Line #53 Music/Endtroducing


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a213c69cc385fb57e81866368b0056e8.jpeg]]
2	''[[caption-width-right:350:"Bob Wood, national program director of the Chum Group, worked with us in producing..."]]''
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4	''Endtroducing.....'' is the debut album of American music producer Music/DJShadow, released in November 1996 on the Mo' Wax label.
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6	The album was made after a period where Shadow released three successful singles on the same label -- "In/Flux", "Lost and Found (S.F.L.)", and "What Does Your Soul Look Like". [[WordOfGod In his words]], ''Endtroducing'' was "the fourth and final chapter in a series of pieces...with a certain sound, a certain tone, a certain atmosphere". This [[MeaningfulName inspired the album's name]], as it marked the conclusion of Shadow's Mo' Wax series but served as his big debut.
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8	''Endtroducing'' is renowned for its revolutionarily liberal and eclectic use of {{sampling}} -- everything from Music/{{Bjork}} to Music/{{Metallica}} to ''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'' to ''Series/TwinPeaks'' to Music/GiorgioMoroder gets a spin. While the public consensus shifts between "fully sample-based" and "''almost'' fully sample-based", the album has received a Guinness World Record for being the "first completely sampled album".
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10	To make the album, Shadow worked with an Akai [=MPC60=] sampler, a Technics SL-1200 turntable, an Alesis ADAT tape recorder, and his extremely large collection of [=LPs=] (over ''60,000''). He found recurring aspects of the album to be [[GenreRoulette genre variation between songs]] and an overarching theme of self-contemplation [[CreatorBreakdown influenced by his own struggles with depression at the time of production]].
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12	----
13	!!Tracklist:
14	# "Best Foot Forward" (0:48)
15	# "Building Steam with a Grain of Salt" (6:41)
16	# "The Number Song" (4:38)
17	# "Changeling" / "Transmission 1" (7:52)
18	# "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4)" (5:08)
19	# "Untitled" (0:24)
20	# "Stem/Long Stem" / "Transmission 2" (9:22)
21	# "Mutual Slump" (4:03)
22	# "Organ Donor" (1:57)
23	# "Why Hip Hop Sucks in '96" (0:41)
24	# "Midnight in a Perfect World" (5:02)
25	# "Napalm Brain" / "Scatter Brain" (9:23)
26	# "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 – Blue Sky Revisit)" / "Transmission 3" (7:28)
27	----
28	!!Building tropes with a grain of salt:
29	* AlbumIntroTrack[=/=]IAmSong: "Best Foot Forward", serving as Shadow's introduction to the world.
30	* BrokenRecord: Some of the samples use this technique. "Midnight in a Perfect World" is a good example of this.
31	* CallForward:
32	** "Transmission 2" takes its instrumentation from "Midnight in a Perfect World" later on the album.
33	** The organ from "Organ Donor" makes an appearance in "Stem/Long Stem".
34	* DarkReprise: "Transmission 3" is a fuzzier, more distorted, and all-around [[NightmareFuel scarier]] version of "Transmission 1".
35	* DownerEnding: Ends with the disturbing and ominous "Transmission 3".
36	* EpicRocking: Seven out of the thirteen tracks are between five and nine and a half minutes long (if you use the track listing with the Transmissions attached to their preceding tracks). Five of them are longer than six.
37	* HipHop: Specifically, instrumental hip-hop. It's one of the most acclaimed and best-known examples of the subgenre.
38	* LastNoteNightmare: Involving all three transmissions:
39	** The otherwise-relaxing "Changeling" ends with a transition into "Transmission 1".
40	** "Transmission 2" plays this straight and then, in a way, inverts it. The majority of the song is the samples from "Midnight in a Perfect World", before going into the same radio chatter/static as the other two transmissions. Then it immediately segues into "Mutual Slump", a song that begins with [[JumpScare an absolute barrage of noise]].
41	** The album itself ends with the atmospherically unnerving "Transmission 3", with an ominous spoken-word sample from ''Film/PrinceOfDarkness'' being buried and smothered under sinister, fuzz-distorted ambience akin to TV static. There's even a ''Series/TwinPeaks'' sample near the end.
42	* MinisculeRocking: As seen above, three of the tracks aren't even a minute long. "Untitled" is the shortest, being only twenty-four seconds.
43	* ProgressiveRock: It's not a straight example of the genre, but many critics have noted its influence on the record with its often lengthy, evolving pieces. Even the shorter pieces like "The Number Song" often have multiple sections and eschew the usual verse/chorus format of pop music, a noted feature of many progressive rock records.
44	* PunnyName: As explained above.
45	** Also, "Organ Donor" (an organ-based track).
46	* RearrangeTheSong: "Transmission 3" is merely a more distorted, fuzzier, and all the more [[NightmareFuel creepier]] version of "Transmission 1".
47	* {{Sampling}} / SampledUp
48	* SpokenWordInMusic: The album starts with a spoken-word sample (see image caption).
49	* TakeThat: "Why Hip Hop Sucks In '96", which consists of 45 seconds of a laidback Music/DrDre-type beat, as was popular in 1996, then has a quick sample of someone (namely Shadow's friend and occasional collaborator Lyrics Born) saying "[[MoneyDearBoy It's the money!]]".
50	* TextlessAlbumCover: Just shows an image of two guys at a vinyl store, nothing else.
51	* UncommonTime: Significant portions of "Changeling" are in 7/4.
52	----
53	-->''''' [[TheStinger THIS IS NOT A DREAM.]] [[Film/PrinceOfDarkness NOT A DREAM. WE ARE USING YOUR BRAIN'S ELECTRICAL SYSTEM AS A RECEIVER. WE ARE UNABLE TO TRANSMIT THROUGH CONSCIOUS NEURAL INTERFERENCE. YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS BROADCAST AS A DREAM. WE ARE TRANSMITTING FROM THE YEAR 1-9-9-9. YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS BROADCAST IN ORDER TO ALTER THE EVENTS YOU ARE SEEING. OUR TECHNOLOGY HAS NOT DEVELOPED A TRANSMITTER STRONG ENOUGH TO REACH YOUR CONSCIOUS AWARENESS, BUT THIS IS NOT A DREAM. YOU ARE SEEING WHAT IS ACTUALLY OCCURRING FOR THE PURPOSE OF CAUSALITY VIOLATION.]]'''''

Context Music / Endtroducing