lambchops's Full Review: Hell With the Lid Off by M.C. 900 Ft. Jesus/DJ Zer...
MC 900 Ft. Jesus is not right in the head. Born in Dallas, Mark Griffin is something of a unique entity. His music crisscrosses boundaries previously laid out by rap, industrial, and even jazz artists.
Taking his tongue-in-cheek stage name from an Orel Roberts sermon, Griffin first began working with scratchmaster DJ Zero (Patrick Rollins) in 1989. His music came about at the perfect time. Faith No More was popular, rap was becoming a mainstream hit, and industrial music was becoming less and less an underground movement with acts like Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Meat Beat Manifesto, and Consolidated at the helm. MC 900 Ft. Jesus benefited from being at the right place at the right time.
Griffin turned his debut EP with DJ Zero into a full length Nettwerk release in 1990. Hell With The Lid Off defies description. Firstly, it is clearly a techno dance album. But wait! It is also a funky rap piece. Oh, and I can’t forget the fact that Griffin also blends in the most entertaining elements of industrial music into his work. It is impossible to compare this album and this artist to anybody but himself. And later release Welcome to My Dream (1991) continued in the same vein, but also somehow was darker.
It was with 1994’s One Step Ahead of the Spider that MC 900 Ft. Jesus escaped college radio. His hit, If I Only Had A Brain was certainly reflective of his earlier work but it was also lighter and incredibly catchy. The rest of the album on the other hand represented an almost total turnaround. Infusing instead of industrial and rap into his songs, Griffin paid homage to jazz and world music (with of course a curiously dance/alternative twist). That album was near-brilliant, and also marked the apparent end of his career. Griffin has since disappeared, but thanks to what can only be renewed interest in the guy Nettwerk has finally re-released his first two previously out of print albums—so you too can own and cherish Hell With The Lid Off and Welcome To My Dream.
While I was still oblivious to the world of music on the whole (and partaking in obnoxious amounts of hair metal), MC 900 Ft. Jesus turned out Hell With The Lid Off. The album, while largely ignored by mainstream press was embraced by college radio certainly as a result of minor alternative dance hit Truth Is Out Of Style. Even as that track oozes with the work of a strange, but brilliant, mind the album could have been horrible. But fortunately it is not. Hell With The Lid Off is a rousing, fun, challenging and in the end intelligent album. Sure there are some minor complaints, but Griffin still managed a remarkable yet too often ignored debut.
There are benefits to owning the newly re-released Hell With The Lid Off. Fans will be pleased to find two tracks not originally part of the 1989 album including one additional mix of Truth Is Out of Style. The mere inclusion of these versions leads me to believe that the moderate success of the song may in fact be the reason that this album was revamped and re-released. Regardless of Nettwerk’s underlying motive, MC 900 Ft. Jesus shines pretty brightly throughout his debut.
A Greater God is a perplexing start to this otherwise pretty straightforward album. Not only is it strangely out of character, it also requires the listener to turn up their volume to even hear what is going on. But it may as well be skipped considering what investigation turns up is a bizarre piece of inexplicably bad spoken word. But fortunately, that lasts for just a short time and Real Black Angel picks up the slack with a rhythm reminiscent of the sexually charged Salt-N-Pepa classic Push It. Of course, Griffin’s brand of rap is something wholly different. The beats are certainly urban, but he doesn’t rhyme per se. Rather, MC 900 Ft. Jesus speaks gently and with restraint. While the lyrics are good, it is the beat that is at the center of the track.
What follows is the most widely known track of the album, Truth Is Out of Style. If the title is of any indication, the song is a comment on the state of the world. Fortunately, MC 900 Ft. Jesus never comes off as a bad cliché. His song possesses a tidy beat that sounds rather like Young M.C.’s hit Bust A Move. But Griffin twists his voice around the affective rhythmic ringing. The 12in Mix at that wraps Hell With The Lid Off up is actually more interesting than the original in that Griffin’s voice is more prevalent and the beats are smoothed out—it feels funkier and in the end seems less dated.
UFOs Are Real starts off as something akin to nine inch nails. In the context of this album, it comes as quite a shock. But once it takes form, the industrial styled beats blend nicely with DJ Zero’s scratching. Griffin as producer deconstructs and destroys his own voice. In many ways, UFO’s Are Real is repetitive, but the electronic thumping goes in a variety of directions as it progresses. The version added to the end of this re-release is wholly instrumental. It is fine, in fact I actually think the sound is superior to the original, but sans the vocals it in the end is boring.
Ringing bells and thunderous beats characterize Shut Up as a variety of alternative dance that incorporated rap rhythms and was actually very common in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s thanks to the like of Jesus Jones, EMF, and various others. I appreciate the work that clearly went into assembling the track, but it is in the end an over-long, repetitive instrumental. And, well, I’m generally not a fan of instrumentals.
Continuing on, there are mostly good things to say about the songs. In particular, I’m drawn to MC 900 Ft. Jesus when he’s leaning toward a harder, more industrial edge. Not all songs fall under this category…I’m Going Straight To Heaven is one that is specifically defiant. And in all honesty, it is one of the better tracks on Hell With The Lid Off. It blends elements of big band, world music, dance, and electronica into a neat little package. Much the same thing goes for the later instrumental version of the same track. Talking to the Spirits blends elements of techno with industrial. The addition of a brighter sound certainly should make it more appealing to a wider audience.
As Hell With The Lid Off nears the end, the songs seem to linger for too long and wander around without aim. Spaceman possesses all of the qualities of a 70’s porn flick—without the sex of course. Too Bad is fine, but boring. Even though Griffin’s work is notable, he’s done the same thing just as well elsewhere on his debut. There are also a number of samples including the strange A Place of Loneliness and the diatribe set to beats in Born With Monkey As*es. And even in the entire struggle that a listener likely has to put into listening to MC 900 Ft. Jesus and his debut is worth the effort. There are too many excellent elements to ignore.
Hell With The Lid Off is a creative, wild, and strange album. Griffin is certainly a unique singer-songwriter-producer-mixman. He doesn’t hold back in any way, and his vision usually translates very well to song. This debut isn’t perfect, but it is an unusually relevant slice of life from over a decade ago.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Track Listing:
1. A Greater God
2. Real Black Angel
3. Truth Is Out of Style
4. Ufos Are Real
5. Shut Up
6. I'm Going Straight to Heaven
7. Spaceman
8. Talking to the Spirits
9. Too Bad
10. A Place of Loneliness
11. Born With Monkey As*es
12. Straight to Heaven [instrumental]
13. Ufos Are Real [*]
14. Truth Is Out of Style [*]
* Bonus tracks
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