Eric B. & Rakim – The Remixes 1987 - 1992 2xCD - (From The Complete Collection 1986-1992 Box Set)

Geffen / 4th & Broadway / UNI / MCA (2018, Reissue)

Every Wednesday, in honor of Ed Lover Dance Day from Yo! MTV Raps, I take a break from rock and roll to write a little bit about hip hop. In the late 80s and early 90s hip hop ruled my musical life. During this often called 'Golden Era' I discovered so much incredible music. As I am slowly replacing the CDs I've had for thirty plus years with vinyl copies, I'm going to talk about some albums that had a really important impact on me during some very formative years.

For the next few Ed Lover Wednesdays, I'm going to go through each of the records in this Eric B & Rakim box set.  I only had the album Don't Sweat The Technique in my vinyl collection when I decided I needed to get the others.  When I started poking around, it just made more sense to buy this box set as opposed to the other records individually.

When I was originally looking at this box set, I was happy that it included all of the remixes and B-sides from the myriad of 12"s Eric B. & Rakim put out during their run.  But I was also annoyed that they were on CD and not vinyl like the rest of the albums.  Having listened to these CDs a few times, I'm actually fine that they are on CD.

Two main reasons for this.  One, I don't really like most of the remixes.  Some are pretty good, and the later ones are more interesting than most of the earlier ones, but in general I prefer the album versions of pretty much all of these songs.  The second reason is because these songs are all so long - six, seven, even eight minute long remixes.  It would have taken many LPs to fit all of this and I just can't see myself sitting down in front of my turntable for that length of time and flipping through the number of records it would take.  Having them of CD is fine.  I can pick out the ones I like and listen to them and they packaged them in a way that fits in nicely with the rest of the box set. 

The set as a whole is great.  The accompanying book is gigantic and full of incredible pictures from ever era of Eric B. & Rakim.  The box itself is nice and sturdy and also looks the business for sure.  My one gripe is that they did the thing where the spine of the box itself is printed in a way where you have to flip the set upside down if you want to display it on your shelf, rather than display the open side with the individual album spines.  A very minor complaint about a box set that's really just incredible.  I'd love to see some more sets like this for other hip hop luminaries.

Eric B. & Rakim – The Remixes 1987 - 1992:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nyWbr502gnRK5OjcsSdrWw8NbnUWM4io4