Customer Reviews

Blowout Comb

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This has got to be the most underrated, slept-on album in the history of hip-hop. I consider myself to be an avid hip hop fan, yet I slept on this album until November of last year!! I have heard that this album was a classic time and tiem again, but I never considered buying it until recently. This album is dope from the beginning to end. The production is reminiscent of The Roots, but I think it is much more mellow and organic. All of the songs are nice, but my favorites are Jettin, Blowing Down, The Art oF Easing, Dial 7 and Four Corners. 1994 was one of the best years in hip-hop. Illmatic, Sun Rises In The East, Word...Life, Resurrection and Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik were released during the year, but in my opinion, Blowout Comb ranks up there with those albums because it is just as good, if not better in some cases. If you do not have this album, you are missing out on a masterpiece.

This is one of those albums that just slides through the cracks between genres. It's also the quintessential hip hop album. Along side 'The Low End theory,' 'Things Fall Apart,' Paul's Boutique,' 'Stankonia'... It takes hip hop to new places, it makes the whole more than what it was. Few albums accomplish that- stepping up the game for all involved and raising the collective ante.

The tracks are dense as hell- sticky-thick, odd effects, abyssinian-deep funkee samples, beats the likes of which I have never heard before (really- and I know beats pretty wel, aside from the shuggie otis sample on 'For Corners' and a couple others I'm at a loss for most of the album), and sick rhymes that stick in your head eternally... It is way beyond 'Reachin,' Digable Planet's debut album, which was a very good album in its own right.

Like I have said before in reviews, there are very albums that I can just sit back and listen to- the whole thing, no skipping tracks, no messing with the order. This is just perfect, like the girl you hope to take home to mom one day. If the almighty bounced into my kitchen while I'm washing dishes to Blowout Comb, while skipping around and murmuring the lyrics, and asked me- "Well, can I make it better? More echo on the jazz drums from 'black ego'? Or higher pitch on the singing on 'the axioms of creamy spies? Anything? you want fries with that perfection???"

I'd just say, "You know what, God? This one is fine as is."

Just kidding, there is no God. But this album is damn close.

I understand that I am in the minority when I make this statement: I have listened to hip hop my whole life. I own all of the albums that are considered "essential" to the genre, from Run DMC to the Roots. I think this is the most creative and interesting hip hop album I've ever heard. Smart, layered, and seductive: It quite literally makes 99% of the hip hop I hear today seem like mundane mic and turntable chatter. Shame on you Digable Planets for breaking up!

This album is a very nice album. Probably in my top 5 best albums ever made. The lyrics by the insects are more politically str8 forward on this project opposed to the earlier one. This album should not be compared to groups like The Roots or A Tribe Called Quest. Instead they are in more of a group which consists of Jeru The Damaja, Guru, Chuck-D, George Clinton, and Sly and the Family Stone. This album is waaaaaaaaay better than Midnight Maruders or any Roots album, but due to some stange reason DP were not given their props. The bass here is still heavy here, lots of sax and xylophones are prevelent in the soundscape, and the lyrics are pure poetry mixed with hip-hop slang and social commentary. Digable Planets should be in the definition of Intelligent Music. A person must be 19 or over to properly enjoy this album. I got this album when I was way to young and just couldn't comprehend! Oh, and if u like Limp,Jay-Z or any stuff like that, you will hate this album so stay away! A perfect album to bump in headphones, or when you're just loungin'.

Before NWA gave us gansta rap, the toilet down which most of the genre's potential and creativity was flushed, hip hop was an exciting, fertile ground, rich with innnovation and experimentation. In the sample-crazy, pre-lawsuit days late '80s and early '90s, De La Soul, the Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest and the Planets began pushing the genre beyond its ghetto block party roots to a more sophisticated soundscape of jazz, pop, rock, funk and delightful freakiness.

The Digable Planet's Blowout Comb, tragically lost in the flood of thug bangin' nonsense, took the free-thinking manifesto to a new, never-equaled level. Simply put, Blowout Comb is the heaviest, coolest, most mind-blowing example of genre-crushing hip hop ever committed to wax. Street smart, sophisticated and stoned to the bone, the Planet's tribute to Brooklyn will never cease to delight and amaze anyone who demands more that "YO!"

I suppose I could pick highlights -- the opening track and "Jettin'" are superb -- but this disc, much like Stevie Wonder's early '70s albums, are best sampled as one complete work. This is without question the finest hip-hop CD I have ever had the pleasure of swirling through my brain. Whenever absolute cool is a must, this is THE disc. Highly, strongly recommended.

This albumn took music to a new level. It combined two music genre that had rarely been used togehter before. The jazzy hip hop that this albumn combined was pure genius. I love both jazz and hip hop music, but when you mix them together to form music my appreciation for both music forms is elavated.

If you love the flow of jazz and the flavor of hip hop than this albumn brings together the best of both worlds. Peace, ONE

When Max Roach said that hip hop would one day produce its own Charlie Parker, who would have thought that this latter-day saviour would be allowed to dissapear with barely a murmur from the public. Yet that is what seems to have happened with 'Blowout Comb'. This is a hip hop album which pays due respect to the founding fathers of the be bop movement whilst forging a sound that has yet to be surpassed. It is a dark, brooding work which fully encapsulates modern urban tensions whilst keeping it's gaze fixed on empowerment.Perhaps the fact that the digables created such an apposite political document led to them being dropped rather quicker than if they'd produced a more mundane work. Regardless, this album stands as a titan...buy it, listen to it, act on it.

In this fickle world of popular art, there are many artists who were not given the opportunity to fully bless the world with their talents. Right at the very top of that list is Digable Planets.

In 1993, DP dropped their debut album and gained fame via the infectiousness of the single "Rebirth of the Slick (Cool Like That)." Unfortunately however, as pop audiences are wont to do, the group earned a label, and because of their love of the jazz culture, the members of Digable Planets were considered neo-hippies despite the considerable talent and intelligence (although depending on your political stance that may or may not be a bad thing) shown throughout the album.

In response, Digable Planets did the same thing that De La Soul had done five years prior. They recorded a darker, and in the DPs case, better follow up. Anyone who purchased this album thinking to get more cool like that's was definitely surprised. On this album, the DPs made perfectly clear that they were not just some token jazz/hip hop act. The tones are much more adult and political. And in my personal opinion, this is the best jazz-influenced album ever made. Yeah, A Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr and the Roots all deserve the props that they've gotten over the years, but at the same time Digable Planets deserve to be mentioned in the same breaths.

My favorite track on this album is the collaboration with Jeru the Damaja, "Graffitti." And this album was definitely making noise, noise, noise, noise.

I bought this album first when it came out in 1994, and from the first time I listened to it to this day, it's the greatest thing I've ever heard. This album is not worth 5 stars. It's worth 10. If you don't own it already you must buy it.

This album is a trailblazer. No other LP or hip-hop artist has followed it since. It is a mind-blowing fusion of jazz, hip-hop and spoken verse with enough slammin' beats to keep your head bobbin'. But it is the unflinching "realness" that really makes me appreciate this album. Check out Black Ego and Dial 7 for example. There is some really brilliant work here.

People gave The Score all the props, but it has none of the depth of Blowout Comb. If you're ready for a true test, buy this album.