Search - Public Enemy :: Revolverlution

Four and a half: a couple of bricks shy of a load

Tyler Smith | Denver, CO United States | 03/06/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"If you're going on original material, this is five stars without a question, a no-doubter that PE is in still in full effect. Obviously true from the opening track, "Give the Peeps What They Need," with Chuck's no-nonsense statement on the place we're in right now. The rest of the new stuff is equally good, from the timely "Son of a Bush" to the powerful "Now a Daze," and "Pesa #1" to the "ghetto metal" of "What Good Is a Bomb."Drawbacks? Flavor Flav could have a stronger presence on the album, but that's a minor quibble. The bigger one is the heavy presence of remixes and live performances. We want all the new PE material we can get! Come on, Chuck. One original from you is worth three remixes. Besides, the live "Fight the Power" and "By the Time I Get to Arizona" are not upgrades over what we already have on CD. And do we need the four-way babble of "Burn Hollywood Burn"? Nope. I'll just go to "Fear of a Black Planet."Still, this is far better than most stuff out there, and anything from PE is worth listening to. A good addition to the PE list."

Solid Album

rza | Brooklyn,NY | 02/08/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I like this album. Its got a nice mix of old and new material. Along with some live material. Great to see PE still at it in this ever changing rap game."

Five stars for the new

jennifer8 | hollywood, CA | 05/17/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"First of all, I love Public Enemy; everything about them, from their old-school "throw your hands up in the air" verse styles to their often "so silly it's cool" verbalisms involving Flava Flav. I like how they consistently prove (and "Revolverlution" is no exception) that hip-hop is no top-40 radio gimmick -- that it can and indeed should have a message about the Black community that doesn't involve "pimpin" and driving fancy cars or selling drugs and pseudo (we hear that "pseudo" prefix a lot!) gangsterisms.



This album proves that P.E. still are relevant even though many of the trends in rap (and rap should have never become a suburban trend to begin with) have left them behind in favor of all that G-unit/cash money crud we hear on the radio now.



Honestly, I never believed that any of the members Public Enemy were especially talented lyricists, where you'll hear a verse and think "oh, dayummm..." but their lyrics are always meaningful and insightful and they make the listener think, as opposed to, say, the lyrics of Nelly where you just interpret them and think "boy, this guy is pretty dumb."



If this album were just a five song EP or a relatively short LP weighing in at 7-9 tracks or so, it would join the admittedly small pantheon of other relevant rap albums to come out within the last decade (the decade of frivolous "bling"), but it is needlessly weighed down by inferior remixes of older songs that are better presented elsewhere. I am reminded of that Oingo Boingo "greatest hits" album (Oingo Boingo are that new-wave pop act who wrote "Dead Man's Party") where instead of including all the studio versions of their hits, they decided to re-record everything and the whole album was just crummy. P.E. shouldn't have included "Fight the Power" (live) among others in this album because it just doesn't sound as good as the album version that came out several years earlier. I woould buy a live P.E. album but when I get the studio albums I'd prefer all-new material. It's their choice what to include in their albums, of course, but it just didn't go over well with me.



I say, get this album for "Son of a Bush," which, although it has some things I disagree with a little bit, it's still tremendously entertaining. Plus, the way Flava Flav says "he's the son of'a baaaad man!" over and over again is as cool as it is ironically adorable."