Album of the day (#991): Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by Wu-Tang Clan (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 1993.
Country:
Overall rank: 132
Average rating: 81/100 (from 313 votes).

Tracks:
1. Shaolin Sword: Bring Da Ruckus
2. Shaolin Sword: Shame On A Nigga
3. Shaolin Sword: Clan In Da Front
4. Shaolin Sword: Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber
5. Shaolin Sword: Can It Be All So Simple
6. Shaolin Sword: Protect Ya Neck
7. Wu-Tang Sword: Da Mystery Of Chessboxin'
8. Wu-Tang Sword: Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing Ta F' Wit
9. Wu-Tang Sword: C. R. E. A. M.
10. Wu-Tang Sword: Method Man
11. Wu-Tang Sword: Tearz
12. Wu-Tang Sword: Wu-Tang: 7th Chamber - Part II

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[Puncture Repair]

I think the production is the main appeal for me here, it's got a tonne of charm.

Of course, the rapping and beats being some of the greatest ever made helps as well.

[Patman360]

Awesome, probably my favorite hip-hop album at the moment and currently in the lower part of my top 100 (Probably should be higher than it is tbh given how often I play it...). 'Shame On A Nigga' is so damn catchy, but it's pretty flawless throughout. Shall be seeing them in the next month, rather looking forward to that.
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2023
2022

[GeevyDallas]

GZA's verse on Bring Da Ruckus

[Kool Keith Sweat]

Intro to Method Man is top five skits of all time

[Guest]

One of the best and frankly scariest hip-hop albums of all time.

[drakonium]

I don't really like it. Not bad, of course, just not really my cup of tea. Too messy, I guess.

[RockyRaccoon]

I was just listening to this yesterday. I love it. It's raw, it's dirty, it's pretty awesome.

It's taken some time for it to grow on me, but I've grown to really like it.
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2023 Chart

Early Psychedelic Rock

Electronic Chart

[Guest]

I bought this album having never heard a Wu-Tang song before, based on a friend's recommendation. I put it in my Discman to listen to on the way to school, got about two and a half songs in and turned it off. I didn't return to it for about 18 months. I just didn't get it, it was messy, angry, unfinished, full of stupid fucking samples from stupid fucking kung-fu movies, and lyrically just made up of hyper-viloent, macho posturing from a bunch of amateurish rappers. The Blueprint it was not. Then, after immersing myself in the genre a little more, thanks to some help from the Beastie Boys and Kanye West and Mos Def, I finally plucked up the courage to go back to it. This time, it was a little more tolerable. It was still a mess, and most of the rappers were still fucking idiots, but it had a certain charm this time around. The hooks were catchy, and I actually quite enjoyed the kung-fu samples and dated pop culture references. I liked the fact that there were so many of them, all with such unique, vivid rapping personas and voices. I liked Ghostface Killah, his raps were urgent and the stress he put on every hard consonant threatened to break through the speaker and perforate my eardrum. Method Man had this lovely, buttery voice, and everything he said sounded effortless. GZA's measured, authoritative bars made me sit up and pay attention, genuinely worried that if I didn't give him my full attention that I might miss something really important that could come in handy later in life, as though I was listening to a wise old sage whose path I might never cross again. Then the next time I listened, I realised I'd already stored most of the choruses in my memory. I'd warmed up to RZA's grimy productions, beats that sounded like he'd taken a sledgehammer to a pile of old soul records and then shoddily glued them back together, beats that were ominous and menacing and exactly like how I imagined the music of New York housing projects in winter should sound. I listened more and more, with increasingly regularity. I'd sit and try and decipher their slang, an alien language with roots in the English that I spoke, twisted into something crude and aggressive, yet strangely poetic. Eventually it became a daily ritual, listening to 36 Chambers. It felt like being part of the world's coolest religion, hearing sermons from a foreign land that taught me so much about the world despite saying nothing to me about my life. It was the beginning of an obsession that stays with me to this day, and it's quite possibly the most important record in my life.

[Le_Samurai]

Man, I love this record. The beats are just perfect, I have a hard time saying RZA made any greater ones. This record has so many great one liners, like "I Smoke on the Mike like Smokin' Joe Frazier", one of my all time favorite lines. We all must be grateful this album exists, for if it didn't, hip hop would be in a completely different place right now. It baffles the mind the number of perfect or near perfect albums that were made because this album exists. This is one of my favorite records of all time and one of the few I'm always done to listen to. You can't claim to love hip hop and not love this record.