What Does It All Mean: 1983-2006 Retrospective

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-11-11 rating:
Essential
Can't add much to PJR's review. This is some of the most influential and important music of the last quarter of the 20th century, Buy it.

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review by: djcharlesbronson date: 2008-08-13 rating:
So good it HURTS!!!
The original Kut Up Wizard - Still equaled by none!

Classic all the way, 2 CDs full of pure genius. It's fun, It's funky, It's original, It's Brilliant!

BUY THIS NOW!!! It's a Bargain!!!


review by: date: 2008-07-12 rating:
It's Overused, But This Is Genius
Once upon a time a sound engineer and a dj/advertising copywriter decided to enter a competition set up by Tommy Boy Records to remix a track called "Play That Beat Mr DJ" by G.L.O.B.E & Whizz Kid (2 members of The Soul Sonic Force) after spending a day at Dee's studio Double Dee & Steinski had their mix they entered the competition with "The Payoff Mix". Not only did they win but in the process changed the way people listened to and thought about hip hop.

There are certain times when you hear something totally insane and new, but not often. Double Dee & Steinski took the scratch mix formula familiar to hip hop listeners and sent it into the stratosphere. They used the old sound engineer technique of taking a razor blade to their tape and splicing together their track. Where as most people might add four or five tracks into their mix and use the breaks and scratches to spice it up by splicing in a studio the duo added 24 sound samples, creating not so much a remix but a sound collage of the like not heard before. It was pressed up as a promo and became legend. The sheer number of samples meant that Tommy Boy could never clear them all and release the track but the first great cut and paste track was born. Followed by 2 further mixes Lessons 1-3 are, quite literally the stuff of legend.

It's ridiculous to underestimate the importance and influence of them and this compilation is the most legitimate release of these tracks shows that these tracks from 1983-5 sound as fresh now as they did then. Documented here are pretty much all of Steinski's recordings (exculding his late 80's work for 4th & Broadway records) of the past 25 years. Listening to this is like hearing the best, most crazy mix you could ever wish to hear. Mixing familiar tunes with eclectic samples from films to dance instruction records, TV broadcasts of the Kennedy shooting to whatever the track requires for its subject, this is quite simply extraordinary. Disc 2 consists of a mix made for BBC Radio 1 and gives an idea of what his later incarnation as a radio dj sounds like.

If you have an interest in turntablism, mash up culture, sound collages, hip hop mixes, sampling, or simply adventurous music you probably need this album in your collection. Most of the tracks here are not easy to find and the early stuff has never been available in more pristine form. The first 3 tracks are some of the most influential things made in last part of the century. They have influenced a generation and still sound amazingly good. The consistency rarely drops across the tracks here. Genius is a very overused word in our culture of the hyperbole but here it almost doesn't do justice. Buy this and own a vital piece of musical history.

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