BODY COUNT: Body Count (HARDCORE): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

If Body Count is not strictly speaking a precursor, it arrives at the very beginning of the wave of fusion Metal / Hardcore / Rap which will give birth a few years later to Nu metal. With humor and provocation, "Body Count" tackles the problems of social exclusion, racism, material and cultural poverty, themes that will explode in the face of North America a few months after the release of this opus.

The album, which was originally released under the name "Cop Killer", was quickly decried by conservative American forces who saw in this title, and more particularly in the last eponymous track of the album, a gratuitous provocation and an explicit call for self-defense by citizens towards the armed forces. This musically very violent track is preceded by a dialogue highlighting the conflicting relationships between the police and the poor population (which in the USA happens to be the black population). Due to the pressure on their record company, the band is forced to re-release their album under another name, "Body Count" and the offending track is replaced by 'Freedom Of Speech', a duet with Dead Kennedys leader Jello Biafra. This title is in fact a new version, more Rock, of a song that can be found on a solo album of Ice-T ("The Iceberg/Freedom Of Speech" - 1989).

Beyond the controversy that surrounded the release of this album, this one is especially striking by the quality of the tracks it contains and by the energy that emerges from it. The band has no equal in alternating soft and melodious atmospheres and ultra violent passages. Despite his original musical style, Ice-T abandons here the rap phrasing that brought him success to adopt a more traditional vocals. Like all the other instruments, his vocals live up to the group's objectives. Indeed, and contrary to the other projects of Ice-T, Body Count does not have for vocation to propose solutions to an identified problem, but more basically to make itself the voice without compassion, nor hindsight, of the victims of the social plagues that are the consumption of hard drugs, racism, state terrorism... A sort of voluntarily primary outlet...

And the least that we can say is that titles like the very fast and violent 'Cop Killer' or the hypnotic 'Body Count's In The House' and 'Voodoo' are especially punchy. Lyrically, the poetry is not in order either, and the half humorous and half gravelly style of Ice-T is wonderful, the highlight being certainly 'Momma's Gotta Die Tonight' which depicts the troubles of a young black man with his racist mother after he introduced his white girlfriend to her. The finale, in the form of delirious belching and matricide butchery, is quite tasty. The naughty 'KKK Bitch' which describes the very advanced relations of the singer with the daughter of the great Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan is also a great moment. The second degree of the lyrics is often reinforced by the interludes / dialogues which precede the songs. Some tracks like 'The Winner Loses' bring an ounce of saving calm and allow the other tracks to seem even more incisive. This song deals with the problem of drug addiction with sensitivity, something quite rare for Body Count.

"Body Count" will receive an excellent critical and commercial reception and will be the only album of the group to obtain such a success. It must be said that fate was not kind to Body Count as three of the five original members died fairly quickly (Beatmaster V died of leukemia in 1996, Mooseman died in a shooting in 2001 and D-Roc was a victim of lymphoma in 2004). Don't miss this piece of history! - Official website

BODY COUNT

BODY COUNT

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HARDCORE