Released July 22, 1997 Artist Company Flow Label Rawkus Records | Length 73:52 Release date 22 July 1997 Producers El-P, Mr. Len, Bigg Jus | |
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Recorded 1995–1997 (Corners: 1994)
Ozone Studios, NYC
No Mystery Studios, NYC Funcrusher Plus
(1997) Little Johnny from the Hospitul Breaks & Instrumentals Vol.1
(1999) Genres Hip hop music, Underground hip hop, Experimental hip hop, Political hip hop Similar El-P albums, Hip hop music albums | ||
Company flow funcrusher plus full album
Funcrusher Plus is the first studio album by American hip hop group Company Flow. It was released on Rawkus Records in 1997. In 2009, it was re-released on Definitive Jux. The album has been recognized as "a landmark independent hip-hop release".
Contents
Critical reception
AllMusic gave the album a perfect 5 star rating, and writer Steve Huey stated: "[Funcrusher Plus] demands intense concentration, but also rewards it, and its advancement of hip-hop as an art form is still being felt. It's difficult, challenging music, to be sure, and it's equally far ahead of its time." Jon Dolan of City Pages noted "[Company Flow's] evincing a confrontational critique of 'those signed, big-budget muthafuckas' like none hip hop has attempted since EPMD's Strictly Business."
Andrew Hultkrans of Spin gave the album 8 stars out of 10, commenting that "[the album] deconstructed hip-hop conventions and rebuilt them into a spare, murky, sputtering soundscape." Jeff Weiss of Los Angeles Times felt that "El-P conjured an apocalyptic minimalism -- the sublimated sound of clanging and cluttered train cars, city grime buried beneath cuticles, and the ghostly smoke of burning blunts."
Nate Patrin of Pitchfork Media said: "With the exception of the nocturnal crystalline funk of the Bigg Jus-produced 'Lune TNS' and the frequent scratch contributions from secret weapon DJ Mr. Len, Funcrusher Plus' beats bear the mark of El-P's dusty-but-digital aesthetic, which even back then had the same sort of beautiful-dystopia Blade Runner feel that informed Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein and his own Fantastic Damage a few years later."
Brian Coleman of CMJ New Music Monthly called it "the most important release of 1997 thus far." Joseph Schafer of Stereogum said, "Funcrusher Plus made for a hell of an opening salvo, and most emcee/producers would envy having such a record in their discography, but El mostly improved upon his work here later."
On October 4, 2011, "Lune TNS" was chosen by NJ.com as the Song of the Day.
In 2003, Funcrusher Plus ranked at number 84 on Pitchfork Media's Top 100 Albums of the 1990s list. In 2014, Complex listed the album at number 86 on the 90 Best Rap Albums of the 90s. In 2015, it was chosen by Fact as number 4 on the 100 Best Indie Hip-Hop Records of All Time.
Personnel
Songs
1Bad Touch Example3:26
28 Steps to Perfection4:43
3Collude/Intrude5:26