Insane Clown Posse - The Amazing Jeckel Brothers

The Amazing Jeckel Brothers is easily the weakest of the original set of joker's cards. In fact, I really don't have that much to say about this album at all. It has a few stand out tracks, but for the most part it is just irritating filler and a bunch of shit that just goes on way, waaayyy too long ("I Want My Shit" being a prime example). There's a terrible selection of "metal" songs too, and all the guest appearances from "big name stars" such as ODB and Snoop Dogg do absolutely nothing to buy this record any credit. In fact, the contributions seem almost stock in nature, especially from Mr. Dogg, and cheapen the entire experience further.

"I Stab People" and "Mad Professor" are the only tracks worth noting, as is the instrumentation of both of the Jeckel tracks, and that's literally all, folks. This was terrible in 1999 and it's still terrible now. You probably don't need me to tell you that, unless you have twisted hair and a penchant for Monster energy drinks. Avoid.

Insane Clown Posse - The Ringmaster

The Ringmaster has gotta be a contender for one of my favorite ICP records. It marks the point where the group really start to find their feet. As much as I love Carnival of Carnage, it is a bit sketchy and the quality of tracks here far surpasses anything off that album, not to mention the Beverly Kills EP. I also think it's one of the more under-rated jokers cards, if not the most under-rated of the whole bunch. The Ringmaster is definitely the underdog of the original set of Dark Carnival troublemakers.

There is also a level of "silliness" that is missing from later albums, and the song production has a much more regular hip-hop feel than the unique direction that the band would quickly cement as their own. Don't get me wrong, there are carnival vibes aplenty, but the overall sound is much dryer and songs about Detroit still number strong. "Murder Go Round" is a classic opener, and shortly afterward is the hat-trick of "Mr. Johnson's Head", "Southwest Song" and "Get Off Me, Dog!"; three of ICP's best cuts back to back, again followed by another banger, "Who Asked You?".

It kinda falls off a bit after that but "House Of Mirrors" and "Bugz On My Nugz" are absolutely amazing songs, especially the latter, which always has me in peals of laughter. The closing track, "The Ringmaster's Word" is a twisted work of sampling. I sometimes wish ICP had continued with this earlier sound, I guess if nothing else they might have a bit more credibility (as much as you can give a group like ICP, at least).

I've lost the disc on my physical copy of this so I don't get to hear it that often anymore, but it's always nice to come back to for a trip through that old-school Detroit smog.

Insane Clown Posse - The Riddle Box

Insane Clown Posse are a band that get incredible amounts of ridicule the world over. Luckily for me, here in little ol' Wales, ICP and their seemingly endless armies of retarded, redneck juggalo "fans" aren't really a subject for ridicule, as they don't really exist. When I was big into ICP as a teenager, I didn't know a creeping shit about any of this juggalo crap. I'm not claiming ignorance as an excuse; I knew that fans painted themselves up for gigs, and that ICP always referred to fans as juggalos. But, that was about it. That's no big deal, right? I mean, Slipknot call their fans "maggots", or in a different musical world, Lady Gaga refers to her die-hard followers as "little monsters". The juggalo phenomena that has swept America over the last 15/20 years really didn't register with me until it was too late. Is it just me, or have "juggalos" become the idiots that ICP hated on in these first few releases? Just look at any juggalo story you find online. ICP would have never stood for that shit - back in the day, at least. The stupid, toothless, idiot fucktards that ICP spent so much time hating on have become their main fan-base. Dafuck?

Anyways, on with the review! I can't help it that ICP themselves have fallen into a PC-friendly formula, churning out a bunch of crap that isn't really rap or hip hop...or anything of any substance come to think of it (after the Joker's Cards finished they fell the fuck off, and hard), but when this act emerged out of the murky smog of Detroit in the 90s, they brought with them a slightly disturbing, yet wholly unique performance and sound. It is more than apparent that ICP took a lot of "inspiration" from (the excellent) Detroit rapper Esham, but so did Eminem, and anyone else who has spat violent shit over a rap beat, but by the time The Ringmaster hit the shelves, ICP were already heading in their own unique direction. When their third full length dropped (this here Riddle Box CD), the group had gained a massive local following and it's own super-funky, nasty hip hop sound, dripping in silly slasher themes and wicked rhymes which would go on to form the basis of the genre 'horrorcore'. I fuckin' hate juggalos, and I fuckin' hate ICP's weak, middle-America-white-majority-pandering material of the last decade - but their early shit is some of the best rap music in the fuckin' world. This shit fuckin' rules!

Musically, this is the darkest ICP record other than the intentionally-grim-as-fuck Hell's Pit. Lyrical themes are in the ballparks of necrophilia ("Cemetery Girl"), cannibalism ("Dead Body Man"), physical and mental retardation ("Three Rings"), paedophilia ("Lil' Somethin' Somethin'"), murder ("12"), murder of rednecks ("Chicken Huntin'"), murder of children ("Toy Box"), murder of public officials ("The Joker's Wild"), murder of pensioners ("Ol' Evil Eye").....you get the picture. And yet, the band thank God in the sleeve notes. I personally don't understand the massive fucking contradictions here, but what can you do? Fuck it. Shit is amazing. 

This was originally released in 1995 on some fucking backwards combination of Jive Records, Battery Records and the band's own Psychopathic Records. Also, please excuse the dire state that my copy of The Riddle Box is in, I haven't exactly taken care of it! 

WHEN ALL SIX HAVE RISEN, THE END WILL CONSUME US ALL.

Insane Clown Posse - The Wraith; Remixes

How else can a band cash in on what was supposed to be their final album? Remember, the story went that after the sixth joker card fell.......well nobody fuckin' knew what was going to happen, so they needed to milk that shit, let's be fair. The Wraith itself was split into two separate albums and released two years apart, and then this remix album came trailing behind a few years later. It is no secret that anything post-joker card ICP is fucking abysmal, so this is the most recent ICP release in my possession.

If it was just any ol' remix album I wouldn't have bothered, but when ICP used a whole world of different producers on the two Wraith albums, it just didn't sit well with me. I think they are excellent albums; comedic "horrorcore" rap at it's best, but from what I had read and found out, Mike E. Clark - who produced pretty much every single ICP release before The Wraith - was basically the backbone of the sound that made ICP famous; that sick carnival vibe mixed with the old-skool stylings of the early 90s. On The Wraith; Remixes, Mr. Clark has returned to the chair for seven of the tracks, basically re-arranging them into the wickedness they would have been if he was at the helm from the start! This also confirmed to me that there was no bad blood between ICP and Mike Clark, which was great news.

Mike Clark's remixes are generally of a rather high quality, as are those by the Kottonmouth Kings and Monoxide from Twiztid. Kuma's mixes here seem a bit forced, like he is trying to make the tracks into completely different songs. Unfortunately, Fritz the Cat, the guy who gave us the heavy and dark production on Hell's Pit, just churns out more of the same; stripping back his own tracks and lashing on more evil vibes. I get it though, it works for him. Mind you, it's cool to hear his take on some of the Shangri-La tracks. Also, Wolf Pac & FILTHEE Immigrants both contribute seriously awesome mixes to disc one, but my favourite of the lot is Tech N9ne's reworking of "The Witch".

All in all this is definitely a completists item, or unless you're some sort of DJ or hip hop head who loves the remix shits. What is really refreshing here is that in some of the songs alternate verses are used instead; sometimes they are ones that were recorded at the time of the original record and then cut out, or a few times fresh new lyrics are worked in by the producer or a guest rapper of their choice. All the usual Psychopathic artists show up vocally here, like Blaze, Jumpsteady, Zug Island and ABK. Unsurprisingly, this double album was released by Psychopathic Records in America, and by Cortex in Australia. 

Insane Clown Posse - The Carnival of Carnage

This is where it all began! Well, not all of it, but as far the Dark Carnival thing goes and the Joker's Card legacy shit, it all began here. ICP's debut record is like nothing else in their history and it remains to this day one of my favourite records by them. It possesses an extremely amateur mix by an at-the-time fresh-faced Mike Clark, and shows the group before they had fully adjusted to their new Insane Clown personas. The whole thing might be dressed up with a carnival vibe, but for me this record is much more Inner City than it is Insane Clown. Later records explored a much more alternative backdrop of sounds, but Carnival of Carnage fits in unusually with the more typical approach of hip hop in the early 90s, with heavy overtones of gangster rap and old-school, awkward-to-listen-to sound collages.

There are a lot of themes here that were quickly dropped as ICP gradually became more mainstream. For example, there are more misogynistic overtones present here than on any other material the band has made. The text inside the booklet also calls (rather brutally) for the all-out murder of the children of rich people, and incites some sort of crazy revolt where the ghettos will rise up and take over. Despite what "The Carnival" turned out to be, a lot of Juggalos don't seem to remember it's rather childish and worryingly genocidal roots. But, let's not forget that Violent J and Shaggy were basically kids when this record was made.

CoC gets off to a slow start. There are two (yes!) intro tracks before the first songs comes in proper on track three. "First Day Out" is one of my favourite rap songs ever, and tells the tale of going out on a date after being in prison for a while. "Red Neck Hoe" is an ICP classic, and has possibly the most inspired chorus ever; "Bitch, you's a hoe, and hoe you's a bitch; everybody know you's a funky funky bitch". It even features a rather awful contribution from either Esham or Jumpsteady (I honestly can't tell the difference here). "Is That You?" is one of the stand-out tracks on the album, despite featuring Kid Rock ("I drink Faygo it's only a buck-ten, I'ma pour it on ya tits when we fuck-en'").

If you like old-school hip hop but consider ICP to be an absolute joke (which to be fair, they have always strived to be) then this record could be your only chance at liking them. It's a bit shaky compared to other genre greats from that era but it also contains some amazing amateur rhymes ("I'm chillin', I'm illin', with my guts all over the ceilin'") that more than make up for it's crappy production. Self-released on Psychopathic Records.

"Ma'afuckers think I'm sick? You ever seen a bitch take a shit?"

For some absolute fucktarded, cuntworthy, bullshit as piss reason, I cannot post any video links in this blog post. Every time I embed a video into this post and then click preview, it disappears.  Like, totally, even from the html code as if I never put it there. Instead of previewing I tried to publish right off the bat instead, but the same shit happens; that vid just evapourates like my Friday night catch on a Saturday morning; all up outta this bitch without you seein' shit! Fuck! I'm not sure if the fault is with Blogspot or Youtube, because having embedded a video link nearly 200 times before the same way, it sure as hell ain't my fault. I blame Google (a.k.a. Skynet), who owns both of the previously mentioned websites. Maybe Google hates ICP? Sort your shit out, boss!