Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. How You Sell Soul to a Souless People Who Sold Their Soul?
2. Black Is Back
3. Harder Than You Think
4. Between Hard and a Rock Place
5. Sex, Drugs & Violence
6. Amerikan Gangster
7. Can You Hear Me Now
8. Head Wide Shut
9. Flavor Man
10. Enemy Battle Hymn of the Public
11. Escapism
12. Frankenstar
13. Col-Leepin
14. Radiation of a Radiotvmovie Nation
15. See Something, Say Something
16. Long and Whining Road
17. Bridge of Pain
18. Eve of Destruction
19. How You Sell Soul (Time Is God Refrain)

Disc 2:

1. Where There's Smoke... [DVD]
2. PE20 Tour58: Power Energy, Planet Earth, Public Enemy [DVD]
3. Live @ BB King's [DVD]
4. [Bonus Material] [DVD]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #50651 in Music
• Released on: 2007-08-07
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Album Description
Public Enemy's been pioneers in combining verbal acumen with technological advances, performance artistry and theatricality, thematic integrity and artistic control. In an era where mega-national corporations dominate the marketplace and many rappers prefer being popular to being relevant, Public Enemy remain vibrant and topical. They've also forged and maintained a creative legacy that has a timeless quality, yet gives listeners intricate and compelling slices of life from the various eras in which these songs were conceived. They are not entertainers or performers but scribes and commentators providing insight and information through rhymes and music that has uplifted and still inspires legions of fans. Standard Jewel Case with bonus DVD.

Amazon.com
Another Public Enemy album is always good news for hip-hop fans, and How You Sell... carries the torch. Other than a few forgettable tracks pulled from a Flavor Flav solo record, highlights abound here. The rockin' "Black Is Back" and the horn-heavy "Harder Than You Think" serve heavy helpings of uplift mojo. "Sex, Drugs & Violence" features a chorus of kids and peerless verses from KRS-One. "Long and Whining Road," the album's most moving track, sees Chuck D's lyrics leaning heavily on Bob Dylan song titles and one-off references to U2, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty, Beastie Boys, and more. Dramatic production touches include the muted metal riff of "Frankenstar" and orchestral flavors like chimes ("Amerikan Gangster") and vibraphone ("Bridge of Pain"). As always, though, the music is the message, and where this album is so musically eclectic as to court identity crisis, in the end the instrumental elasticity only mirrors Chuck D's vast grasp of the continuum of social ills that mainstream hip-hop long since gave up battling in favor of greed, fame, provincialism, or all of the above. So in answer to the indulgent question of this album's title, maybe--just maybe--this is how we do it. --Jason Kirk

Customer Reviews

Back to remind us ... .
With American culture hijacked by American Idol and the infusion of six years of neoconservative anti-values, Chuck D., Flav and Company are back to remind us of the meaning of truth, where the struggle actually lies and how brilliant and relevant Public Enemy remain. After several replays, "Harder Than You Think" still brings a tear to my eye. It's that good. Five stars.

Tough to rate actually...
You know, it actually pains me to give this a three star rating. It's better than that. Pi perhaps? 3.62 stars, maybe? It ain't quite a FOUR but it's bloody PUBLIC ENEMY!!

Let me start with why I still deeply appreciate this album. Because I'm old enough (31) to remember rap before it became soulless, mindless, directionless, impotent, arbitrarily aggressive. I grew up on rap and loved it. It was a vital artform and there were so many guys out there with interesting stuff to say. IT PAINS ME NOW TO SEE WHAT IT'S BECOME. The current conveyor belt of slaptards that roll out albums now with all the same themes, near identical covers, coming from uniformly empty heads, ugh, it just pains me.

And this album gives the finger to all that.

For that, Chuck D, I thank you. When you listen to the lyrics, this album identifies the sheer stupidity in rap today with an ease comparable to explaining that 2 + 2 = 4. But once upon a time, they made albums addressing issues, huge ones, tackling them with a grandiose sense of revolution!! Why this now? Well, because it's necessary. Guys like Chuck and KRS need to reclaim hip hop from the pimps and hos who are perpetuating a very embarassing characature of it. Chuck is still one of the finest MCs, the lyrics are still solid, the message is still vital. Thank you, PE for refusing to disappear.

Now, here's why this isn't a 5 star album: because I remember It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back. Because I remember Fear of a Black Planet. The production on those albums just couldn't be touched back then. I still remember clearly the day I bought It Takes a Nation and got it home. I listened to it and it floored me as few albums ever have. I listened to that tape beginning to end three times nonstop on my bed with headphones on. The album would end and I just had to go through it again. I was absolutely stunned. The beats and production, I'd never heard anything like it. Think of songs like "Bring Tha Noise," "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," "Welcome to the Terrordome." Think of the production on "War At Thirty Three and a Third," and remember just how insane it was. Lyrics aside, THE SOUND was just as revolutionary. It was fast, it was noisy, it was complicated.

This album makes me miss The Bomb Squad's production. It's a good album, but it lacks what made "Nation" one of the best rap albums of all time. The beats just feel a bit generic. Sigh. And OK, if you can't get the old production team in ... well, surely there is something that could have been done? Bugger, imagine if El-P was turning the knobs in the studio, designing the sonic chaos that made PE so awesome, the foundation for Chuck to rant over. Yeah, I'd probably sell a kidney for that album.

Chuck D, I still thank you. Thanks for creating an album all those years ago that really deserves credit as a milestone marker in my life. Please, don't stop now, hip-hop still needs guys like you more than ever.

PE Still Has It !!!
20 years in the Hip-Hop Game and Public Enemy still carrying the torch of being the voice of the people. This album pulls all the stops from a harsh reality checking of Hip-Hop with tough love, wisdom, and inspiration (How You Sell Soul??.., Harder Than You Think), the current state of Hip-Hop (Sex, Drugs, & Violence, Can You Here Me Now, Frankenstar), the played out "50 Cent type" imagery of today's Hip-Hop culture (American Gangster, Escapism), anti-Bush Adnministration and the never ending War in Iraq (The Enemy Battle Hymn of the Public, Eve of Destruction), and my personal favorite and most recent hot button topic in Hip-Hop culture (See Something, Say Something) on how this "anti-snitching" code of silence is backfiring on the culture/black community, and how thug rappers are using the black revolutionary term "snitch" for different (and wrong) reasons. Ever since Tupac and Biggie's deaths, the Hip-Hop culture has been cursed will the notion that it's cool not to snitch (Case in point: that embarrassing Camron interview on Fox News); therefore, giving shady government agencies and law enforcement a license to unconstitutionally profile and police Hip-Hop, while making it harder on the black community by allowing crime to escalate and remain unsolved. Chuck D was right all along: Hip-Hop is unfortunately the new COINTELPRO.

As always, Public Enemy remains constistent in delivering the valuable goods with their powerful substantial message that instantly grabs the listeners attention along with their top notch production that's never afraid to boldly explore different territory, yet never disappoints with individuality and orginiality.

CONGRATULATIONS PUBLIC ENEMY ON YOUR 20 YEAR SUCCESS AND KEEP "FIGHTIN THE POWER" FOR THE VOICE OF TRUE HIP-HOP !!!!!