Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (Top 500 Countdown Update)

This album really picks it up on the middle part of the album with the front and back ends being fairly weak. This sounds like a transitional album, an experimental album at times the songs seem to get lost, not sure where exactly they are going. The moments when it works you can see the potential of what is to come and it is wonderful. This album would be followed two years later by Fear of a Black Planet, the greatest rap album ever made. For Fear they take their experimental sounds from A Nation and perfect it, wrapping that sound with brilliant pop raps and beats like De La Soul and BDP, extending their lyrics vastly on Fear, like BDP and N.W.A., and bringing up the noise and power, like the Beastie Boys, that this album is missing which helps to solidify the sound. If you want to hear a pretty good album and know what lead up to the greatest rap album of all time check this one out.