pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

Hip hop was founded on sampling. They were snatching from disco and funk way before 'walk this way' but were the other genres using hip hop raps as guest verses before?

THEY DIDNT DO THAT ON WALK THIS WAY

If anything, Walk This Way was a little late to the game when rap and rock were being mixed. Run-DMC themselves had already done King of Rock and the Beasties beat it by a year with She's On It. It probably could've been any artist and any song, but Rubin wanted to do Walk This Way. That's why I'm saying there was far more benefit in it for Aerosmith than for Run-DMC.

I mean, the point wasn't that hiphop borrowed from other genres, it was based around it! The point is that due to that song everyone noticed hip hop's crossover potential and started mixing it outside its comfort zone and subculture.

Walk This Way is a straight cover of "Walk This Way" with NO RAPS that weren't on the original track. they'd done it live before and rick rubin was like "hey what if we got steven tyler and joe perry to do it along with you". Which led to a video where rock and rap met on stage and everyone went COOL. and yes, that was influential. nobody would deny that.

But it has no bearing on "hey put a guest rap verse on the track instead of a solo" it ARGUABLY has some bearing on "hey have the original artist redo their chorus" though its pretty atypical and uninfluential in terms of having no original verses around it.

Everyone pretty otm. I don't think I've ever considered "Walk This Way" more than I have this morning, and I'm realizing I don't really like it that much anyways. Still think it's influential even if it's a bit of a sellout or cash in (perhaps influential BECAUSE of this).

Run-DMC themselves had already done King of Rock and the Beasties beat it by a year with She's On It.

^^^

these just weren't huge hits, and they didn't involve reviving an ailing rock band's career

croup otherwise otm

why is someone else's statement used against my otm-ness, that's bullshit

the guest raps really added something to "Walk This Way," kind of makes you wonder why Aerosmith didn't do that sort of thing in the original

In 1975, they could've gotten Gil Scott Heron on that shit.

lol sorry croup didn't mean to imply that those points ran counter to each other

I just noticed you're posting as Shakey Mo. Goin' RETRO!

if I HAD to make a case for "walk this way"'s musical influence (as opposed to marketing), i'd say it's probably an early popular example of hip-hop just straight up USING a familiar chorus as the chorus, with a minimum of trickery. and the lack of other chestnuts with rapped verses and sung choruses meant acts like the fat boys had to take the "twist" and turn it INTO a "walk this way." though ironically that influence - "why hint at a popular tune by taking a stray lick or breakbeat when you can just let the audience shout along with something obvious" - would arguably be the kind that would exclude it from a critical best-of for a decade.

it was vv influential on the hit collaboration between public enemy and stephen stills when they redid f"or what it's worth"

steven tyler was already kind of rapper anyway, easily the most rhythmic and raplike rock vocalist in terms of how he used words and phrasing

run-dmc tellingly didn't really alter his cadences or phrasing of the vocals at all, just rapped them instead of sung them

What I was really trying to expose:

Aerosmith > GnR
Run DMC & Aerosmith >>>>>>> GnR

What a terrible way to make that argument

Also the real top three of this poll should have been:

1. The Message
2. Billie Jean
3. Running up that hill

The comment made on that article upthread that the top 10 makes more sense if you switch it with 11-20 is otm too, at least it looks like a better top 3:

1. When Doves Cry
2. Just Like Heaven
3. Billie Jean

What a terrible way to make that argument

― da croupier

I was joking, I honestly think it was an influential single for that decade and the following but I don't want to go down that road again.

Why should you when no one disagrees

We just disagree on whether its one of the best of the decade and whether it has guest rap verses on it

i like guns n roses, good band! the vikings always play the intro to "welcome to the jungle" when they kickoff, love it

We just disagree on whether its one of the best of the decade and whether it has guest rap verses on it

― da croupier

In the context of the p4k list as the measurement of 'best of the decade' I would trade it for any of the two GnR singles any day of the week. If I did my own list of favorite 200 songs of the decade I don't think it would place.

Also the verses on it are unequivocally rap verses, it doesn't matter if they were penned by a rock vocalist before. If the only version of the song that existed was the Run DMC cover and they had penned the lyrics of the verses would it then become a rap verse?

It's like you killfiled my point and not me

Imo throw out "Walk This Way" and replace it with "Scorpio".

Because the list needs more vocoder.

"Sucker MCs" had already revolutionized rap years before the "Walk This Way" cover was even an idea in Rick Rubin's head. "It's Like That" was an even more stripped-down "The Message" redux with Soulsonic Force-style raps (Bambaataa pointed out that MC Globe pretty much invented the slow, drawn-out style Run-DMC became known for). It was a big hiphop/club hit and a very influential record in its own right: It became the template for the Beastie Boys and much of Run-DMC's own future work, Prince ripped the drum machine pattern for "When Doves Cry"; but it was a very logical progression for rap in early 1983. The naked drum machine and pared-down no-nonsense Spoonie Gee-influenced rap of "Sucker MCs" was a totally unanticipated bomb (even Spoonie had his boys The Treacherous Three had ditched their early minimalist funk beats for slick Sugarhill disco by '83) that became the sound of street-level rap in the mid-80s. If no "Sucker MCs", then no T La Rock (no Def Jam, no Rick Rubin, no LL, no Beasties, no..."Walk This Way"), no "Sucker DJs" or "The Bridge" (no Juice Crew beyond Roxanne Shante, no "South Bronx" or "The Bridge Is Over", no Eric B & Rakim, no "Top Billin'"), no Schoolly D (no Ice-T or NWA!").

As for the argument that Aerosmith was a more radical break from the hiphop norm, the "Walk This Way" break was popular with hiphop DJs pretty much from the minute the original dropped, before "Good Times" or "Trans Europe Express" even existed, let alone anyone playing them at a hiphop party. Run-DMC were just the first to use it on wax (much like the "Big Beat" and "Mardi Gras" breaks).

I do think this is a case of the continual evolution of the canon. "Walk This Way" would feel indispensable to a 1995 evaluation of the 80s, and make sense in a 2005 retrospective, but its relevance has been in sharp decline since the early 2000s and the demise of nu-metal.

Imo throw out "Walk This Way" and replace it with "Scorpio".

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau)

I see your Scorpio and raise you this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w34wa6E-rTE

"Scorpio" is super-underrated!

Or you know as an example of Rock and Hip hop being united a couple of years before Walk this way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VgLkk_drx4

Time Zone: Afrika Bambaataa + Johnny Rotten + Bill Laswell

hey rev you didn't really touch on it, but am i right in thinking "walk this way" WAS ahead of the game in terms of using a familiar pop chorus AS the chorus? Obv a million tracks were sampled, referenced, alluded to, etc. But I mean having your chorus be "I got the big beat/ I got the sound" rather than using the loop.

i could easily be forgetting stuff but most sung choruses i can think of were original (i.e. kurtis blow "if i ruled the world" - at least I think that's original).

hey rev you didn't really touch on it, but am i right in thinking "walk this way" WAS ahead of the game in terms of using a familiar pop chorus AS the chorus? Obv a million tracks were sampled, referenced, alluded to, etc. But I mean having your chorus be "I got the big beat/ I got the sound" rather than using the loop.

― da croupier

It might be but since you've been pointing out it's nothing but a cover then every cover version ever before it did it.

:(

:)

honestly, though, moka? had you not heard aerosmith's "walk this way" and assumed the raps were added? did you think it was aerosmith featuring run-dmc? do you know what a "guest rap verse" is as opposed to a "rap verse"? like, why are you taking my word for it that its a cover and not an interpolation?

Well yes, I don't think I would recognize the Aerosmith original one as the definite one seems like the Run DMC one and it's the one people still play, I had no idea until you pointed it out today that the verses came from the original song and were not added by Run DMC afterwards.

Either way I don't see it as a cover at all. I'm just teasing you.

I thought it was a Run DMC song that added the Walk this way chorus and the backing track.

...

ok you could just say "oh i didn't realize the raps weren't new, my bad" rather than getting huffy and ignoring the point when people explain that to you

ok, sorry. My point still stands, though: it was influential at realizing the crossover potential that was inevitable at that point but it still was the first single to do it and also, as Rev and you pointed out, it was accidentally influential on taking a well-known chorus and rehashing it.

again, no one has debated its cultural relevance. and if you're hopping on to MY reason for it being musically influential, that wasnt your point.

I don't think I would recognize the Aerosmith original one as the definite one seems like the Run DMC one and it's the one people still play,

This is surprising to me. The original song gets regular rotation on CR radio in my experience, while I rarely hear the Run DMC version, except as part of some sort of 80s theme night. Also, the cover was really quite faithful so I don't see how someone could not recognize the original!

xps

also 'teasing' is when you smugly lord over someone that you know something they don't. like if i hadn't resisted the urge to say "this thread makes a lot more sense if you assume moka's mp3s of 'the seed 2.0' and 'walk this way' had their titles switch." not when refuse to admit you don't know something.

"if you know so much why can't you take five seconds to proofread your posts" now that would be teasing me

again, no one has debated its cultural relevance. and if you're hopping on to MY reason for it being musically influential, that wasnt your point.

― da croupier

My original post stated that it was one of the first songs that introduced hip hop culture to the mainstream (translated as white Americans, I guess). Then I said that it was musically influential not by creating hiphop covers of rock songs but by cementing the potential of hip hop crossing over to pop and rock. The single was symptomatic of an experimental scene gradually going mainstream. It was bound to happen but it still was influential.

I don't think I would recognize the Aerosmith original one as the definite one seems like the Run DMC one and it's the one people still play,
This is surprising to me. The original song gets regular rotation on CR radio in my experience, while I rarely hear the Run DMC version, except as part of some sort of 80s theme night. Also, the cover was really quite faithful so I don't see how someone could not recognize the original!

xps

― EveningStar (Sund4r)

I don't live in the US, the only Aerosmith songs that are popular over here are their 90's singles like that annoying Armageddon ballad. The only two songs of them prior to the 90's I hear on rock radio are Rag Doll and Sweet Emotion.

On the other hand old school hip hop hits are still played in clubs or weddings over here. I can't count the times I've heard 'jump around', 'hip hop hooray', 'party up' and 'walk this way'.

More Run-DMC context: The Sugarhill sound that Spoonie Gee and The Treacherous Three were now tethered to in '83 was dying fast. "Planet Rock" and, to a lesser extent, Sugarhill's own "The Message" had already radically altered the sound of rap music before "Sucker MCs" dealt it the death blow. "White Lines", released six months after "It's Like That"/"Sucker MCs" was basically its last hurrah.

Also the raw street rap of "Sucker MCs" was more radical in '83 than the clubbier sound of "It's Like That", because by the time it dropped, hiphop was becoming rife with dance records from Bambaataa acolytes (it would even take a couple years for the Run-DMC sound to eclipse Bam's as the dominant sound of hiphop), while no one had really been releasing anything as tough and street as "Sucker MCs" since the early days of Enjoy Records. Hiphop as a recorded medium was pretty much immediately taken over by Harlem record biz vets who wouldn't know the sound of the street if it mugged them. Thank god for Bobby Robinson's (insistence on using live musicians aside) hands-off production style! Sugarhill's Sylvia Robinson was too perfectionist and too driven by commercial imperatives to let her acts (many of them - Spoonie, T3, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Funky 4+1 - pilfered from Enjoy's roster) fuck off in the studio with just a rhythm section, let alone a drum machine as company. She was trying to compete with Cameo and the Gap Band as much as with other rap labels. Meanwhile at Tommy Boy, Tom Silverman was giving Bambaataa/Baker/Robie free reign to blast off into space. Maybe Kurtis Blow's "Tough" (produced by Larry Smith, even) is the closest thing to a precedent in the immediate pre-"Sucker MCs" era? It has the slow drum machine beat, probably Larry's same Oberheim DMX later used on the Run-DMC tracks, but still has a disco-funk bassline and Melle Mel-style rap that place it firmly in 1982.

It's funny I almost typed "Run-DMX" earlier, but Run-DMC DMXed the game and brought it back to the streets when Earl Simmons was just some kid who beatboxed. Their fresh street dude fashion (really Jam Master Jay's - Darryl McDaniels and Joe Simmons were middle-class kids) was also a huge part of this. At that time Flash and the Five dressed like rock stars and Bambaataa's crew might as well have stepped off of Sun Ra's ark.