Greatest Hits

Focusing mostly on the group's first three albums--each of them a cornerstone of rap music--this 18-track collection is a reminder of a time when rap enjoyed a kind of childlike innocence: their boasts are forceful but not angry; the beats are simple but exciting; the overall effect (fuelled by heavy-metal riffs) is edgy and aggressive, but not violent or destructive. But most of all, it's fun. In the 1990s, rap artists would take Run-DMC's ideas to wide extremes, but the roots of this next generation--gangsta rap's street realism, political rap's social agendas, rock-rap's antagonism--are found right here. Run-DMC--like almost all pioneers from Elvis to Louis Armstrong--suffered a period of irrelevancy when they were looked upon as quaint or outdated, but their time will come. Rest assured, this is not 80s retro kitsch. --Marc Greilsamer