Review: Cypress Hill, "Elephants on Acid"

I can count on one hand – with fingers left over – the number of hip-hop acts I get excited about hearing new music from. Cypress Hill, though, is at the top of that list.

I was a metal kid in my early 20s who, with a couple of notable exceptions, hated hip-hop with a passion when I first heard Cypress Hill through a friend and co-worker at the fast-food joint where I was working my way through college. He was a black hardcore hip-hop fan from California, and I was a white redneck metalhead from Louisiana. We often taunted each other, good-naturedly, with our respective music while we worked. That was his intent when he popped a Cypress Hill disc in the little boom box, but there was something about this group that caught my attention. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but they had a different vibe that I really liked – and it didn’t hurt, I guess, that one of the first songs he played was “I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That,” which sampled Black Sabbath’s “The Wizard.”

Review: Body Count, "Manslaughter"

As its opening song “Talk Shit, Get Shot” would suggest, much of Body Count’s return album Manslaughter revels in gratuitous violence and sex. That’s always been the case for Ice-T’s metal outfit, of course, but most of the band’s early output built that around a framework of social commentary.

A lot of the material on Manslaughter takes that violence and sex to an absurd level, but I have to admit that many of the tunes, like that opening song, are pretty catchy.

If there’s one reason that you should check out this record though, it has to be for their new version of Suicidal Tendencies’ “Institutionalized.” Metal fans will be familiar with the original, in which the subject’s concerned parents want to get some help for what they see as his problems. The classic ST song introduced the black humor that has permeated frontman Mike Muir’s work and spawned perhaps the band’s most memorable lyric as Muir calls for a Pepsi.

Saturday Shuffle: N.E.R.D., Disturbed, Cypress Hill, ZZ Top, Aerosmith

A shuffle with two hip-hop tunes in it? What are things coming to here ...  ;)

N.E.R.D., "Lapdance." From the album In Search of ... (2002). This tune is a bit of a guilty pleasure. Well, more than a bit of one, I guess. I might be the only person on the planet that liked the "Daredevil" movie. And I absolutely love the scene where the camera pans up on Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin in that suit, leaning on his cane and puffing a cigar. That scene is the whole reason this song is in my collection. I could live without the more typical rap toward the end, but otherwise, I have to admit I like it.

Saturday Shuffle: Nirvana, Warrant, Cypress Hill, Amorphis, Hank Jr.

Something for just about everyone this week. Rock, hip-hop, death metal, country, you want it, it's there ...


Nirvana, "Plateau." From the album MTV Unplugged in New York (1994). I've never made any secret of my opinion of Nirvana and the fact that I believe they're the most overrated band in the history of rock. That said, I do love the Unplugged album, and "Plateau," one of a couple of Meat Puppets covers on the record, is a favorite.

Something Borrowed: "I Gotsta Get Paid," ZZ Top/DJ DMD

Leave it to ZZ Top to take a regional rap hit and turn it into a smoking blues rock celebration of cool.

When working on last year's La Futura album, the bearded boys from Texas found inspiration from an unlikely source, a gangsta rap tune from Houston-based artist DJ DMD. The original, titled "25 Lighters," focused on hustling drugs and smuggling crack inside emptied out disposable lighters, which were easier to transport and pass. Of course, the ZZ version bears little resemblance to the original.