Blame it or celebrate it, you can't deny Raising Hell's impact.
[26]
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.
[27]
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) ? "[T]he pioneering trio took hip-hop into the upper reaches of the pop charts, introducing mainstream to a new urban thunder:
rap rock
."
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 123 on
Rolling Stone
magazine's list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time
,
[28]
maintaining the rating in a 2012 revised list,
[29]
dropping to number 209 in a 2020 reboot of the list.
[30]
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".
[31]
In 2006, the album was chosen by
Time
as one of the 100 greatest albums.
[32]
Time
named it No. 41 of the 100 best albums of the past fifty years and stated that the album was "rap's first masterpiece".
[33]
In 2012,
Slant Magazine
listed the album at No. 65 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".
[34]
Public Enemy's
Chuck D
considers
Raising Hell
to be the greatest hip-hop album of all-time, and the reason he chose to sign with Def Jam Records.
[35]
"It paved the way for so many bands," he explained, "and opened minds."
[36]
In
Hip Hop Connection
, he ranked the album at number one in his top ten (which also included
Tougher Than Leather
) and said: "It was the first record that made me realise this was an album-oriented genre."
[37]
Track listing
[
edit
]
Side one
Title
| Writer(s)
|
---|
1.
| "Peter Piper"
|
| 3:25
|
---|
2.
| "
It's Tricky
"
| Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, Jason Mizell, Rick Rubin
| 3:03
|
---|
3.
| "
My Adidas
"
|
| 2:47
|
---|
4.
| "
Walk This Way
" (with
Aerosmith
)
| Steven Tyler, Joe Perry
| 5:11
|
---|
5.
| "Is It Live"
|
| 3:07
|
---|
6.
| "Perfection"
|
| 2:52
|
---|
2005 deluxe edition CD bonus tracks
Title
| Writer(s)
|
---|
13.
| "My Adidas" (a cappella)
|
| 2:31
|
---|
14.
| "Walk This Way" (demo)
| Steven Tyler, Joe Perry
| 5:25
|
---|
15.
| "Lord of Lyrics"
|
| 4:30
|
---|
16.
| "Raising Hell Radio Tour Spot"
|
| 0:52
|
---|
17.
| "Live at the Apollo Raw Vocal Commercial"
|
| 3:28
|
---|
Accolades
[
edit
]
Publication
|
Country
|
Accolade
|
Year
|
Rank
|
The Guardian
|
United Kingdom
|
100 Albums that Don't Appear in All Other Top 100 Album Lists
[38]
|
1999
|
45
|
Record Collector
|
Hip Hop: the American Urban Ghetto Finally Finds its Voice
[39]
|
2005
|
-
|
The New Nation
|
Top 100 Albums by Black Artists
[
citation needed
]
|
2005
|
96
|
The Guardian
|
1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die
[40]
|
2007
|
-
|
Q
|
Ultimate Music Collection
[41]
|
2016
|
-
|
Q
|
The Greatest Albums Of The Last 30 Years... 476 Modern Classics
[42]
|
2016
|
-
|
Rickey Vincent
|
United States
|
Five Star Albums from "FUNK: The MUSIC, the PEOPLE, and the RHY
[43]
|
1996
|
-
|
Rolling Stone
|
The Essential 200 Rock Records
[44]
|
1997
|
-
|
The Source
|
100 Best Rap Albums
[45]
|
1998
|
-
|
Ego Trip
|
Hip-Hop's Greatest Albums By Year 1979-85
[46]
|
1999
|
8
|
Gear
|
The 100 Greatest Albums of the Century
|
1999
|
80
|
Blender
|
The 100 Greatest American Albums of All time
[47]
|
2002
|
46
|
Pitchfork
|
The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s
[48]
|
2002
|
43
|
Rolling Stone
|
500 Greatest Albums of All Time
[49]
|
2003
|
123
|
Spin
|
Top 100 (+5) Albums of the Last 20 Years
[
citation needed
]
|
2005
|
40
|
Time
|
Top 100 Albums of All Time
[50]
|
2006
|
-
|
Treble
|
The Best Albums of the 80s, by Year
[51]
|
2006
|
9
|
Entertainment Weekly
|
The 100 Best Albums from 1983 to 2008
[52]
|
2008
|
38
|
Tom Moon
|
1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die
[53]
|
2008
|
-
|
Chris Smith
|
101 Albums that Changed Popular Music
[54]
|
2009
|
-
|
Spin
|
The 125 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years
[55]
|
2010
|
38
|
Robert Dimery
|
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (Updated 2013)
[
citation needed
]
|
2012
|
-
|
bLisTerd
|
The Top 100 Albums Of The 1980s
[56]
|
2012
|
14
|
Paste
|
The 80 Best Albums of the 1980s
[57]
|
2012
|
-
|
Slant
|
The 100 Best Albums of the 1980s
[58]
|
2012
|
65
|
XXL
|
40 Years of Hip-Hop: Top 5 Albums by Year
[59]
|
2014
|
-
|
Spin
|
The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985?2014)
[60]
|
2015
|
166
|
The Village Voice
|
Pazz & Jop: Top 10 Albums By Year, 1971-2017
[61]
|
2018
|
5
|
Pause & Play
|
Albums Inducted into a Time Capsule, One Album per Week
[62]
|
|
204
|
Chart positions
[
edit
]
Album
[
edit
]
Singles
[
edit
]
Certifications
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
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- ^
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{{
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.
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.
External links
[
edit
]
|
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Albums
| |
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Compilations
| |
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Live albums
| |
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Singles
| |
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Related articles
| |
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