Please forgive me for a contrarian opinion on "Rapture"; while time has maybe not been particularly kind to the song, it was an extremely important step in making rap mainstream. It was the first song with a rap in it to make it to number one. It was released in 1981, only two years after "Rapper's Delight", which barely broke the top 40. "Rapture" also name checks both Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash – pretty hip for a white chick at the time (grin). I also think it may be one of the earliest rap videos to be shown on MTV – it was certainly the first I remember seeing, seeing an old enough to remember when MTV actually played music videos and had Martha Quinn, sigh…
Book orders, but yeah.
ReplyDeleteShe was *this* close to killing rap in its infancy...
ReplyDelete@ Strel,
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. There were a number of white folks putting out homages to rap; remember Tina Weymouth & Chris Frantz' Tom Tom Club?
Debbie Harry's effort wasn't her best work...
Please forgive me for a contrarian opinion on "Rapture"; while time has maybe not been particularly kind to the song, it was an extremely important step in making rap mainstream. It was the first song with a rap in it to make it to number one. It was released in 1981, only two years after "Rapper's Delight", which barely broke the top 40. "Rapture" also name checks both Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash – pretty hip for a white chick at the time (grin). I also think it may be one of the earliest rap videos to be shown on MTV – it was certainly the first I remember seeing, seeing an old enough to remember when MTV actually played music videos and had Martha Quinn, sigh…
ReplyDelete