Run the Jewels - Bust No Moves

The final in a little trilogy of Run the Jewels records, this is a 12" they put out for Record Store Day in 2015. I wasn't buying a huge amount that year - in fact, I only bought four records, but one was a Manics record and the other by the Dirty Three, so both essential purchases (the other was a Clutch album, which I didn't really need but enjoy anyway - I was up early and it felt like a waste to do so for only three records).

I didn't know much about the release ahead of time, but was keen to get it regardless. As it is, we get two new songs - the title track and Blockbuster Night Pt 2, which is safe to assume is a sequel to Blockbuster Night Pt 1 on RTJ2 (I think it might have been a bonus track somewhere, but not one I had). The version of Love Again is the same as on my copy of the LP, but apparently the first pressings didn't have the verse by Boots. Pew Pew Pew is one of the bonus tracks on the second disc of RTJ1 - it's probably the best song on this EP.

It's a nice little record, but easily forgotten between the gatefold sleeves of the RTJ LPs around it - plastic sleeves are rarely eye-catching when side-on on a shelf. The colour is nice, although I couldn't confidently say what colour it actually is.

Format: 12"
Tracks: 4
Cost: £13 new
Bought: Truck Store, Oxford
When: 18/04/15
Colour: Clear with splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: no

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 3

I'd started writing about this one yesterday, then I saw that they released Run the Jewels 4 early, so I stopped what I was doing and started listening to the new one. I'd not long finished writing about how I frantically downloaded RTJ3 on Christmas morning when I began frantically downloading RTJ4. As long as Run the Jewels are releasing albums, I'll be aiming to get my ears around them as soon as possible. Anyway, more on RTJ4 another day.

Some people I know didn't rate RTJ3 as highly as RTJ2, but I'd go so far as to say that I love this one even more than RTJ2. Whilst the start is the crazy-catchy big tunes, there are some heavy moments in the second half of the album that hit really fucking hard - Don't Get Captured, Thieves, Thursday in the Danger Room and A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters are all amazing and have raps that you can't help but be moved by. Thursday in the Danger Room is just devastating - El-P's verse pulls at the heartstrings, but then Killer Mike just destroys you. If you haven't, I recommend listening to that one with the lyrics to hand. Wow. It's hard to not think about all things kicking off around the world right when you hear those songs.

Near the start, you also have one of my favourite of El's verses - his lines in Talk To Me are great, peaking with "You don't get it, I'm dirt motherfucker I can't be crushed". Call Ticketron has a super-annoying hook, to the extent that I skip it most of the time I listen to the album. The first three tracks are a great opening - each one a step up from what came before, and Hey Kids follows this trajectory, so it's just a shame that Call Ticketron gets in the way of that. Panther Like a Panther made it onto my end of the year mixtape in 2017 and, along with 2100 (is that a guitar that pops up behind El's first verse?), was one of my first favourite songs on the album. I think that might be one of the best things about RTJ3 - at various points over the last three and a half years almost all of the songs have been a favourite at some point.

Run the Jewels dropped RTJ3 on Christmas Day in 2016. I found out about it via an email (old school) and frantically downloaded it. It was a strange Christmas Day - we were going to my sister's for lunch, then down to my wife's parents' house in London afterwards - it was the most time I think I've ever spent in the car on a Christmas Day. However, that meant I'd get to listen to the new RTJ on the way; great, I thought. The first hurdle was finding any blank cds to burn the album to. I was trying to find them whilst also trying to pack the car and look like I was being helpful, and eventually concluded that I must have run out. I figured the car had a way of plugging in some audio cables, so I grabbed those, stuck the album on an old mp3 player and hit the road. Annoyingly, that cable was broken, so it was quite a disappointment when we hit the motorway and I couldn't enjoy the new RTJ. Finally, after lunch I asked my brother-in-law if he had any cables I could borrow, and he leant me a 5-meter audio cable, which did the job (and took up most of the glove compartment for a few months until I remembered to return them). As the sun set and we drove to London, I finally got to hear RTJ3 for the first time. Sure, my shitty car hifi isn't the best to listen to a new album on, nor is it easy to pay attention to what they're rapping whilst also navigating the six lanes of the M25, but I enjoyed it. I think I also just really enjoyed hearing the album on the day it came out and having a memorable experience of that. Not sure my wife was such a fan mind you.

A few weeks later the physical copies hit the shelves and I rushed out to get a copy. The shop had this one, or one that came with a gold chain for a small amount more. I decided that I didn't need the chain in my life so plumped for the cheaper option. It's a nice package - gold vinyl and nice touches. I vaguely remember there being an AR app that made the artwork come to life - it wouldn't run on my phone, but I installed it on an iPhone in the office and had a play. I can't remember much of what it did. All that said, the highlight is, as always, the lyric sheet - I remember sitting down with the album and reading every line (sometimes a couple of times as it played) and just taking it all in. There are some fucking genius lines on this album.

Format: Double 12", insert, sticker sheet
Tracks: 14
Cost: £27 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 20/01/17
Colour: Gold
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels 2

When Run the Jewels released RTJ2, it felt like everything fell into place. They'd released an album that was truly incredible and everyone uniformly agreed - I don't think I heard (or have heard since) a single bad word about RTJ2. You'd play that album and people would be bowled over; moreover you'd play that album and without fail someone would reveal themselves as an RTJ fan - not that they were necessarily hiding it, but it was people you simply hadn't spoken to about music before. It was great. I was so pleased to see Killer Mike and El-P finally get the respect they deserved; this album propelled them to the place they should have been for years.

They released the album for free on October 24th 2014, and 364 days later I finally bought a copy. I'd planned to get it as soon as it was announced, and then really wanted to get a copy after I heard it. I can't remember why it took so long - maybe it sold out most places at the start. Either way, I picked up this pink vinyl copy (with some money going to a breast cancer charity) and sat down with the lyrics sheet open for the first physical play. Even though I'd played this album a lot in the year before that point, it was incredible reading the lines and hearing these brilliant moments and subtleties that had passed me by. It's been a long time since I've played a record and been so engrossed in the lyrics. Routinely I had to wait for breaks of choruses to go back and re-read some of the lines. Mike and El wrote some incredible verses here. When RTJ3 came out, I had another incredible time reading the lines and I'm so, so looking forward to doing the same thing with RTJ4.

There's no point listing the best raps because I'd end up re-writing huge sections of the lyrics sheet. Similarly, listing the best songs would mean listing most of the song titles. When I wrote about the debut album I said that the first nine tracks were good and then Christmas Fucking Miracle was just a step above it all; on RTJ they take the step-up that song represented, make another step beyond that and wrote 11 whole songs at that level. Oh My Darling Don't Cry is a perfect example of that, and it's only the second song on the album. The way Mike and El trade verses and work off each other's energy is perfect and seamless throughout, but All Due Respect might be the finest example of that. All My Life is the first real moment to breathe on the album, but the raps are still dense - it's a needed moment after the four songs that proceeded it. I saw RTJ for the first time at Primavera Sound in 2015 and Lie, Cheat, Steal always takes me back to that set.

One final note on this album - when they announced the album, El and Mike jokingly (and whilst high) put out a bunch of ridiculous kickstarter rewards including re-recording the whole album using cat noises. Someone then made an actual kickstarter to raise the money to make that happen and they agreed to do it, with the money going to charity. Being a cat-owner, I couldn't resist and chipped in to make sure it happened. I'd say about 1-in-10 times I put on RTJ2, I decide to put on Meow the Jewels instead.

Format: Double 12", insert, sticker sheet
Tracks: 11
Cost: £21.50 new
Bought: Norman Records
When: 23/10/15
Colour: Pink marble
Etching: none
mp3s: none

Run the Jewels - Stay Gold Collectors Box

With Record Store Day just around the corner again, it's probably time to write about some old releases again. Musically, this was a luxury purchase for sure. There's a lot of stuff in the photos below, but ultimately there are four songs here - Kill Your Masters from RTJ3, an instrumental version, a remix of Stay Gold and an instrumental version of the remix - so nothing vital as such.

Kill Your Masters is a great song and Zack de la Rocha's verse is nice. For reasons I don't understand, it's listed together with A Report to the Shareholders on the LP - maybe because they're thematically linked? Anyway, I appreciate that instrumentals are a thing, but I rarely get excited about them. I mostly just miss the lyrics. It is nice to focus on El's beats though. The remix of Stay Gold by Smiff & Cash works well - the whole feel of the song is different - kinda haunting, which somehow has less of an effect on the instrumental version - and there's some extra verses added.

At £43, I probably should have left this behind on Record Store Day in 2018, but it looks so lovely that I couldn't resist. Plus, I was already spending an obscene amount that morning, so this wasn't that big a percentage, sadly. I missed RSD the year before, and the year after (and probably will this year too), so it kinda evens out on the years when there was nothing I was after. In the gold metal box we have a poster, a slip mat, and alternate sleeve for RTJ3, some stickers and, of course, the four songs on a one-sided, etched clear 12". It's a nice package for sure, and given that some LPs are edging near to £30 on their own, it's not even that expensive really.

Despite it having space for the three RTJ LPs to fit in, I've never put them in there - just doesn't seem necessary. Maybe I'm missing the point (I'm not much of a Marvel fan, so the effort that's gone into the Marvel version of the sleeve is lost on me too). A strange detail to get wrong (if you consider it wrong) is that the writing on the edge of the box goes in the wrong direction (wrong by UK/USA standards - in continental Europe I think most books and records are oriented this way around).

Format: Etched one-sided 12", gatefold sleeve, box, stickers, posters, slipmat
Tracks: 4
Cost: £43 new
Bought: Truck Store
When: 21/04/18
Colour: Clear
Etching: etched b-side
mp3s: no

Run the Jewels - Run the Jewels

I should have been much quicker off the mark with Run the Jewels; I’ve been a big fan of El-P for a while and have an awful lot of time for his I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead record. I was aware he was working on something called Run the Jewels from his regular stoned tweeting, but neglected checking it out for far too long (I think for a little while, I wasn't even sure what it was, let alone that it was music I should definitely have been excited about). Then I remember there being a video for A Christmas Fucking Miracle that appeared on Pitchfork one morning near Christmas in 2013, which I watched and was instantly floored. I cursed myself for being so lazy.

I looked into getting their album, but ended up putting it off for a few weeks. Then it sold out and I was gutted. A few months later it went back on sale through Ninja Tune’s UK store and I took the opportunity to order a copy as soon as possible. It's now very readily available, but I'm glad I didn't sleep on it for any longer.

I was very excited to hear the rest of the record and had a great time on the first listen. My initial thoughts were very similar to how I feel about the album now - it is a really great album, but A Christmas Fucking Miracle takes it up a notch or two. Little did I know that they'd then take the greatness of that song and turn it into two albums of songs of equal or greater brilliance. RTJ was the first time I heard Killer Mike, but had been a bit aware that El had produced his album not long beforehand. The combination of the two of them is one of the main things that makes RTJ so special, but everybody knows that. It's hard to say positive things about RTJ that haven't already been said, because over the last five years they've established themselves as one of the best rap acts around; everybody loves them, as everybody should.

One thing I can't recommend enough is sitting down with the album and reading the lyrics. I know it seems a remarkably boring thing to do, but I eventually did that with both RTJ1 and RTJ2 and it added so much to my experience. I started with RTJ2, as I'd had the mp3s for a little while before getting the vinyl - I knew the songs well, but reading the lyrics meant I had a far greater enjoyment. I then went back and did the same with RTJ1. I try to listen to what people are singing/rapping about in music, but sometimes it's hard not to just take it line-to-line - it's nice every now and again to make a conscious effort to take in the whole song and see what it's really about. Again, this has been said many a time, but these guys write some of the best raps I've ever heard.

Speaking of which, Banana Clipper has one of my favourite RTJ lyrics - "Producer gave me a beat / Said it's the beat of the year / I said El-P didn't do it / Get the fuck out of here". I distinctly remember them playing that one the first time I saw them at Primavera Sound and being relieved to find that everyone else thought it was worthy of shouting back (side note, both times I've seen RTJ have been so, so much fun). Other highlights on RTJ1 are 36" Chain, Sea Legs and, of course, A Christmas Fucking Miracle; the line "Still spell America with the triple K" is proving scarily true. As a huge fan of Lovage, it's nice to see Prince Paul revive his Chest Rockwell alter-ego on Twin Hype Back too.

The album is generally available with the same bonus disc as here (I think) featuring an extra song (Pew Pew Pew), a couple of remixes and the same again as instrumentals (but the mp3 download only includes the vocal versions) - I think initially there was a version with instrumentals of the whole album too. The remix of Sea Legs is particularly pleasing - the bassline is brought to the front to the point where it sounds like the horn of a large ship, appropriately given the song. On top of that, both discs are on a lovely clear vinyl with green splatter. I know it's a silly thing to get excited about, but I also like that it's a double LP so that it looks consistent alongside the following two album which are themselves double albums - it looks great in the racks.

At some point soon I'll have to learn some better adjectives to write appropriately about RTJ2 and RTJ3; I definitely can't describe them with sufficient praise with the words I currently know.

Format: Double 12", insert
Tracks: 16
Cost: £22 new
Bought: Ninja Tunes website
When: 18/05/14
Colour: Clear with green splatter
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code