470: L.L. Cool J — Radio (1985, Def Jam)

Overall rating: 4

Level of prior familiarity: 2

How I listened: On Echo and in my car, via Spotify

Sometimes listening to an album this dated is a breath of fresh air.

So much classic hip hop from the 70s and 80s hasn’t aged well. The beats are thin, obviously made by primitive equipment. The rhyming style is one-dimensional, predictable, flat.

This album is all of those things, and none of them at the same time. Through the lens of music history, it’s easy to see an album like Radio as an artifact, a relic, signaling a shift in music styles and attitudes, and a snapshot of a place (New York City, specifically Queens) and time (the 1980s). But this would be an incredible disservice to the music here: it’s not just a historical document, but a grand statement, a flag in the ground that hip hop is not a fad but a movement, and the commercial success of this album and its progenitor stand as a bellwether for an entire musical genre.

It’s also just a really great album to listen to.

You need look no further than the opening bars of “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” to understand it’s importance: no bass, no guitar, no keyboard, just a drum machine and the spare horn stab… and L.L. Cool J’s menacing rhymes. This is not funky. It’s not fun. It’s scary as shit if you’re a white kid from the midwest like I am. It’s not The Message, but it’s not trying to be — The Cross Bronx Expressway had already divided the rich and the poor, The Bronx had already burned to the ground, and The Furious Five had already shown the world how crack had destroyed the ghetto. “I Can’t Live Without My Radio” is a pendulum swing in the other direction. The streets have been reclaimed. The war is over, and there will be no reparations. Music won. Hip hop won. And for the first time ever, you’re gonna hear it on the radio.

And what can I say about the genius of “Rock The Bells” that hasn’t already been said? The opening line is one of the most recognizable in all of hip hop. I dare you not to sing this in your head as you read it.

L.L. Cool J. is hard as hell
Battle anybody I don’t care who you tell
I excel, they all fail
I’m gonna crack shells, Double-L must rock the bells

Double that up with the precision turntablism of Cut Creator and Rick Rubin’s stellar production. As the story goes, the original 7-minute long version of this track made its way onto a mixtape that Ad-Rock of The Beastie Boys played for Rubin, which led to his signing to Def Jam. Even the story of the making of this song is great.

Do yourself a favor. Turn this album up as loud as it goes. Roll down the windows. Drive faster. You’ll thank me later.

P.S. L.L. Cool J was 17 years old when this album came out. What were you doing at 17?