The Best of Run DMC [2003] [Remaster]

Performer: Run-D.M.C.
Artist: Pete Rock; C.L. Smooth; Yellowman
Distributor: BMG Special Products

Notes: Additional personnel: Yellowman (vocals); Pete Rock, C.L. Smooth (rap vocals). Budget-priced collections are usually a double-edged sword. Sure, you can't complain about the low price, but these sets always conveniently leave out at least one or two bona fide classics, in hopes that the buyer will later return to the record store to buy further releases from the band. The ten-track 2003 Run-D.M.C. collection The Best of Run DMC is no different. While there's no arguing about the greatness of such tracks as "King of Rock," "It's Tricky," and "It's Like That," you simply cannot call a Run-D.M.C. collection a true "best-of" and not include their breakthrough hit single, "Walk This Way" (which many would agree served as most rock fans' initial introduction to rap). Also nowhere to be found are such other notable tracks as "Rock Box," "Mary, Mary," and "Sucker M.C.'s (Krush-Groove 1)." The Best of Run DMC comes close to being an admirable sampler of Run-D.M.C. hits, but without the inclusion of "Walk This Way," it's just too darn flawed. ~ Greg Prato

Until Run-DMC came along in the early 1980s, most hip-hop music wasn't much more than nursery rhymes over disco loops. They popularized the idea of rap as a new kind of rock & roll--the voice of the streets set to the raw sounds of a turntablist one-man-band. The group even managed to pioneer the collision of rock and rap with a groundbreaking take on Aerosmith's "Walk This Way." Run-DMC is now viewed as the avatar of old-school hip-hop, almost quaint by 21st-century gangsta standards, but undeniably influential. Sadly, Run-DMC disbanded in 2002, after the tragic murder of Jam Master Jay, the group's groundbreaking DJ.

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