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# "Interview" (Skit) 0:47
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# "Interview" (Skit) 0:47(Skit)
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* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Creator/JiveRecords signed ICP to their short-lived Dance Music subsidiary Battery Records. This may not be easily apparent from some of the acts Jive signed later, with Jive becoming known for their TeenPop and BoyBand acts in [[The90s Late '90s]] and TurnOfTheMillennium, but Jive was best known as a Hip-Hop label in 1995. Their best known acts included Music/DJJazzyJeffAndTheFreshPrince, [[Music/KRSOne Boogie Down Productions]], Music/TooShort and Music/SchoollyD, and the label also put out Music/KidRock's debut rap album, ''Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast''.[[note]]Kid Rock didn't have a good experience with Jive either, later rapping on ''Music/ThePolyfuzeMethod'', "My first LP wasn't pushed for shit. [[TakeThat So, Jive Records, yo, go and suck a fat dick]].[[/note]] Jive told ICP that the album couldn't be over 60 minutes, and were ''pissed'' when they delivered ''Riddle Box'' and it was ''71 minutes'', though ICP convinced them that it only contained 60 minutes of music and that the extra 11 minutes were the skits. ICP were not considered easy to market to Hip-Hop listeners at the time, which is why Jive not only pushed them onto a Dance Music label, but also packaged a sampler of songs by the rock band Music/HedPE along with ''Riddle Box'' when Jive signed that band in 1997.[[note]]Hed PE frontman Jahred Gomes also spoke negatively about his experiences with Jive.[[/note]] Making matters worse, the label did not have faith that ICP could achieve any kind of national success, and didn't market ''Riddle Box'' outside of Michigan, so they had to go promote the album themselves, spending their own money to do what Jive was supposed to do. And on top of all of that, one of the executives told ICP that Jive thought that ICP were ''racist'', and that they thought that "Chicken Huntin'" was [[MistakenForRacist mocking black people]]. Then when ICP tried to leave Jive for Creator/HollywoodRecords, that label had to pay an extensive amount of money to buy out ICP's contract.[[note]]ICP didn't have a good experience with Hollywood Records, either.[[/note]]
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* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Creator/JiveRecords signed ICP to their short-lived Dance Music subsidiary Battery Records. This may not be easily apparent from some of the acts Jive signed later, with Jive becoming known for their TeenPop and BoyBand acts in [[The90s Late '90s]] and TurnOfTheMillennium, but Jive was best known as a Hip-Hop label in 1995. Their best known acts included Music/DJJazzyJeffAndTheFreshPrince, [[Music/KRSOne Boogie Down Productions]], Music/TooShort and Music/SchoollyD, and the label also put out Music/KidRock's debut rap album, ''Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast''.[[note]]Kid Rock didn't have a good experience with Jive either, later rapping on ''Music/ThePolyfuzeMethod'', "My first LP wasn't pushed for shit. [[TakeThat So, Jive Records, yo, go and suck a fat dick]].dick]]".[[/note]] Jive told ICP that the album couldn't be over 60 minutes, and were ''pissed'' when they delivered ''Riddle Box'' and it was ''71 minutes'', though ICP convinced them that it only contained 60 minutes of music and that the extra 11 minutes were the skits. ICP were not considered easy to market to Hip-Hop listeners at the time, which is why Jive not only pushed them onto a Dance Music label, but also packaged a sampler of songs by the rock band Music/HedPE along with ''Riddle Box'' when Jive signed that band in 1997.[[note]]Hed PE frontman Jahred Gomes also spoke negatively about his experiences with Jive.[[/note]] Making matters worse, the label did not have faith that ICP could achieve any kind of national success, and didn't market ''Riddle Box'' outside of Michigan, so they had to go promote the album themselves, spending their own money to do what Jive was supposed to do. And on top of all of that, one of the executives told ICP that Jive thought that ICP were ''racist'', and that they thought that "Chicken Huntin'" was [[MistakenForRacist mocking black people]]. Then when ICP tried to leave Jive for Creator/HollywoodRecords, that label had to pay an extensive amount of money to buy out ICP's contract.[[note]]ICP didn't have a good experience with Hollywood Records, either.[[/note]]
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!! Track listing
# "Intro"
# "Riddle Box"
# "The Show Must Go On"
# "Chicken Huntin'" (Slaughter House Mix)
# "Interview" (Skit) 0:47
# "Toy Box"
# "Cemetery Girl"
# "3 Rings"
# "Headless Boogie"
# "The Joker's Wild"
# "Dead Body Man"
# "Lil' Somthin' Somthin'"
# "Ol' Evil Eye"
# "12"
# "The Killing Fields"
# "I'm Coming Home"
----
# "Intro"
# "Riddle Box"
# "The Show Must Go On"
# "Chicken Huntin'" (Slaughter House Mix)
# "Interview" (Skit) 0:47
# "Toy Box"
# "Cemetery Girl"
# "3 Rings"
# "Headless Boogie"
# "The Joker's Wild"
# "Dead Body Man"
# "Lil' Somthin' Somthin'"
# "Ol' Evil Eye"
# "12"
# "The Killing Fields"
# "I'm Coming Home"
----
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* BlackComedy: On "Headless Boogie", Violent J witnesses zombies gathering in a cemetery to dance, and in one line he recalls "I even seen Kurt Cobain gettin' live", followed by the sound of a shotgun blast, essentially turning the Music/{{Nirvana}} frontman's suicide, which was still recent in people's memories, into a dark joke.
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[[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/icp_the_riddlebox_cover_200_6.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:225:The joke's on you!]]
''Riddle Box'' is a 1995 album by the HipHop act Music/InsaneClownPosse, and their only release on Creator/JiveRecords, who notoriously [[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed ICP]] by not marketing the album outside of Michigan, resulting in ICP having to drive to other markets to promote the album themselves.
The album's lyrics deal with the uncertainty one faces upon death. The entity serving as the face of the third Joker's Card[[note]]of the first deck [[/note]] of ICP's ConceptAlbum saga is a ScaryJackInTheBox whose painted question mark has faded over time, representing the mystery of one's own afterlife. Upon turning the crank, the good see [[Music/TheWraithShangriLa Shangri-La]], and the evil are cast into Music/HellsPit.
While the album wasn't well reviewed at the time, it was VindicatedByHistory, as today it is seen as one of ICP's ''best'' albums.
----
!! The trope's on you:
* BodyHorror: "The Killing Fields" is a descriptive depiction of Hell, referring to J trying to chase down and eat a baby billygoat with a man's head while a demon tries to chase J.
* EclipsedByTheRemix: "Chicken Huntin'" first appeared on ICP's previous album ''Music/{{Ringmaster}}'', in a more {{Funk}}-oriented HipHop version. The "Slaughter House" RapRock remix, which appears on ''Riddle Box'', is the version most people typically think of when they think of the song.
* Creator/EdgarAllanPoe: "Ol' Evil Eye" is a pretty faithful rap adaptation of Poe's ''The Tell-Tale Heart'', with the protagonist split between two characters: Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope's. Violent J is haunted by the dead-looking eye of the Old Man, and sets out to murder him. Shaggy attempts to stop him, but once he sees the Old Man, he joins J's quest to murder the man. The music is pretty consistently dark and nightmarish, and actual excerpts from the Poe story appear sporadically.
* FullBoarAction: Among the other horrors of "The Killing Fields" is waking up from a bed of nails that peels off your flesh, an eternally on fire house that causes J to stand only one night in the smoke, hanging bodies from trees and the walking dead that beg and pray for death and try everything to die, summers of literal fire reducing people to surviving in the sewers with rampant cannibalism, vicious wild pigs that feed off the dying and storms of blood and internal organs.
* GameShow: "The Joker's Wild" is about a game show in Hell in which damned souls are tortured for an audience of corpses with the promise of a cash prize they'll never get because the game is impossible to win.
* ILoveTheDead: "Cemetery Girl" is about a man who digs up the body of his dead girlfriend and tries to have sex with it as it slowly falls apart in his hands.
* NightmareFuel: "12" is told from the perspective of a convicted murderer, Violent J, who rises from the grave as a zombie to seek bloody revenge on the 12 jurors, who show no remorse for their judgment and are declared by J to be just as guilty of murder as he is.
* RetroactiveRecognition: Rich Murrell, the voice of the carnival barker on the TitleTrack, is better known as Legz Diamond of ''9 Pistolas'' fame. He was the guitarist of a local Rock band called Coup Detroit who were trying to get signed to Creator/PsychopathicRecords, but ICP didn't like the band. However, Violent J ''did'' like Rich's guitar playing, so ICP did record a guest spot for their 1996 album, in exchange for Rich doing a voiceover on ''Riddle Box''. Subsequently, Rich would work frequently with ICP throughout his career, even getting a job at Psychopathic after his band broke up. He also played guitar on Music/KottonmouthKings' ''Sunrise Sessions'' album.
* {{Sampling}}: "I'm Coming Home" samples "Confetti Day" by Hot Chocolate. "Cemetery Girl" samples the ''Music/CarnivalOfCarnage'' song "Guts on the Ceiling". "Toy Box" samples Music/{{Gong}}'s "The Pot Head Pixies" and the theme song to ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse''.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Creator/JiveRecords signed ICP to their short-lived Dance Music subsidiary Battery Records. This may not be easily apparent from some of the acts Jive signed later, with Jive becoming known for their TeenPop and BoyBand acts in [[The90s Late '90s]] and TurnOfTheMillennium, but Jive was best known as a Hip-Hop label in 1995. Their best known acts included Music/DJJazzyJeffAndTheFreshPrince, [[Music/KRSOne Boogie Down Productions]], Music/TooShort and Music/SchoollyD, and the label also put out Music/KidRock's debut rap album, ''Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast''.[[note]]Kid Rock didn't have a good experience with Jive either, later rapping on ''Music/ThePolyfuzeMethod'', "My first LP wasn't pushed for shit. [[TakeThat So, Jive Records, yo, go and suck a fat dick]].[[/note]] Jive told ICP that the album couldn't be over 60 minutes, and were ''pissed'' when they delivered ''Riddle Box'' and it was ''71 minutes'', though ICP convinced them that it only contained 60 minutes of music and that the extra 11 minutes were the skits. ICP were not considered easy to market to Hip-Hop listeners at the time, which is why Jive not only pushed them onto a Dance Music label, but also packaged a sampler of songs by the rock band Music/HedPE along with ''Riddle Box'' when Jive signed that band in 1997.[[note]]Hed PE frontman Jahred Gomes also spoke negatively about his experiences with Jive.[[/note]] Making matters worse, the label did not have faith that ICP could achieve any kind of national success, and didn't market ''Riddle Box'' outside of Michigan, so they had to go promote the album themselves, spending their own money to do what Jive was supposed to do. And on top of all of that, one of the executives told ICP that Jive thought that ICP were ''racist'', and that they thought that "Chicken Huntin'" was [[MistakenForRacist mocking black people]]. Then when ICP tried to leave Jive for Creator/HollywoodRecords, that label had to pay an extensive amount of money to buy out ICP's contract.[[note]]ICP didn't have a good experience with Hollywood Records, either.[[/note]]
* UpdatedReRelease: In 2015, Psychopathic Records reissued the album in a 20th anniversary edition, featuring [[ArcNumber 17 bonus tracks]].
* VindicatedByHistory: While Jive Records made no effort to distribute the album properly and the reviews were unfavorable at the time of release, today ''Riddle Box'' is seen as one of ICP's ''best'' albums, owing to it's trippy, gritty Hip-Hop style, which stands out from other Hip-Hop recordings of the time as well as the Rap Rock approach ICP would begin taking with their subsequent albums.
----
[[caption-width-right:225:The joke's on you!]]
''Riddle Box'' is a 1995 album by the HipHop act Music/InsaneClownPosse, and their only release on Creator/JiveRecords, who notoriously [[ScrewedByTheNetwork screwed ICP]] by not marketing the album outside of Michigan, resulting in ICP having to drive to other markets to promote the album themselves.
The album's lyrics deal with the uncertainty one faces upon death. The entity serving as the face of the third Joker's Card[[note]]of the first deck [[/note]] of ICP's ConceptAlbum saga is a ScaryJackInTheBox whose painted question mark has faded over time, representing the mystery of one's own afterlife. Upon turning the crank, the good see [[Music/TheWraithShangriLa Shangri-La]], and the evil are cast into Music/HellsPit.
While the album wasn't well reviewed at the time, it was VindicatedByHistory, as today it is seen as one of ICP's ''best'' albums.
----
!! The trope's on you:
* BodyHorror: "The Killing Fields" is a descriptive depiction of Hell, referring to J trying to chase down and eat a baby billygoat with a man's head while a demon tries to chase J.
* EclipsedByTheRemix: "Chicken Huntin'" first appeared on ICP's previous album ''Music/{{Ringmaster}}'', in a more {{Funk}}-oriented HipHop version. The "Slaughter House" RapRock remix, which appears on ''Riddle Box'', is the version most people typically think of when they think of the song.
* Creator/EdgarAllanPoe: "Ol' Evil Eye" is a pretty faithful rap adaptation of Poe's ''The Tell-Tale Heart'', with the protagonist split between two characters: Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope's. Violent J is haunted by the dead-looking eye of the Old Man, and sets out to murder him. Shaggy attempts to stop him, but once he sees the Old Man, he joins J's quest to murder the man. The music is pretty consistently dark and nightmarish, and actual excerpts from the Poe story appear sporadically.
* FullBoarAction: Among the other horrors of "The Killing Fields" is waking up from a bed of nails that peels off your flesh, an eternally on fire house that causes J to stand only one night in the smoke, hanging bodies from trees and the walking dead that beg and pray for death and try everything to die, summers of literal fire reducing people to surviving in the sewers with rampant cannibalism, vicious wild pigs that feed off the dying and storms of blood and internal organs.
* GameShow: "The Joker's Wild" is about a game show in Hell in which damned souls are tortured for an audience of corpses with the promise of a cash prize they'll never get because the game is impossible to win.
* ILoveTheDead: "Cemetery Girl" is about a man who digs up the body of his dead girlfriend and tries to have sex with it as it slowly falls apart in his hands.
* NightmareFuel: "12" is told from the perspective of a convicted murderer, Violent J, who rises from the grave as a zombie to seek bloody revenge on the 12 jurors, who show no remorse for their judgment and are declared by J to be just as guilty of murder as he is.
* RetroactiveRecognition: Rich Murrell, the voice of the carnival barker on the TitleTrack, is better known as Legz Diamond of ''9 Pistolas'' fame. He was the guitarist of a local Rock band called Coup Detroit who were trying to get signed to Creator/PsychopathicRecords, but ICP didn't like the band. However, Violent J ''did'' like Rich's guitar playing, so ICP did record a guest spot for their 1996 album, in exchange for Rich doing a voiceover on ''Riddle Box''. Subsequently, Rich would work frequently with ICP throughout his career, even getting a job at Psychopathic after his band broke up. He also played guitar on Music/KottonmouthKings' ''Sunrise Sessions'' album.
* {{Sampling}}: "I'm Coming Home" samples "Confetti Day" by Hot Chocolate. "Cemetery Girl" samples the ''Music/CarnivalOfCarnage'' song "Guts on the Ceiling". "Toy Box" samples Music/{{Gong}}'s "The Pot Head Pixies" and the theme song to ''Series/PeeWeesPlayhouse''.
* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Creator/JiveRecords signed ICP to their short-lived Dance Music subsidiary Battery Records. This may not be easily apparent from some of the acts Jive signed later, with Jive becoming known for their TeenPop and BoyBand acts in [[The90s Late '90s]] and TurnOfTheMillennium, but Jive was best known as a Hip-Hop label in 1995. Their best known acts included Music/DJJazzyJeffAndTheFreshPrince, [[Music/KRSOne Boogie Down Productions]], Music/TooShort and Music/SchoollyD, and the label also put out Music/KidRock's debut rap album, ''Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast''.[[note]]Kid Rock didn't have a good experience with Jive either, later rapping on ''Music/ThePolyfuzeMethod'', "My first LP wasn't pushed for shit. [[TakeThat So, Jive Records, yo, go and suck a fat dick]].[[/note]] Jive told ICP that the album couldn't be over 60 minutes, and were ''pissed'' when they delivered ''Riddle Box'' and it was ''71 minutes'', though ICP convinced them that it only contained 60 minutes of music and that the extra 11 minutes were the skits. ICP were not considered easy to market to Hip-Hop listeners at the time, which is why Jive not only pushed them onto a Dance Music label, but also packaged a sampler of songs by the rock band Music/HedPE along with ''Riddle Box'' when Jive signed that band in 1997.[[note]]Hed PE frontman Jahred Gomes also spoke negatively about his experiences with Jive.[[/note]] Making matters worse, the label did not have faith that ICP could achieve any kind of national success, and didn't market ''Riddle Box'' outside of Michigan, so they had to go promote the album themselves, spending their own money to do what Jive was supposed to do. And on top of all of that, one of the executives told ICP that Jive thought that ICP were ''racist'', and that they thought that "Chicken Huntin'" was [[MistakenForRacist mocking black people]]. Then when ICP tried to leave Jive for Creator/HollywoodRecords, that label had to pay an extensive amount of money to buy out ICP's contract.[[note]]ICP didn't have a good experience with Hollywood Records, either.[[/note]]
* UpdatedReRelease: In 2015, Psychopathic Records reissued the album in a 20th anniversary edition, featuring [[ArcNumber 17 bonus tracks]].
* VindicatedByHistory: While Jive Records made no effort to distribute the album properly and the reviews were unfavorable at the time of release, today ''Riddle Box'' is seen as one of ICP's ''best'' albums, owing to it's trippy, gritty Hip-Hop style, which stands out from other Hip-Hop recordings of the time as well as the Rap Rock approach ICP would begin taking with their subsequent albums.
----
