Music
The album's production, handled entirely by Rick Rubin with a remix by DJ Jazzy Jay, has been noted by critics and music writers for Rubin's minimalist style and stripped-down aggressiveness. Steve Huey of Allmusic described the production for Radio as "bare-bones" and "skeletal", while calling the instrumentation "basically just a cranked-up beatbox." The sound of Radio is mostly punctuated by DJ scratching and features occasional brief samples, which emphasize a downbeat. In summing up the musical style of Radio, Huey stated "The result is rap at its most skeletal, with a hard-hitting, street-level aggression that perfectly matches LL's cocksure teenage energy."
The lyrical themes regarding the culture and the way of life of inner city youth that surface in Radio, including the growing and popular b-boy attitude ("I Can't Live Without My Radio", "Rock the Bells") and teenage promiscuity ("Dear Yvette"), along with LL's "teenage energy", as described by writer Nelson George, helped appeal to a younger music audience and were essential in the album's commercial success. LL Cool J's lyricism on Radio is highlighted by clever disses, playful boasts and braggadocio raps. Columnist Stephen Holden of The New York Times described LL Cool J as "a brawny young giant with the animal magnetism and amiable self-assurance of the young Muhammad Ali." "I Want You" and "I Can Give You More" have been recognized by listeners of hip hop as the first hip-hop ballads, and have been cited likewise by several music writers and critics.
Author of the 1985 book Fresh: Hip Hop Don't Stop, writer Nelson George further elaborated on the appeal of Radio to listeners at the time, describing LL Cool J as a "minimalist homeboy who knows his beats", and stating "You can call it rap, hip hop or street, but it really is a way of hearing music—and partying hard—that expresses the experiences and attitudes of a great many inner city kids. L.L. Cool J is one of the best young talkologists around, because he speaks directly to and about his generation over large beats that recall Run-D.M.C., Trouble Funk, James Brown, and funky little bits of AC/DC and Yes ... This teenage music is built around beats, but not just any old beats. It is all about a beat with style, with personality, and L.L. Cool J has plenty of both."
Read more about this topic: Radio (LL Cool J album)
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle, dandy,
Mind the music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.”
—Richard Shuckburg (1756–1818)
“During the cattle drives, Texas cowboy music came into national significance. Its practical purpose is well known—it was used primarily to keep the herds quiet at night, for often a ballad sung loudly and continuously enough might prevent a stampede. However, the cowboy also sang because he liked to sing.... In this music of the range and trail is “the grayness of the prairies, the mournful minor note of a Texas norther, and a rhythm that fits the gait of the cowboy’s pony.””
—Administration in the State of Texa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Westminster Abbey is nature crystallized into a conventional form by man, with his sorrows, his joys, his failures, and his seeking for the Great Spirit. It is a frozen requiem, with a nation’s prayer ever in dumb music ascending.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)