Gold Record Alert!
Song#: 4028
Date: 09/09/1989
Debut: 91
Peak: 26
Weeks: 30
Genre: Rap
Pop Bits: A good chunk of folks remember this outfit more for the controversy they created rather than their music. While that is somewhat unfair, 2 Live Crew shouldn't grouse about it as the furor around their lyrics actually helped to sell albums. As the old saying goes, controversy sells and it certainly did for the group. Initially formed in California in 1984, the Crew would make a move to Miami the following year after their first single, "The Revelation," became popular in Florida. After a second single, they were signed by Luther Campbell (aka Luke Skyywalker) who became their manager. He would later join the group as well. A debut album, The 2 Live Crew Is What We Are, would arrive in '86. The raw sexual lyrics of some of the tracks outpaced anything else on vinyl and it immediately rankled some feathers with many calling the LP obscene. It gained further notoriety when a record store clerk was arrested in Florida for selling the LP to a 14-year-old girl (he was acquitted later). While singles didn't get airplay or chart, the minor uproar drew attention to the group and the album sold (#128 Pop/#24 R&B). The outfit continued on with '88's Move Somethin', which would do even better getting to #68 Pop/#20 R&B. A couple singles would be mid-charters at R&B, but it would be the group's outlandish lyrics and controversy over another arrest (a record store owner in Alabama selling to an undercover cop - again charges dropped) that made the album go gold and would also make their debut LP go gold. The whole thing set 2 Live Crew up for their most outrageous and most successful album, 89's As Nasty as They Wanna Be. It would create a full-on media circus complete with obscenity charges and court cases. Oh, and yes this first single that sold well enough to go gold and despite getting very little airplay managed to crack the Pop Top 30 while reaching #34 R&B and #1 Rap. All the hubbub helped the album get to #29 Pop and #3 R&B. It would become a platinum seller. Although the LP sold and folks were listening to the group, the music would be overshadowed by all of the media attention and controversy.
ReduxReview: I admit that all the brouhaha surrounding 2 Live Crew got my attention. I wanted to hear what all the fuss was about so I bought the Move Somethin' album when it came out. The lyrics were certainly coarse for the time and did make me laugh. Other than that, nothing about the tracks really stuck with me. So when As Nasty as They Wanna Be came out, I didn't bite. I figured they were a one trick pony just trying to be outlandish. They did build a reputation on being blatantly sexual using every dirty word in the book, but in a weird way I think the lyrics got in the way of what were actually good tracks. The jokey lyrics quickly wore thin (they were about as subtle as a Mack truck), but their beats and production were quality and it was apparent on As Nasty as They Wanna Be. If you replaced the spoken word samples and lyrics with something else, this track still had potential to be a hit. Yet by the time they were recording the album they had cemented their reputation as the dirty rappers so they went all in. Still, this is a fun relic from the time. While 2 Live Crew would not be the last artist to have such blatant sexual lyrics (Cardi B's 2020 "WAP" comes to mind), they were the ones to really cleared the way for other artists to express themselves however nasty they wanna be.
ReduxRating: 7/10
Trivia: Triple Shot! 1) What happened following the release of As Nasty as They Wanna Be is too much to document. The Reader's Digest condensed version is that between a lawyer, a sheriff, and a judge, the LP was declared obscene in Florida. Eventually a local retail salesperson was arrested for selling the album. Then members of 2 Live Crew were arrested for performing songs in a Florida club. In the end, everyone was cleared of charges and the ruling that the album was obscene was reversed. The Florida folks tried to get the Supreme Court to hear the case, but they refused. Freedom of speech won the day, but in some ways it cost 2 Live Crew a lot as the whole episode would always loom over everything they did. 2) The title along with the spoken vocal samples came from the 1997 Stanley Kubrick war film Full Metal Jacket. They were spoken by a Vietnamese prostitute to a US soldier played by Matthew Modine. The song also contains a sample of "Firecracker" by the R&B group Mass Production. That 1979 single would get to #4 R&B and #43 Pop. 3) 2 Live Crew would bounce back with 1990's Banned in the U.S.A. The title track would be a direct response concerning the obscenity charges and Bruce Springsteen granted the group permission to interpolate his hit "Born in the U.S.A." for the track. It would be the first single from the LP and it would get to #20 Pop/#13 R&B/#1 Rap and go gold. The album would also go gold hitting #21 Pop/#10 R&B. Their follow up in '91 Sports Weekend would have nearly identical results. Changes would take place within 2 Live Crew after that and their next three albums would successively sell less. By 1998, the group's heydays had come to an end.
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