DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

I can't get over the beauty of one of my all-time favorite records: Endtroducing.

I know, it's quite a few years old now, but it still is amazing. I've spent lots and lots of (stoned) moments listening to this record. At nighttime. In the bus, tram, metro and train. In the subway. In fall, with cold, heavy wind, a white sky and depressed people.

It works for me everytime.

This is one of those records that has some kind of magic over it. It's got a beauty that cannot and should not be explained. This record proves there is no limit in HOW to write music. Sampling truly is art (if done rightly of course). This music isn't simply music, it's an experience. Also, I don't think you really need to be a hiphop fan to like this. Of course, it helps.

My favorite tracks:
Changeling. The drums alone are worth listening to. Offbeat rhythm, and some wicked effects in there. The sounds are so sweet. The ending of the song is an eargasmic experience.

What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4). At first I hated this track, but I've grown to LOVE it. The slow beat, the pitched down vocal, the saxophone and the ever ongoing build up. It's got such a romantic, sexual groove.

This whole album is gorgeous. I can't get over it.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Think I'll need to listen to this...

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

you haven't yet?!??!?!?!??!

wow

I'd seriously put "Endtroducing..." down as one of my 'essential' albums to own

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

seconded.!

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

I don't think I've ever heard it either.
Will download soon ... :)

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Not a huge hip-hop fan nor do i get a huge kick out of hearing music solely based on samples (nearly threw the Wiseguys CD out of my car the other day!), but my favorite two examples of artists who are truly that, artistic in their integration of old, obscure, and diverse vinyl sounds are Lemon Jelly and DJ Shadow. Something about Endtroducing is that it's just so hook-laden and catchy that, hip-hop or samples or whatnot, there's something for almost everyone. A real classic.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

The thing is, DJ Shadow has a hiphop background and is influenced by hiphop, but apart from the hiphop tempo and rhythms, it really ISN'T hiphop (if we use the term "hiphop" as a music style here for a moment). I think, in a way, you can compare it to Burial. Which is influenced by 2-step and all that, but there's much more to it.

Another cool thing about Endtroducing is, the fact that I don't recognize any samples that are used in it. I heard DJ Shadow did release a cd with most of the originals where the samples come from. I don't know if I want to hear that, though.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

It's always weird when you hear a sample in a movie. 'What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1)' [the one on Preemptive Strike, not sure about the Endtroducing version] has a part that goes "Don't you want to listen? No, I heard it the last time." and that comes from the movie Westworld, which I didn't see until after hearing the song. When I saw the movie it was like deja vu, but I actually had heard it before.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Yea, when the bass comes in after that psychadelic breakdown, and then that lilting rhodes piano... and the guitar at the end, and how it comes in with its own tempo as if it is actually talking about and explaining what just happened in the track...

Perfection.

EDIT: And to those that haven't heard this album, whether you like trip-hop, instrumental rap or whatever you wanna call this album, you've really missed out on an album many consider to be the best of its kind. You definately owe it to yourself to hear it at least once.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

yeah i heard this one too late down the road

bored senseless. baleeted.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Funny how you describe that, I have the exact same thing (not only with this song) :)

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

hehe, i had a similar experience with this sample from What Does Your Soul Look Like - Pt2:
it's a sample from project brainstorm, which i saw a few times in german, but about a year ago i saw the english version, where some army guy speaks this as a warning for the audience for a particulary nasty recording. :)
i was like: "aahhhhhhaaaa!! that's where it is from!" :)

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

I have that movie too, but I knew the sample source before I saw it. I still expect the track to keep going though instead of the tape ending.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

If memory serves me, I remember him last summer at Summercase saying to the crowd that we wouldn't listen to his samples anywhere else because he made them all himself. Not so sure he was also referring to the vocal samples, though.

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

hmm...
I'd say you either sort of misheard him - or he was referring to his most recent album

although - come to think of it... there are at least two songs that are based off of samples on "The Outsider"

maybe he was just talking about the scarcity of the source elements of the tracks. Like, a lot of the sampled songs are fuckoff rare - or in the case of "This Time" ... if memory serves me, was from a solitary recording (as in, no one else has the record/acetate save him)

like, the original guy who's sang the song just did it in one of those waaay old 'recording booths' back in the day, and there was only one pressing

(edit)
and I also had one of those sort of 'deja vu' experiences as well w/ Shadow
the transmission after "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Pt 1)" - there's a vocal bit that goes "It's happening again... It's happening... again" is from the Second Season of Twin Peaks

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

i'm a student of the drum :D

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

I forgot exactly which song it is (or I'm confusing it with something from FSOL) but I remember when I saw Altered States and heard the guy go "This is beyond even mass or energy, what we're back to is the first THOUGHT!" I had one of those moments...

But yeh - this is one of those essential albums. Didn't some magazine or something do a list of top albums of the 90's and this was #2?

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Entroducing is a fantastic albulm without doubt one of my favourites but his latest albulm "The Outsider" is utter rubbish!!! I hated it with a passion and gave the C.D away to a mate i was that disgusted. I dont do that very often only 3 times i can remmember. Adore by smashing pumpkins, and Pretty Fly for a white guy by Offspring (Hey i was in high school and Smash and Xnay on the ombre are still good albulms.)

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

that's funny - I think "Adore" is my favorite album of theirs... sure at first, I really didn't like it. But then one (bad) day, I happened to throw it on, and I just 'got' it

kinda like Tricky's "Angels with Dirty Faces"

but needless to say - yes, the Outsider sucked. Although, if the album was sequenced a bit differently and maybe if you switched some b-sides (or alt versions of tracks) with the album tracks... it would've been a "good" album - or at least EP

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

Shadow is master!
Endtroducing? One of my first album I bought:)

Re: DJ Shadow - Endtroducing...
 

totally agree this is one of the best albums i ever had. mutual slump gives me the bumps