Various Artists: Kick It! The Def Jam Sampler Volume One

Def Jam Recordings 1987.  KIKIT1

Discogs

I ripped this for the first track, The Beastie Boys’ Rock Hard.  It was an early single which sampled AC/DC’s Back In Black, but unfortunately the Aussie oafs took offence and it was swiftly withdrawn.  As you might imagine I’m not much of an AC/DC fan, although even I have to admit that Back In Black is a bit of a classic.  I don’t think I’ve ever made it all the way through the album though – it gets mighty repetitive.  This track however improves vastly on the original – somehow it has a lot more punch and it really rocks.  Maybe that’s why AC/DC were offended.  Whatever, it’s a difficult track to find these days and has never had a digital release of any sort.

There are a few other decent tracks here.  The best of course is Public Enemy, which is an interesting early track from their first album – before they got political.  The subject matter is really dull (their car), but it’s a hugely entertaining track.  It’s on their first album, Yo! Bum Rush The Show if you want more.  LL Cool J contributes the hilarious I’m Bad which is a bizarre ego driven fantasy about what a bad boy he is.  Like PE, the material might be preposterous, but he delivers it with aplomb.

Much of the rest hasn’t aged too well, but I rather like the simplicity of The Junkyard Band and Original Concept.  Their track, Can You Feel It isn’t the same as the Fingers Inc version I posted earlier, but it gets its name from the same sample from a Jacksons live album.

I’ve re-upped a load of stuff to Mega.  It’s mainly big files, especially the Virgin Ambient compilations.  I’ve never got on very well with Mega – downloads don’t seem to work a lot of the time, and when they do the file gets squireled away somewhere I can’t find it.  Let me know if it works for you – I don’t want to waste any more time uploading old posts if no-one can access them.