Time since last listen: 28 years
I picked up four CDs at an op shop yesterday, and three of them were from 1990 (in pristine condition I might add – that's a genuine CD collector right there). This month of February 2019 alone I have picked up five second-hand CDs that were from 1990. It got me thinking, I haven't listened to these albums in years, decades in fact, and so I decided to write these mini-reviews to see how my opinions about them have changed since then.
Vanilla Ice's first album is up first. I spent the first 57 minutes of today listening to it for the first time in about 28 years. In early 1991 my friend Jonathan bought the album on CD and allowed me to tape a copy, and we both listened to the album a lot. Jonathan would go on to become a rap fan, listening to harder-edged stuff and gangsta rap in the years to come, but back in 1991 I preferred pop-rap stuff such as was charting at the time. As such I thoroughly enjoyed this album at the age of 12, and now at the age of 40, I can still recall a lot of it. Let's take a look at each track.
Track 1 "Ice Ice Baby"
I first heard this song in late November 1990 when it had just entered the Australian charts and this girl in my class called Monika brought the cassingle of it to school. Supposedly written in 1983, it first saw the light of day in 1989 as the B-side to Vanilla Ice's first single, "Play That Funky Music". It eventually hit number 1, only the third rap song to do so in Australia, and it did the same in the U.S. The other two, "U Can't Touch This" by M.C. Hammer and "Bust A Move" by Young M.C, only managed to reach numbers 8 and 7 respectively on the Billboard Hot 100. Anyway, I memorized every lyric of this song at the time and I haven't forgotten a word of it. I knew from reading Smash Hits that the chorus' bass riff was taken from the 1982 song "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, which I hadn't heard yet, but Vanilla Ice and his label got into some trouble due to no credit for the sample being given. It was a genius sample, giving the song its memorable hook, but it's too bad they didn't give the low-budget analogue mix a bit more polish for the album – you can hear buzz and hum, noise reduction on the top end, and the fade at the end is shoddy. Those are my only criticisms though.
Track 2 "Yo Vanilla"
This is five seconds of Ice with his voice pitch-shifted up saying "Yo Vanilla, kick it one time, boyyeeeee!" Brilliant. Smash Hits' track-by-track review gave this five stars, with the comment, "One star for each second of it!"
Track 3 "Stop That Train"
This song uses a sample from "Draw Your Brakes", a reggae track by Scotty, as its hook, and the results sound pretty good to me. You could go on about the lyrics but personally I don't care, I still like the sound of it.
Track 4 "Hooked"
To The Extreme was first released in 1989 under the title Hooked, so this is the former title track. I quite liked this song in 1991, I still do, probably because the vocals are a little bit understated here, and there's a few short samples used to good effect. I didn't have a clue what "You're hooked on that S-S-S-Y" meant all those years ago, and still have no clue now.
Track 5 "Ice Is Workin' It"
Here we see the artist born Robert Van Winkle explore new-school rap with more understated instrumentation, whispered vocals a la "Ice Ice Baby". I probably like it more now than I did 28 years ago.
Track 6 "Life Is A Fantasy"
The sultry backing track sounds like it belongs on the soundtrack of an '80s teen movie; Weird Science perhaps. Yikes! I remember when Smash Hits interviewed Vanilla Ice and asked him what his last dream was about, he responded with the first few lines of this song, to which the interviewer asked "Did you just make that up?"
Track 7 "Play That Funky Music"
This was the second single, and the version on the album has had its first and second verses changed from the original 1989 version (which had "Ice Ice Baby" on the B-side). I dunno, I kind of prefer the original version, so I don't know why he changed it. He gets a fair bit of stick for the "Steppin' so hard like a German Nazi" lyric in this new version, so maybe he should have left it as-is. Anyway, the chorus of this song is also a sample, although I didn't know this back in 1991. Probably the second-best song here.
Track 8 "Dancin'"
Eh, this song's okay. I wasn't too enthralled by it, but it's not bad or anything. However I do find that "Come on, girl!" sample irritating, then and now.
Track 9 "Go Ill"
On the vinyl release of Hooked this track is listed as "Go 111"! Someone clearly wasn't "with it" at Ichiban Records. This track is one of the better ones, a few cool samples in there, notably a James Brown one, so it scores points for that.
Track 10 "It's A Party"
The female singer blows on this one, but Ice's rapping is pretty rapid in some bits, so I like it. I think this is the only track with a "swear word" in it.
Track 11 "Juice To Get Loose Boy"
A similar high-pitched voice intro. Smash Hits only gave it two stars, saying "This nine-second ditty doesn't quite capture the same essence as "Yo Vanilla".
Track 12 "Ice Cold"
More James Brown sampling and a somewhat Asian feel on the keyboard chords, but this song isn't as good a deep cut as "Go Ill".
Track 13 "Rosta Man"
Some might say it was a misguided move to emulate Caribbean music (isn't it 'rasta' instead of 'rosta'? I have no clue), but Vanilla Ice at least doesn't put on the phoney 'patois' seen in many a lame early '90s 'ragga' track. Not sure what's being sampled in the chorus but it's pretty nice.
Track 14 "I Love You"
It's a soppy ballad which even has a saxophone, but apparently Ice hates it and didn't want to record a slow song, but the president of his record company Charles Koppelman insisted there be a slow song on the album and gave him a ton of money to do so (a "couple million bucks" according to Ice). As the album's denouement it's a bit twee (it wasn't on Hooked at all), and its synth bass sometimes distorts on the low notes due to the limitations of the recording equipment. I guess even a couple million bucks doesn't get you the best sound quality.
Track 15 "Havin' A Roni"
A very strange conclusion to the album – just over a minute of beatboxing (I didn't know it was called beatboxing, but I'd heard it on another album from 1990 which used beatboxing to finish the album – World Power by Snap!, on a track called "Only Human"). It's nonsensical and weird, and I have no idea what a "roni" is, but it's an interesting listen nonetheless.
So there you have it. I still think this album is an enjoyable listen, even though I can hear a bit more of the audio limitations in it, but there are some interesting drum sounds, samples and of course that killer "Under Pressure" hook in there. Ice comes off as a bit boastful, but I guess that was the point of most rap, wasn't it? You gotta show off to some degree.
Yo man, let's get outta here. Werd 2 ya mutha.
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