Radio (studio album) by LL Cool J

Album Rating: 69.80
(698/10)

18.11.1985

LL Cool J (US): Radio

1.I Can't Live Without My Radio 73
2.You Can't Dance 70
3.Dear Yvette 73
4.I Can Give You More 70
5.Dangerous 64
6.Interlude n/a (61) n/a
7.Rock The Bells 70
8.I Need A Beat 70
9.That's A Lie 72
10.You'll Rock 68
11.I Want You 68

From Boltzmann 05/23/2021 10:28

During the first half of the '80s rap was a new way to do disco and funk. Perhaps a perfect answer to the racist and homophobic pity-party of disco demolition night. It wasn't until the iconic boom bap beat that we could speak of a genre called hip hop. This has been the first full LP that flaunted this style (Run-DMC's debut album is too muddled with rock beats, and sadly T La Rock didn't make an album before 1987). Flow is still painfully '80s, something that only started to change with Eric B. & Rakim and Slick Rick.

From IanFrance 11/06/2020 05:09

The skeletal beats on show here were a genre being birthed – not actually at the point of genesis, but becoming a style in its own right, and one to be contended with. And there’s no doubting the ground-breaking nature of this record, pioneering rap in popular culture. The only problem is that it doesn’t stand up to modern standards and, perhaps predictably, sounds very dated. Whilst, by some reckoning, that shouldn’t be held against it, one must remember that there are plenty of older, ground-breaking LPs which do still sound good compared to contemporary music. The beats are a little too basic and there is little to distinguish one track from the next. The sampling is of poor quality, surprisingly for a Rick Rubin album (although this artform was in its infancy), and the rapping is only of a medium standard, with frequent pauses and a simplistic rhyme structure. LL Cool J would go on to produce much better material than this (and worse: I Need Love, anyone?) and it seems unfair to be harsh on this album, but sadly, it just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Pleasing, with bits to like, but nothing to love.
High Points: I Can Give You More; Dangerous; I Need A Beat [Remix]

From Graeme2 12/01/2016 18:15

Haha Mehran. You realise this album is 1985?! Who exactly is making albums in '85 who is better at that rapping thing?

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From RoundTheBend 05/01/2016 00:40

Nothing I fell in love with, but worth a listen.

From swhaze 08/06/2014 02:33

Classic LL Cool J. The problem for me is that too many of the tracks sound alike.