You would think it couldn’t happen more than once in a lifetime.

When I first heard “Don’t Believe the Hype” it was like the first time I heard “Whole Lotta Love.” Just as Led Zeppelin showed what rock’n’roll sounds like when it is played by gods, Public Enemy revealed the same for rap.

That basso molto profundo of Chuck D counterpoised with that biting jocose tenor of Flavor Flav laughing at you with that giant clock around his neck.

There is hardly a naughty word on this album and they don’t trash women. But that doesn’t mean they were insipid. The poetry. The poetry! Urgent righteous menacing raging thundering revolutionary!

And how could Terminator X twirl those turntables so they roared such horrible terrifying sirens and squeals and explosions?

And how could they all transform such sounds into the Music of the Spheres?

Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Def Jam Recordings, 314 527 358-2 (1988).  Album Design – Glen E. Friedman; Photography – Glen E. Friedman.