Fear Of A Black Planet

Public Enemy may have generated more heat than light ultimately, but their bold contentiousness makes this their most incendiary and acidic album. Producers The Bomb Squad and DJ Terminator X's relentless arsenal of samples and concussive backbeats, coupled with Chuck D's fiercely didactic raps frighteningly convey young black America's disaffection rising to boiling point, especially on "Brother's Gonna Work It Out" and "Fight The Power", featured in Spike Lee's equally troubling movie, Do Tha Right Thing. After this bang, the mumbling gangsta rappers of the 1990s seemed like mere whimperers by comparison. --David Stubbs

1. Contract On The World Love Jam

2. Brothers Gonna Work It Out

3. 911 Is A Joke

4. Incident At 66.6 FM

5. Welcome To The Terrordome

6. Meet The G That Killed Me

7. Pollywannacracka

8. Anti-Nigger Machine

9. Burn Hollywood Burn

10. Power To The People

11. Who Stole The Soul?

12. Fear Of A Black Planet

13. Revolutionary Generation

14. Can't Do Nuttin' For Ya Man

15. Reggie Jax

16. Leave This Off Your Fu*kin Charts

17. B. Side Wins Again

18. War At 33 ⅓

19. Final Count Of The Collision Between Us And The Damned

20. Fight The Power