DJ Shadow - Entroducing

Killer album, without a doubt one of my ultimate fav's. Officially released Nov 19, 1996. If you're into Hip hop, Jazz, urban lounge even (if that's a genre) I think this one would score highly with you guys. Set apart by others because it was the first ever album to be created entirely from samples (I guess a small amount of vocals on some tracks like 'why hip hop sucks in 1996' but not enough for Guinness world records to withhold the title.

Ok, a few skeptics won't agree with me, 'sampling isn't music' etc. Even just when playing it back, knowing that its fully sampled, you get to wonder where each piece came from, it's mind blowing how much effort would have gone into such a masterpiece. It just all flows well as an album, I usually find myself putting this one on a and giving it a listen start to finish, rather than listening to a particular few tracks on their own. You can tell a fair few parts of the album have been extracted from vinyl here and there, I think giving it a warm feel throughout.

TRACK LIST:

1. Best Foot Forward
2. Building Steam With a Grain of Salt
3. The Number Song
4. Changeling
   *Transmission 1
5. What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)
6. [untitled track]
7. Stem/Long Stem
   *Transmission 2
8. Mutual Slump
9. Organ Donor
10. Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96
11. Midnight in a Perfect World
12. Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain
13. What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)
    *Transmission 3

Text like this denotes standout tracks :)

 What seems like a un-enticing mismatch of somewhat oddly named tracks actually tie in well.  Standout tracks in this album are 'Changeling', 'What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)', 'Organ Donor' and 'Midnight in a Perfect World'. 'Changeling' is a rythmic jam of symbols with some funky bass and cool unique melody, its a great chillout track. Similarly to ' Midnight in a Perfect World', but Midnight has a much more fuller bass note which I reckon gives a nice urban loungy feel, some nice snippets of faint female vocals make it more complete, but yea this is probably my favourite track, flagship track, must be heard. 'Organ Donor' is an interesting one, its not very long, but its a wacky organ jam, something rarely heard, I mean for the most part, most things involving an organ should stay in a church, yes, but overlay a nice beat and for its short moment that it plays, it really gets your applauded attention, the other thing is, its a track like this that really makes you wonder where some of this stuff was sampled from, surely it's hats off after a track like this.

Some other cool additions that give it that odd feel without making it just weird are 'Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96' and the '[untitled track]' ...quick snippets here and there make for cool interludes.

Hard for me to describle the awe I possess for this album, i absolutely admire the amount of research and development that DJ Shadow has put into this album, and even then, yea these days it's alot easier to do, (trawling through vinyl is the same thought, unfortunately :P), but think of the tech you had in 1996! I know I'm not a pro ass muso reviewer, but this album gets pretty much 5* all over the net for a reason, it's a masterpiece. It's a definite must have, even if you are dead set on one genre only, it's even one that can be put on even in the background at home but is sure to impress when given a good listen.

Enjoy It,
-Brad.