Released September 28, 1999 Length 58:36 Release date 28 September 1999 | Recorded 1998-1999 | |
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Method man redman blackout 02 blackout hq sound
Blackout! is the debut studio album by American hip hop duo Method Man & Redman. It is the first full-length release by Method Man and Redman after many collaborations. The album continued a string of highly successful Def Jam releases in the late 1990s. The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 254,000 copies and served as a bit of a precursor to the 2001 major studio film How High. Both rappers enjoyed perhaps the height of their popularity as a tandem after the success of the album and its three charted singles. The singles were also popular videos which were mainstays on MTV and BET. The sequel to the album, Blackout! 2, was released on May 19, 2009.
Contents
Background
Originally the name of the album was to be Amerikaz Most Blunted and was advertised as that for months before the release, but they changed it to the more commercially acceptable Blackout!. The CD version of the album features three previously released bonus tracks; "Well All Rite Cha" also appeared on Redman's solo album, Doc's Da Name 2000, "Big Dogz" from Method Man's Tical 2000: Judgement Day and 1995's critically acclaimed single "How High".
The most popular of these previous collaborations was on the song "How High" from the soundtrack to The Show. The album's three singles, "Y.O.U.", "Da Rockwilder" and "Tear It Off", spearheaded the highly hyped release to go platinum on January 6, 2000, more than three months after the album's release. The album has also been certified platinum in Canada (100,000 copies). The album has sold 1,575,000 copies to date. [2]. Blackout is also considered a landmark for both rappers and for East Coast Hip Hop.
Critical reception
Rolling Stone (11/11/99, p. 132) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...a tight-as-drum album in an era of half-assed efforts."
Entertainment Weekly (10/10/99, p. 73) - "...when hip-hop's most playfully creative rhyme stylers throw down like two superballs in a rubber room, they're unstoppable - and make rap's most joyous ride." - Rating: A-
The Wire (1/00, p. 100) - "...skulk-funk...Redman moans a melody of dank basement isolation, while on 'Cereal Killer' he sabotages over vamping guitar....Meth executes some taut syncopation...on which his syllables alternate cadences with producer Eric Sermon's thumpingest track of the LP."
The Source (2/00, p. 95) - Included in The Source's "Top 10 Albums of the Year [1999]."
Charts
Album
Singles
Songs
1A Special Joint (intro)1:28
2Blackout3:43
3Mi Casa2:44