El-P's Favourite Albums

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"Criminal Minded was like nothing had ever sounded before, apart from maybe Ultramagnetic MCs a little bit because Ced Gee had produced them both. But there was something so sparse, so mean and so authoritative about BDP – and authoritative about KRS One – I just remember being in Brooklyn and that shit just bumping. Personally this record is a huge influence on my production style as one of the first really big records for me where they would sample a kick and a snare from different records... it was a real drum programming record. It was really sparse and used a lot of stabs which was similar to the Rick Rubin/Def Jam aesthetic, but with that they were using a lot of TR 808s, 909s and drum machines so there was a cleaner sound - like on all the LL Cool J stuff - but Boogie Down Productions’ drums were so different at the time. It was dancehall-influenced too, and at the time I didn’t know anything about dancehall so it opened me up to that. One of those records which is always in my DNA in terms of being a producer."

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"I discovered this late, in my mid-20s, and ever since then it’s just stayed on my iPod or iPhone or whatever the fuck I have. It’s one of those hypnotic records that are so hard to define, but again it’s just so sparse and dark as hell. It’s also based on a lot of Americana guitar rock stuff and has an almost Johnny Cash guitar style, but doing it with a drum machine and a space echo and what might be a guitar? It’s just one of those that never left me and is one of those records I play all the way through.

All these different scenes were happening in New York growing up, and I was obviously into the Hip Hop side. I was a little too young to go to the clubs or be around for CBGBs, so I had to go around things in a roundabout way through being a producer and collecting records. But it was interesting finding this because, even if I didn’t realise it, it’s a part of the lineage of my city and its music. I didn’t know anything about genres, I didn’t know anything about anything, I was just hearing music."

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"Fat Boys were like my heroes, and I loved this record. When Krush Groove came out I played hookey for like a week and I just went every day and watched it instead of going to school. It’s hard to explain, but when I was a kid I just looked up to these guys. Run DMC were like the kick-ass, bigger-than-life superheroes, but Fat Boys were truly likeable, hilarious, dope... they were just guys that were funny as fuck, and they appealed to my childish sensibilities I’m sure. It was kinda playful, but the beats were fucking incredible and the dudes could rap their ass off for the time. I’m sure there are plenty of people for whom Fat Boys don’t even fit into the pantheon of what’s considered classic rap shit, but for me, just for the whole style, It was this crazy, infectious thing and they were laughing through the whole thing."

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"This is just the first record I’d ever heard of theirs. I didn’t even realise for years that there were versions of these songs on records because I was a kid and I didn’t know anything about music. I would go out and just buy shit that looked cool. My vinyl collection started with my father who was a big vinyl collector, and I would look at the covers and listen to them. From there I just fell in love with this record, it was one of the first ‘rock’ records that I ever bought but it didn’t sound like anything else I had ever bought. I’d heard funk records and it sounded a bit like that, but not really that either. Then I started to see the visuals of it, with this guy in the big suit and I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

Rappers and producers love Talking Heads, because they just had grooves. Of course ‘Once in a Lifetime’ also, which has kind of been adopted as a classic hip hop break, an unspoken one, but you’re not gonna find a hip hop DJ that’s not gonna spin that shit and bring it back. This record had a special place in my heart also because it was a show and I’d never been to one, but listening to it you felt like you were in a concert and it was this mysterious thing to me."

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"This is the obvious one of course, but I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I remember seeing this film as a kid and I really didn’t understand what this was and how it was done. Like, do these people make the music? Do they play it while the film is going? I had all these questions, but Vangelis just became a really amazing part of my life. It was this whole other type of music that I’d never heard and I wanted in. Music that makes you feel or imagine something is a big deal.

You’ll find no lack of the word dystopian when you hear people talk about my music, and that’s fine, it’s a great word. That all just comes from my personal artistic perspective. Terry Gilliam makes the kind of films he makes and I make the kind of music I make – can’t really deny it. But as I’ve gotten older it is records like this that made me want to learn how to make a piece of music that could make you feel like you’re being told a story. Like really, latch onto the lyrics even if there are no lyrics. I wanted to get to the point in my career where I could do it, and make a piece of music with a beginning, a middle and end, and create relief, tension and all these things. Nothing really does that or focuses on that more than film scores... I have a very large film score collection."

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"I mean, I grew up in the 80s and Prince was my fucking god. He was the coolest motherfucker on the planet. The music was unbelievable. It was sexual, and I didn’t even understand what that was, but I wanted to know. I was obsessed with Prince, and he was the first artist where I collected multiple records and listened to for years and years. This record never goes away. I don’t know how, but I’m sure that somewhere in the building blocks of whatever became the way I approach music, that guy has a solid strand of DNA."

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"If you’ve never seen Under the Cherry Moon, you’re not missing much, y’know? Unlike if you hadn’t seen Purple Rain, which is arguably the greatest movie in the world. I hated this movie when I saw it and I was really bummed out because I loved Purple Rain. But the score was an incredible record, especially from a producer’s standpoint, because he started to do something a little bit different. It was in-between the Prince and the Revolution phase of Linn drum, guitar and super synthed-out music, and what he’d later go to which was more of an R&B, smoother-influenced, live drum kind of sound. So it was this weird, sparse combination of drum programming and live percussion with more natural live bass – it was a really unique and special record. It’s on the list for remaining a favourite of mine over all this time but the reasons always change. I really think this is one of his unheralded masterpieces of production and I think it is overlooked probably because the movie was so fucking bad."

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"This surprised me just because I’ve loved so many records in my life and I wouldn’t think it’d be one that would make a list. I came upon it as a recommendation from a friend, and I think it’s a modern masterpiece of production... those guys just straight out knocked it out of the park. I think it’s probably the last time anybody has seen such an amazing combination of a pop-rock sensibility and a prog-rock sensibility. It is its own thing and I don’t think every record should sound like this, but I think they’re slept on and people don’t give them the credit they deserve. It’s all these different records thrown together, but the balance is right and that’s what you strive for as a producer. Especially a hip hop producer, trying to take different influences to create this new thing and striking the right balance between those ideas. The right amount of older influence and the right amount of the new idea. Man, those dudes just went for it on this thing and it was ballsy as fuck... probably the last great, promoted prog-rock record. "

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"I love all Run DMC records, but I thought I needed to put Tougher than Leather on the list because I think people overlook that record. It’s got ‘Run’s House’ and it’s got ‘Mary, Mary’, but it’s also got ‘Beats to the Rhyme’ and ‘Beats to the Rhyme’ is one of the most important, incredible hip hop songs ever made. People should really look at this record again, because there were these weird, interesting, instrumental interludes after each song, and it was all break-beat influenced but they were flipping it... the production that came out of those guys’ camp was also in a lot of ways slept on and really important for music at the time. That’s when they had just come into their 100% New York superhero shit, and I just wanted to be them. I actually saw Tougher than Leather the movie the day it opened and... it was ok."

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"Another one I discovered late, again, collecting records. I was probably in my early 20s and I just think it’s a beautiful record. It was weird, Company Flow had just put out this record called Little Jonny from the Hospitul and a couple of reviews mentioned this record. I didn’t know what it was so I looked it up and saw it was Brian Eno and David Byrne. I literally found it in like 1999 through reviews and I was like “what are they talking about? I have to go find this fucking thing.” I’m not saying I do what they do, but I understood the references of this amazing, beautiful, fucked-up record."

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"‘Moments of Love’ is an epic, ultimate, classic electronic music song which definitely informed my style in a lot of ways. In terms of the melody and the droning, and trying to find a beautiful thing out of a jagged thing... I was just fascinated by it as a kid. It really blew my mind. I think I came to them from Max Headroom who was this digital character that Coca Cola or someone had created and it was a big hit in the 80s. He even had his own TV show in the UK I think, maybe on the BBC. So Art Of Noise did this song with him as a guest vocalist called ‘Paranoimia’. That’s how I came to them, because I was a kid and I loved Max Headroom. This record in particular is probably there because it had ‘Moments of Love’ on it though. There was a 45 minute version of that song which was really rare, and my friend had it and wouldn’t let me borrow it, so I had to go over to his house... anyway, it was all very traumatizing."

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"I love all their records, honestly, but I just think this shit holds up every fucking time. They’re my favourite active rock band. Some people might think that’s weird, but they’re one of those bands that everything they do makes me think: “Of course! Of course somebody should have done that.” Every riff is perfect; they’re just in the pocket so hard that it’s impossible to front on it. This record in particular with Grohl on drums, they just hit on something special. Above the surface too there are these beautiful, sorrowful melodies that they float over - it’s real desert music. "

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"It’s Kool G Rap, man. The motherfucker is possibly one of the best rappers of all time. I mean, definitely one of the best, if not the best, and ‘Road to the Riches’ is in my top five rap songs because it was just the rawest shit ever at that time. When I started making my own music it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t sound like this and people would be like “Oh, it’s so different!” To me it was like, I thought I was making the new EPMD record! But eventually I just embraced my weirdness and said: “Okay, I guess it’s fucking different.” But I was always trying to chase these fucking legends in my head y’know?"