SIR MIX-A-LOT: Swass LP PROMO 1988. Check the exclusive video, showing the vinyl for sale! Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover) Featuring Metal Church. Includes “Posse On Broadway”

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Check the exclusive video, showing the vinyl for sale! 

Check the exclusive video, showing the vinyl for sale! 


Sir Mix-A-Lot Swass
Label: Nastymix Records PROMO
Catalog#: TTT 121
Format: Vinyl, LP
Country: US
Released: 1988
Genre: Hip Hop
Style: Bass Music, Electro

Tracklist:
A1 Buttermilk Biscuits (Keep On Square Dancin’) 3:33
A2 Posse On Broadway 5:01
A3 Gold 4:59
A4 Swass 4:38
A5 Rippin’ 3:47 Beat Box Kid Sensation
A6 Mall Dropper 0:10
B1 Hip Hop Soldier 5:35
B2 Iron Man 4:10 Featuring Metal Church
B3 Bremelo 4:10
B4 Square Dance Rap 4:16
B5 Romantic Interlude 4:00

All songs written, composed, produced and performed by Sir Mix-A-Lot
MIxed and engineered by Sir Mix-A-Lot and Terry Date at Steve Lawson Productions, Seattle, Washington

Even through the late 1980s, mainstream hip-hop music was the product of places like the Northeastern Seaboard and California. Occasionally artists from places like Houston or Miami would make themselves heard, but the guys who got the most shine were from New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Which makes the fact that a Seattle-based rapper released a platinum album in 1988 such an oddity.

Anthony “Sir Mix-A-Lot” Ray created the Seattle hip-hop scene for all intents and purposes. As a DJ in the early ’80s, he spun hip-hop in community centers throughout the city. He eventually began recording music himself, releasing and distributing 12”s through Nastymix Records in the mid ’80s. He became a staple of the Seattle club scene, which has always skewed heavily towards Rock music; Mix-A-Lot has said that Nirvana once opened up for him at a tavern show during this period. His debut album Swass was a considerable success upon its release 35 years ago, selling a million copies during a period when most platinum acts were from New York or Los Angeles.

Swass sounded unique in a hip-hop climate populated by the likes of Public Enemy, N.W.A, Eric B. & Rakim, and Big Daddy Kane, among others. Musically, it was almost a throwback to the mid-’80s. Mix-A-Lot produced Swass himself and created a soundscape that’s heavy on electro funk. The beats have much more in common with the music of Newcleus and Egyptian Lover than the breakbeat-based production that began to dominate hip-hop during this period.

Lyrically, Mix-A-Lot had an at times imposing vocal presence that was counter-balanced by a genuine sense of humor. One refreshing aspect of his music is that he knew it was okay to not take himself too seriously all of the time, and he could cut loose and have a good time. As a result, Swass is often a really fun record.

One thing that’s always stood out about Mix-A-Lot’s music is that even the album’s name itself comes from an inside joke within the crew. In an interview with Magnet, Mix-A-Lot explained “Swass” doesn’t actually mean anything. When he worked in an arcade during the mid-’80s, there was a pinball machine that said a word that sounded like “Swass!” He decided Swass stood for “Some Wild Ass Silly Shit” after recording the song that would become the album’s title track.


REVIEW:

The title track itself is a prime example of the overall eclecticism of Swass. Musically, it’s reminiscent of mid-’80s Prince, complete with breathy vocal effects and throbbing drums that thump with mechanical precision. Over buzzing yet faint synthesizer, Mix-A-Lot raps in short, clipped phrases while using an exaggerated, suave vocal tone. He describes himself as an “Intelligent freak, wardrobe complete” and announcing that he’s “the king of the beat in the Great Northwest.”

Over 15 years later, “Swass” became the inspiration for the mega-hit “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls. Cee-Lo Green, who wrote and produced the song, was a huge fan of “Swass,” and re-interpreted the song’s chorus. The hook (“Don’t you wish your boyfriend was Swass like me?” became “Don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”) became a big reason for the success of “Don’t Cha.”

Swass is best known for “Posse On Broadway,” the album’s third single and biggest hit. The song sounded considerably different than what constituted a hip-hop hit in 1988: a stripped-down, deliberate drum-machine driven track filled with vocal stabs and Godzilla-like groans. Mix-A-Lot adopts a syrupy, almost nasally drawl as he rhymes about traversing the streets of Seattle, first 23rd Street and then Broadway, posse-deep on a quest for female companionship. He also introduces the listeners to his crew: rapper Kid Sensation, rapper/dancer Maharaji, and Larry the White Guy a.k.a. a real estate investor who makes a lot of money.

As he shouts out prominent local landmarks, he clowns haters and his “posse” of women continues to grow. Mix-A-Lot oozes swagger on the track, particularly as he describes a twerp who hits his girlfriend getting a face-full of mace from one of Mix-A-Lot’s crewmembers. He basks in his own splendor, proclaiming, “I got a def posse; you got a bunch of dudes / You’re broke, cold crying about the rock man blues.”

Mix-A-Lot is also adept at kicking some straight lyrical shit. When he does engage in some straight ahead battle-rapping on Swass, he excels. “Rippn’,” the album’s second single, is one of the best songs on Swass, as he trades verses with fellow crew member Kid Sensation, spitting rhymes at a rapid pace over a pulsing drum and percussion-filled track that must clock in near 120 beats per minute. Highlights also include a synthesizer-replaying of “Alouette” for the song’s hook and a breakdown that samples vocals from Gary Numan’s “Cars.”

“Attack on the Stars” is another album highlight, as Mix-A-Lot unleashes a volley against would-be rappers only concerned with the trappings of fame, rather than creating good music. “Mix-A-Lot the maker of revenue,” he bellows over a synth-heavy beat, “Dropkick mud ducks on the avenue.” His disgust for phonies is palpable as he raps, “Punk, your rap’s illiterate / Wanna box, boy? Don’t consider it.”

Mix-A-Lot continuously demonstrates a desire to give the audience something they aren’t necessarily expecting. Case in point, he serves up both “Square Dance Rap,” which he first released as a single back in 1985, and “Buttermilk Biscuits” on Swass. On both songs Mix-A-Lot adds heavy effects to his voice, making him sound like a high-pitched redneck alien. The two songs are what the titles advertise, as they are respectively odes to square dancing and breakfast muffins, but they play like the seriously demented, countrified versions of “Jam On It.” Mix-A-Lot fully commits to the bit here; I have no idea how he didn’t bust up laughing while giving step-by-step instructions on how to prepare and serve the nominal breakfast treats.

There are other instances where Mix-A-Lot tries to be unorthodox. “Iron Man,” the album’s fourth single, is an early rap/metal mash-up. It features Seattle-based Metal Church playing the iconic Black Sabbath guitar riff from the song of the same name. Though Mix-A-Lot is an avowed Heavy Metal fan, he admitted in a 2003 interview with The AV Club that this song was an attempt to copy Run-DMC’s success.

For what it’s worth, the 12” remix, featuring a sample of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” drums and rhythmic scratching, is the better version of the song. I’ll also say that the line “Met Clint Eastwood and slapped his mama” will always be funny to me.

Swass launched a very interesting career trajectory for Sir Mix-A-Lot. His path to eventual mega-stardom wasn’t a straight line. His sophomore album Seminar (1989) was very good but not as commercially successful as Swass. He followed that with 1992’s Mack Daddy and the still ubiquitous “Baby Got Back,” which turned him into a household name.

Though both of these follow-up albums sounded significantly different from Swass, they were also different than just about everything else out at the time. Moreover, they still presented Mix-A-Lot as a dynamic personality. Swass was instrumental in shaping this ethos, and is entertaining as hell to boot.




REVIEW 2 :

When discussing Seattle hip-hop, the only name you can truly give credit to for putting the city on the map is Sir-Mix-A-Lot. Dating back to the mid-eighties, Anthony Ray was putting in work and making a name for himself on the streets of Seattle. In 1988 he would release his self-produced debut album, Swass, on his Nastymix label (it, along with Seminar, would later be re-released on Rick Rubin’s Def American imprint, after Mix-A-Lot signed and release his Mack Daddy album on the label).

According to Mix-A-Lot, Swass  was just an inside joke with no real meaning, but after the album was released it became an acronym for “some wild ass silly shit”. When Mix-A-Lot talks about Swass in the liner notes, it sounds like he may have been taking jabs at LL Cool J and his BAD album (which was an acronym for “Bigger and Deffer”) as it reads “SWASS is bigger than big, badder than bad, smoother than smooth, and definitely deffer than def.” The meaning of the title may be up for debate, but there is no question that Swass was a commercial success, as it would go on to earn Sir Mix-A-Lot a platinum plaque.

Notable songs:

Posse On Broadway – Before “Beepers”, and later his monster pop hit that will forever live on some radio station’s mid-day old school mix, “Baby Got Back”, there was “Posse On Broadway”. This is the song that introduced me to Sir Mix-A-Lot’s nasal delivery and comical storytelling. Over sparse instrumentation Mix-A-Lot shares how he and his posse roll in Seattle on any given night. Classic record, and the video for the song is even more classic.

Iron Man – Our host puts a hip-hop twist on the classic Black Sabbath song with the same name. He invites Craig Wells from the Seattle metal band, Metal Church, to play the rough guitar riffs live on this one. I’m sure Mix-A-Lot was going for an Aerosmith/Run DMC “Walk This Way” crossover hit.


With its complex, sci-fi storyline and equally weighty sonics, Iron Man went on to become so much more than just another Sabbath track – but don’t go thinking it’s about the superhero…

 There’s a well-thumbed story that the Black Sabbath song Iron Man‘ as inspired by the Marvel Comics character of the same name. But it’s not true. Although Marvel had established that superhero in 1963, Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, who wrote the lyrics for the iconic song, had never even heard of him in 1970.“My parents never let me read American comics when I was growing up,” he says.  So whenever someone’s said to me over the years: ‘Oh, didn’t you write this about the superhero?’, I’d just say: ‘Sorry, never heard of him.’”

The idea for the song (which first appeared on the second Sabbath album, Paranoid, released in 1970), actually started with Ozzy Osbourne.

“I can’t exactly recall what Ozzy said, but it was something like: ‘Why don’t we do a song called Iron Man, or maybe Iron Bloke’. That got me thinking about a lump of metal, and then putting it all into a science-fiction context. It all flowed from there.”

The storyline – a self-fulfilment prophecy, mixed up with time travel – is actually quite complex. It’s about a man who goes into the future and witnesses the apocalypse. Going back to his own time, he encounters a rogue magnetic field, which turns him into a mute, steel creature. Unable to talk, he still tries to warn people about the impending end of the world, but is only mocked for his troubles. Angry and bitter, he eventually causes the devastation he’d warned everyone about. Ultimately the would-be hero becomes the villain.

“I was heavily into science fiction at the time. Remember, this was the era of the space race,” says Butler. “A lot of the stuff I was writing about was inspired by those sorts of stories. I was fascinated by what might happen to a man who’s suddenly transformed into a metal being. He still has a human brain, and wants to do the right thing, but eventually his own frustrations at the way humanity treats him drives this creature to taking extreme action. It’s almost a cry for help.

“What I always attempted to do with my science-fiction plots was to make these relevant to the modern world at the time,” Butler continues. “So I brought war and politics in. It was also an era when the whole issue of pollution was starting to get attention, and this affected my thinking quite a bit.”

Sabbath drummer Bill Ward reckons that, musically, the song was nothing like anything else the band had done up to that point: “For me, this is a special song for the band. It was just so different. As soon as you hear that ominous start, you know something’s building. For me, the drumming was a real challenge to get right in the studio. But it’s also a drummer’s dream to play.

“Technically, we had real problems getting it right in the studio,” Ward recalls. “The trouble was that the microphones available to us in 1970 just weren’t up to the task of capturing the power and depth of the sound. I played very loud back then, and wanted a powerful bass drum sound; that’s what the song needed. Yet all I could get was a dull thud. For Rodger [Bain, producer] and Tom [Allom, engineer], trying to make Iron Man work was so tough. In the end they did an excellent job under the circumstances. Today it would be so easy for a band to get the proper sound on a song like this, because the technology exists.”

Over the years, Iron Man has become not only one of the cornerstones of the Sabbath catalogue, but also credited as one of the most important songs in the history of metal. For Geezer Butler, it is perhaps the track that bests sums up the band.

“I really do feel that when you listen to Iron Man, what you’re getting is the essence of what made Black Sabbath such a special band,” he offers. “It’s fairly simple, yet also has a lot of depth. I’m very proud of what we achieved here.”

Bill Ward believes that the song’s stature has grown over the years, to the point where it has now gone beyond being just a great Sabbath song.

“In America, if you go to most sports events you’ll hear it at some point. It’s now a part of the culture of the country. People recognise it as soon as it starts up. It’s very musical, but also so theatrical. I think its popularity now is such that, in a way, it no longer belongs to Ozzy, Geezer, Tony [Iommi] and me, it’s now everyone’s song.”

In 2008, Iron Man received another boost when it was included in the movie of the same name, based on the Marvel Comics creation. That delighted Butler.

“It was a recognition of just how much the song means,” he says with pride. “When you have such a major film using it, then it does introduce it to a new generation, kids who perhaps aren’t aware of who Black Sabbath are but who might be tempted to go and check us out.

“I suppose, because of the film, there’s also gonna be those who see a tie-up between what I wrote 48 years ago and the comic- book character. So, here we go again.”

Sabbath released Iron Man as a single in 1971. Although it reached No.52 in America (nine places higher than Paranoid), in the UK it make no impact at all.

“I think it worked best at the time in the context of the album,” Ward says. “We never thought of ourselves as a singles band anyway. But, over the years, Iron Man has grown and grown. I don’t think we believed at the time that it would turn out to be so special. But that’s the beauty of what happens: it’s the fans who decided this was a great song.”

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SIR MIX-A-LOT: Swass LP PROMO. Check big video! Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover) Featuring Metal Church
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