YMMV / Run–D.M.C.

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• Audience-Alienating Era:
  • Back From Hell, where they attempt to keep up with the times and emulate the production style of Public Enemy. It really didn't pan out. They found a much more effective sound again with Down with the King.
  • 2001's Crown Royal was critically panned for similar reasons: nearly every track was a collaboration with current rappers and Rap Rock or Alternative Rock acts, which was perceived as a desperate move to crossover to contemporary pop and alternative audiences. To wit: while some acts were at least Rap Rock acts who credited Run-D.M.C. as an influence (Fred Durst, Kid Rock), other collaborators included Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, Sugar Ray and Everlast, acts that were widely agreed to have no business around Run-D.M.C. ^note of the latter three, only Everlast had a notable history with hip hop... but even then his most commercially successful solo work combined hip hop with acoustic folk rock, and his contribution to the album was singing the hook to "Take The Money And Run" rather than rapping
• Awesome Ego: Badass Boasts all over the place, and they've made millions of old school fans hang on every word.
• Common Knowledge: Everyone knows their cover of "Walk This Way" features the original's band Aerosmith... Except not really. The only members of Aerosmith that feature on the cover version are Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. This was because Run-D.M.C. could not afford to use the entire band (though the album version does use a sample of the original's drums played by Joey Kramer).
• Covered Up: "Walk This Way" is more famous as the rap/rock hybrid than as Aerosmith's original.
• Epic Riff: "Rock Box", "Walk This Way", "King Of Rock"
• Funny Moments:
  • The random, but well-placed, Sam Kinison sample in "Beats To The Rhyme". Particularly funny because when it appears in the middle of the song, you might expect it's only going to be used once... Then in the last few seconds of the song, it repeats it three times in a row for a near Cluster F-Bomb effect.
  • "You Be Illin'" is a series of anecdotes about people who are "illin'," including a man who orders a Big Mac in KFC, a basketball fan who shouts "Touchdown!" after an impressive shot and a person who unwittingly eats a can of dog food for dinner.
• Genre Turning Point: As the first Hip-Hop act to break into the mainstream in a major way, it wouldn't be unfair to collectively call them the Elvis Presley of rap, especially with how they codified many of the aesthetic and stylistic markers of the genre (the "street" fashion, the aggressive sound, Rick Rubin's minimalistic rock-inspired production) that would still be common fixtures decades later.
• Heartwarming Moments: The first verse of "Christmas in Hollis" where Run explains that he found Santa's wallet in Central Park. He says that the wallet is absolutely bursting with cash, but instead of keeping it for himself, he sends it back to Santa with all the cash still in it.
• Older Than They Think: Amazingly, the group predated their own groundbreaking song's gimmick with "Rock Box." Not only was it the first known rap rock song, but it was even the first rap video aired on MTV.
• Posthumous Popularity Potential: Although Jam-Master Jay always was well respected when he was alive, it was only after he died that people started to realize how important he was to the band. Important to the point of the band splitting up instead of getting another DJ.
• Seasonal Rot: Most agree this happened by the end of the '80s, although it's up for debate whether this includes Tougher Than Leather.
• Signature Song: "Walk This Way", their Aerosmith collaboration, and "It's Tricky" from Raising Hell, as well as "It's Like That" from Run-D.M.C. (more so due to the Jason Nevins remix) and "King of Rock" from King of Rock.

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