Product Description

Debut album from the eighteen piece Cardiff rap troupe. TheGLC claim influences through their modifications of songs from artists such as So Solid Crew, The Streets and...Paul Gascoigne. Tracks tackle topics such as their Welsh Heritage, irrelevence of American Rappers, gun control and the allure of drugs (the last of which is a recurring theme throughout). Technically proficient but with a definite tongue in cheek.

Track Listing

1. The Manifesto
2. Self Suicide
3. Guns Don’t Kill People Rappers Do
4. Half Man Half MAchine
5. Roller Disco
6. Soap Bar
7. Billy Webbs Lament
8. Your Mothers Got A Penis
9. The Maggot
10. You Knows I Loves You
11. Leeroy Fashion Lament
12. 21 Ounces
13. Time To Make A Change

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2986 in Music
• Released on: 2004-09-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics

Amazon.co.uk Review
They say humour and music shouldn't mix, but it seems no-one told leisurewear-clad Welsh rap octet Goldie Lookin' Chain: their Greatest Hits, a major-label compilation of the highlights of their last five self-released CD-Rs, is the rare comedy record that transcends its laugh-out-loud novelty. The gags they offer are seldom sophisticated - the presence of a song titled "Your Mother's Got A Penis" has probably already alerted you to that fact - but the jokes come thick and fast, and there's enough deft characterisation to leisurewear-clad GLC members Dwain Xain, Mr Love Eggs, and The Maggot to drag the likes of "Half-Man, Half-Machine" and "Soap Bar" into the realms of situation comedy. Many of their best ideas are stolen: UK Top 5 single "Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do" nabs a vocal hook from KRS-One's "Sound Of The Police", while "Self Suicide" makes a cheeky rip from '90s rap goths Gravediggaz. But for all the petty theft on show, the GLC aren't lacking in ideas. With the possible exception of the slimy R&B grind of "You Knows I Loves You" - which, of course, is meant to sound utterly, horribly sleazy - there's not a bad track here. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Novely Welsh Chav Rap
If Enimem came from Wales, he might sound like this. You Knows It.

This could've been brilliant. It could've been ok. Instead it's just....

Imagine a bunch of twenty somethings, raised on the A-team, obsessed with The Bill and spliff and Primark, pretending to be chavs, dolled up in faux-chic Working Class burberry, and taking the piss. That's the glc, and youknowsit.

But who is the joke on? You? Me? Them? Everybody?

I have no idea. What I do know is that "Greatest Hits" isn't that Great, and doesn't have that many hits on it ; consisting of a selection of re-recordings of old songs taken from their first 6, lowkey word-of-mouth albums. The music is dull, anodyne, tired. The lyrics? With a handful of exceptions they aint that good either.

Which really really makes me angry, ya clart. Because the genre was begging to be blown open by white boys prepared to rip the living piss out of self-aggrandising braindead morons who big-up themselves and mistake saying something with having Something To Say. "Greatest Hits" is, plain and simple, an open goal missed in chronic proportions.

Whilst "Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do" is great - and you knows it - the rest of the album draws far short. The lyrical genius of their first few albums (available for sample on their website) is diluted. They're too self-conscious. They're trying too hard. By the time they get to "Half Man, Half Machine" it's increasingly obvious that this one trick pony is getting clapped out : the purile lyrics aren't even amusing, simply excruiating.

Listening to faux-chavs pretending to be robots dressed in tinfoil is just ... sad. It's the type of thing I'd do when I was ten, not when I was twenty-one and on my debut CD. And any band that has a song called "Your Mother's Got A Penis"... well. That makes The Bloodhound Gang look like Sylvia Plath. You knows it. It's such a cliché to say that their earlier stuff was better, but it was.

"Greatest Hits" is a good album. If you haven't heard the earlier stuff, no doubt this'll sound fantastic. It's the complete antidote to The Streets. The world needed a record that was a good hard kick in the nuts of every braindead, streethanging, what-you-looking-at-carnt? Chav scum in a backwards baseball cap and white trackies that hangs around outside your local off-licence. But they'll probably think that this lot aren't talking the mick, but you know, living it, keeping it real, hardcore. You knows it. Pass me some draw, clart.

The bottom line is that Greatest Hits is a novelty album. The lyrics (at least, some of them) can be funny and a bitter insight into the bargain-basement of hopeless towns nationwide. The music though is neglible and dull.After all, the last band to call their debut Greatest hits was Sheep on Drugs, and we all know where they are now. You want fries with that?

The joke isn't funny anymore, and that's a tragedy, because these guys are going to be huge, and they better put their money where their mouth is and deliver the goods, or else they'll be back in The DSS faster than you can say "Novely Welsh Chav Rap". You knows it.

Don't believe the hype.

Lighten up clarts
Check out the hidden track - tip - rewind from start of track 1 if you bothered to buy the CD, then go on holiday and get the DSS to pay!

Safe as
The GLC inspire much opprobrium for supposedly sending up hip hop culture, yet one listen to this album shows that they are technically competent and can walk the walk, even if it is across a Newport council estate. The lyrics are hilarious and have often caused me to nearly crash my bicycle listening to the pathetic attempts at spelling S-U-I-C-I-D-E or another line about the late Michael Hutchence. Ultimately the GLC are an experiment in society holding a mirror to itself. We choose to laugh at their behaviour, but the laugh is tempered by the knowledge that so many people choose to behave in this way for real - thinking life is nothing but one long party funded by the state. It would not surprise me if the boys behind the GLC all went to RADA and spoke with an RP accent, given the quality of their writing. Let's hope the new album is as good.