Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One is a compilation album of music by various artists released in 1994 by British electronic label Wall of Sound as their first release. The idea for the album came when Wall of Sound's founder, Mark Jones, wanted to release a compilation of hard-to-find music by unsigned artists, with whom he had worked with via his distribution and pressing deals, so that the music could be heard by a wider audience. He picked his favourite such tracks which there was already an audience for and this became the compilation.
A compilation album comprises tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several performers. If by one artist, then generally the tracks were not originally intended for release together as a single work, but may be collected together as a greatest hits album or box set. If from several performers, there may be a theme, topic, time period, or genre which links the tracks, or they may have been intended for release as a single work—such as a tribute album. When the tracks are by the same recording artist, the album may be referred to as a retrospective album or an anthology.
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments and circuitry-based music technology. In general, a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means, and that produced using electronics only. Electromechanical instruments include mechanical elements, such as strings, hammers, and so on, and electric elements, such as magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Examples of electromechanical sound producing devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, and the electric guitar, which are typically made loud enough for performers and audiences to hear with an instrument amplifier and speaker cabinet. Pure electronic instruments do not have vibrating strings, hammers, or other sound-producing mechanisms. Devices such as the theremin, synthesizer, and computer can produce electronic sounds.
Wall of Sound is an independent record label based in London, England and was founded by Mark Jones in 1994.
The album has been described as trip hop and acid jazz and contains music that straddles different genres such as jazz, funk and soul, serving as a document of several electronic genres emerging at the time which incorporated sampling and live instrumentation. Upon release, the album was one of only several "alternative" electronic compilations and became a critical success, with critics finding its disparate styles to flow well together. Two successful sequels were released in the ensuing years and the album has been credited as an influential predecessor to big beat music.
Trip hop is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as "a fusion of hip hop and electronica until neither genre is recognizable", and may incorporate a variety of styles, including funk, dub, soul, psychedelia, R&B, and house, as well as other forms of electronic music. Trip hop can be highly experimental.
Acid jazz, also known as club jazz, is a music genre that combines elements of jazz, soul, funk, and disco. Acid jazz originated in the London club scene of the mid-1980s in the rare groove movement and spread to the US, Japan, Eastern Europe, and Brazil. Major acts included the Brand New Heavies, Incognito, Us3, and Jamiroquai from the UK and Buckshot LeFonque and Digable Planets from the US. The rise of electronic club music in the mid to late 1990s led to a decline in interest, and in the twenty-first century, the movement became indistinct as a genre. Many acts that might have been defined as acid jazz are now seen as jazz-funk, neo soul, or jazz rap.
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States. It originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression. It then emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms".
Background
During the early-to-mid 1990s, while Mark Jones was working for Soul Trader, a London-based record distributor owned by his friend Marc Lessner, he and Lessner started the Wall of Sound record label by arranging "pressing and distribution" (P&D) deals for unsigned electronic musicians that Jones and Lessner enjoyed the work of.[2] "This is how we found Kruder & Dorfmeister, Howie B, Pussy Foot and Basement Jaxx," noted Jones, "artists that have went on to have quite a bit of success."[2] The idea for Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One came when Jones suggested to Lessner that they compile a compilation album of "all the music that we work with and material that we know people want and can't get."[2]
Mark Jones is an English musician and the founder of Wall of Sound record label.
Kruder & Dorfmeister, named after members Peter Kruder and Richard Dorfmeister, is an Austrian duo, known for their trip hop/downtempo remixes of pop, hip hop and drum and bass songs.
Howard Bernstein, professionally known as Howie B, is Scottish musician, producer and DJ, who has worked with artists including: Björk, U2, Tricky, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soul II Soul, Robbie Robertson, Elisa, Mukul Deora and The Gift.
As the label had yet to release any music yet, Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One became Wall of Sound’s first release.[2] Jones recalled of the album’s conception, “I didn’t have a big masterplan; it was just a natural progression of the work I was doing and where I was working.[2] Writer Siân Pattenden later reflected on the scenario: "[Jones] would hear tracks by trendy artists working in bedroom studios, which were released by Soul Trader. Jones thought the tunes needed to be heard by a wider audience, so he got his favourite tracks and released them as a compilation album."[3] The album was inspired by Headz (1994), a compilation album released by trip hop label Mo' Wax that features abstract hip hop music.[4]
Headz is a series of compilation albums released by the Mo' Wax record label. The first installment, titled Headz, was released in 1994. It was followed in 1996 by Headz 2A and Headz 2B. Headz 2A peaked at number 30 and Headz 2B peaked at number 34 on the UK Compilation Chart. In 2015, Fact ranked Headz at number 30 and Headz 2 at number 7 on its list of the "50 Best Trip-Hop Albums of All Time."
Mo' Wax was a British record label founded by James Lavelle and Tim Goldsworthy in 1992. Steve Finan became co-owner shortly after. Mo' Wax came to recognition for being at the forefront of trip hop, turntablism and alternative hip hop during the mid-1990s. The label is also responsible for bringing attention to the graffiti artist Futura 2000 by using his artwork on many of its releases in the early to mid-1990s. Lavelle signed partial ownership of Mo' Wax over to A&M Records in 1996. Some of the Mo' Wax catalogue is now part of the Beggars Group, but there are rumors that the label itself has folded and is no longer putting out new releases.
Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One coincided with the development of numerous new electronic genres incorporating sampling and live instrumentation that are represented on the album.[5] According to John Bush of AllMusic, Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One is an acid jazz and trip hop compilation of music by European artists that incorporates elements from other genres such as funk, soul, jazz and rap.[1] The album's liner notes describe the music: "'Jazz not jazz', 'soul not soul', 'hip not hop', call it what you won't, the atoms keep splitting and new genres are created almost every year. The combination of live playing and sampling has opened up another preverbial can of worms."[5] In his book Drum 'n' Bass: The Rough Guide, writer Peter Shapiro also felt that the album incorporates downtempo music.[6]
In music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise rhythm, melody, speech, or other sounds. They are usually integrated using hardware (samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations.
AllMusic is an online music database. It catalogs more than 3 million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musical artists and bands. It launched in 1991, predating the World Wide Web. As of 2015, AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne.
Funk is a music genre that originated in African-American communities in the mid-1960s when African-American musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of soul music, jazz, and rhythm and blues (R&B). Funk de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a drummer, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Like much of African-inspired music, funk typically consists of a complex groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that created a "hypnotic" and "danceable feel". Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.
Jones compiled and co-ordinated the album alone,[5] and in an interview with M Magazine, he described Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One as "a reaction against the diluted dance music that had started happening. You weren’t allowed to say you loved Kraftwerk, hip hop or Steely Dan. Everything was kept separate."[7] Fittingly, despite being categorised as a trip-hop and acid jazz compilation, the album is eclectic; Jones described the music as combining "the deep dub superfreaked sound of Howie B," "the mystical D.O.P.E. of Austria's Kruder and Dorfmeister," "the smokin' jazz jam of the Ballistic Brothers" and "the boomin' bass, breaks and beats of Mekon."[5]
M Magazine was a monthly print teen magazine and website. It was published by Bauer Publishing, the United States division of the German firm Bauer Verlagsgruppe. The first issue was released in January 2000.
Kraftwerk is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered as innovators and pioneers of electronic music, they were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders.
Hip hop or hip-hop, is a culture and art movement that was created by African Americans, Latino Americans and Caribbean Americans in the Bronx, New York City. The origin of the name is often disputed. It is also argued as to whether hip hop started in the South or West Bronx. While the term hip hop is often used to refer exclusively to hip hop music, hip hop is characterized by nine elements, of which only four are considered essential to understanding hip hop musically. Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined these main pillars of hip hop culture, coining the terms: "rapping", a rhythmic vocal rhyming style (orality); DJing, which is making music with record players and DJ mixers ; b-boying/b-girling/breakdancing (movement/dance); and graffiti. Other elements of hip hop subculture and arts movements beyond the main four are: hip hop culture and historical knowledge of the movement (intellectual/philosophical); beatboxing, a percussive vocal style; street entrepreneurship; hip hop language; and hip hop fashion and style, among others. The fifth element, although debated, is commonly considered either street knowledge, hip hop fashion, or beatboxing.
Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One was released on 30 June 1994 in the United Kingdom by Wall of Sound, and was the label's first release.[2] In the United States, C & S Records released the album in 1995 as a spin-off to their compilation series Street Jazz,[8] which had begun the previous year.[9] The compilation was mastered by "Paul at Porky's" and its sleeve was designed by Dave Grimshaw and Jeff Logan.[5]
The album was released to critical acclaim. John Bush of AllMusic rated the album four stars out of five and said that, despite containing a variety of styles, "the disparate genres flow well and the sounds are very fresh, making this a great compilation of '90s fusion."[1] Jones felt the album was critically acclaimed "because they're weren't really that many alternative compilations out back then."[1] The success of the album brought Wall of Sound into "that alternative scene," although Jones later recalled that, while other electronic labels on the scene like Mo' Wax, Warp and Ninja Tune "were all doing their thing," Jones "wanted to bring melody" and achieve commercial success.[7]
In the Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture, Peter Childs noted that the roots of big beat music, which became popular in the late 1990s, could be traced back to Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume One, as well as to the Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique (1989).[10] Jones later spoke with Richard Dorfmeister regarding the song "High Noon" on the former's radio show.[11] Two sequels to the album were released, Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume Two (1995) and Give 'Em Enough Dope Volume Three (1996), both of which were even more popular and successful than the original album, with Robert Christgau naming the second edition the sixth best compilation of 1995.[12]
F.R.I.S.K. – "Take The Sun Away" (Multiplicity Mix) – 6:01
Personnel
Mark Jones – compiler, co-ordinator
Paul – mastering
Jeff Logan – sleeve design
Dave Grimshaw – sleeve design
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