#83 Seven Great Moments in Musical History That Helped Spawn a Horrible Genre (part I)

Some ingredients are better not to be mixed. 7-up and Baileys for example. Drinking this will make your stomach explode apparently.
The same thing can be said about the late '90's and early '00s mixing of rap and rock. The musical landscape, created in that time by such acts as Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park (j'accuse Jay-Z! j'accuse!), Korn and the likes, has been far worse then any other gorrible form of music before.

However, there was a time when mixing rap and rock was actually not that bad, even cool. Here's seven great rap / rock moments that helped spawn aforementioned gorrible genre.


1. The Clash - The Magnificent Seven - 1981
The Magnificent Seven is a Clash single taken from their fourth studio album Sandinista!. A record released in 1981 and recorded in 1980 all over London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York.

Sandinista is as ecletic as the places it was recorded. The record features everything from rock to calypso and yes, songs that combine both rap and rock.

Joe Strummer on rap:

"When we came to the U.S., Mick stumbled upon a music shop in Brooklyn that carried the music of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugar Hill Gang...these groups were radically changing music and they changed everything for us."

How can one not love the Clash. Hear Joe Strummer rap and rhyme here.



2. Blondie - Rapture - 1981

Beat by 6 months by The Clash, Blondie's Rapture might not the first recording mixing both rap and rock, but it is the first one to top the charts. Actually... according to Wikipedia (the source of everything true) Blondie's Rapture was the first single involving rap in general to top the charts, beating Kurtis Blow's 'The Breaks' by just a few weeks.


Blondie - Rapture



3. Run DMC and Aerosmith - 1986
"Walk This Way" has been good for Aerosmith. Very good indeed. Not only provided the original 70's release the band with international fame, when Run DMC decided to cover it on their '86 debut "Raising Hell" it also provided a much needed resurrection in popularity for the band.
In all honesty Run DMC did not exactly cover "Walk This Way". As Wikipedia (again the source for everything true) puts it: " Walk This Way features new vocal and guitar parts by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith based on their original 1975 recording, as well as a sample of the original drum intro during the second verse."