Public Enemy - Revolverlution [Japan]

They may go in and out of fashion, fall out of critical favor, have comebacks and slumps, but even at their worst, the truly great artists have flashes where their brilliance shines through. Public Enemy is one of those bands. When they released Revolverlution in 2002, they had been out of favor for a full decade, and throughout that time in the wilderness, the band fluctuated between brilliance (He Got Game) and unfocused meandering (Muse Sick), but the one constant remained -- even when they were bad, it was a thrill to hear them, especially Chuck D, whose voice is one of those intangible, transcendent thrills in all of popular music; it's as magical and undefinable as John Coltrane's sheets of sound, Jeff Beck's head-spinning guitar, Duke Ellington's piano, Frank Sinatra's or Hank Williams' singing, Keith Richards' open-G chords -- no matter the quality of the material at hand, it's worth listening just to hear him rap. Read More