THE VIDEO Anthrax featuring Public Enemy, "Bring the Noise," Attack of the Killer B's, 1991, Island (also available on Public Enemy's Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Black, 1991, Def Jam)
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SAMPLE LYRIC "TURN IT UP! / Bring the noise! / [sound of record scratching]"
EXCESSIVELY DETAILED DESCRIPTION The video opens with many frenetic, panning shots of Anthrax and Public Enemy jamming amidst more speakers than Spinal Tap. They're beneath an unidentified Chicago bridge, and the crowd is going nuts. A pre-VH1-overexposure-victim Flavor Flav jumps down in front of the camera to kick off the song by delivering his signature "Yeah boyee!" while the camera flashes back and forth between him and the crowd.
Next we get Chuck D's booming "Bass! How low can you go?" which is sort of the if-you-don't-recognize-the-song-by-now… moment. Everyone is kind of crammed onto the tiny stage -- between the enormity and overabundance of the speakerage and the fact that between the five members of Anthrax and three from P.E. (only Flav and Chuck are presumed present -- unless the S1Ws are down working security in the pit) it's a bit crowded.
Anyway, Flavor Flav's additions to the song (if you're not familiar, he frequently punctuates the verses by saying the last word of each line along with Chuck or yelling a non sequitur) keep causing different stuff to happen onscreen -- for example, when he yells "D!" a large, red letter d appears onscreen, and when he yells "Freeze!" both he and Chuck D appear superimposed over Dan Spitz, who then is seen making a crazy face (p.s. check out that link -- kind of amazing).
All of the members of Anthrax are going nuts (at least the ones we’ve seen). Scott Ian has been frantically headbanging the whole time, showing off his scary Hare Krishna-style braid, the last vestige of his long hair (uh, actually of all of his hair. Not counting the ZZ Top goatee).
Charlie Benante, as always, has a smile for the camera when it comes around, and is sometimes caught singing along -- such a cutie! His long hair, though not long for this world, is pulled back in a braid in this vid. (To their credit though, both Scott and Charlie are possible exceptions to my "everyone looks better with long hair" rule -- the fact that I even consider it a possibility says a lot of them). But as always, the piece de resistance is Frank Bello. He looks absolutely gorgeous, as always (and it kills me, kills me, that there is no decent link for him!).
Frank, Scott, and Dan are all sort of standing over Charlie while Chuck and Flav run in front of them. As we near the first chorus, we see Chuck superimposed in front of hands playing a black guitar (which is in turn superimposed in front of flashing crowd shots. Blue electrical wires, then more crowd shots appear behind him. As the chorus begins, the first person we see yelling "turn it up!" is Joey Belladonna, shown inexplicably behind a pair of turntables. The other band members take turns shouting it while continuing their frenetic performance, and the camera swings wildly over the crowd.
Chuck D begins the second verse rapping in front of computer animated images of uh… I guess I'd have to say they're stylized renditions of speakers, but I wouldn’t necessarily say "style" was in any away involved here. The background flashes between white and black, and finally Chuck throws his fist and we're back beneath the bridge, where an elevated subway train is going by in the background as the crowd waves its hands wildly. Initially just Chuck and Flav, but eventually everyone, appear mugging for the camera in front of more random red and blue-colored shots of what appear to be telephone poles as well as blue and white-tinted film of skateboarders.
With the second chorus, Joey makes more of a show of pretending to scratch records, which is just sort of depressing (where the hell is Terminator X? It's sort of like the reverse of "Walk This Way," which had all of Run-D.M.C. present but only 2/5 of Aerosmith).
And of course, the third verse, which begins with everyone sort of rapping along ends up with just Scott (yes, Scott) rapping. All of Anthrax and P.E. are shown mingling superimposed in front of footage of the bridge they were playing beneath in the other shots as well as other random stuff (a highway, at one point Scott is playing in front of one of those old-timey film number-countdown things -- I'm sure there is a word for what I'm talking about but I definitely don't know it).
The rest of the crew help him out by yelling along Flavor Flav-style on key lines, but it's mostly just Scott. I don't usually think of him as having much of a New York accent but he sounds really New Yawky here. In between showing him, we also see the other band members being silly for the camera -- Dan makes a face while appearing to fly directly above the crowd, and at one point Charlie, Joey, and Flav are all standing together playing snare drums.
As the third chorus begins, we're back onstage with everyone. Flav has put on his little hand-shaped sunglasses and what appears to be a Donald Duck hat (like those caps you get at Disney that are like, the top half of his face) and stands in the center of the stage looking like he has no idea what's going on. Chuck jumps off a riser for the zillionth time, and oh! Praise be! Terminator X it appears has at long last shown up, so Joey's just watching him scratch. At the same time though, Scott's guitar is long gone, he's now holding just a mic. Frank keeps putting his leg up on Charlie's bass drum to play… oh, so hot.
The camera goes wild and the background strobes as the song nears its climax, with everyone vocalizing one of the original song's stranger samples (the best I can approximate with oenomatopeia is this "deer-neer-neer, deer-neer-neer"). Flav continues to look befuddled, and Anthrax for the most part abandon their instruments and just dance around.
Scott and Chuck share the final verse, standing in front of the crappy computer-generated speakers, which are now sort of slowly rotating. We then see them rapping onstage, and, of course, everyone joins in on the "roll with the rock stars STILL NEVER GET ACCEPTED AS." Then Scott and Chuck are shown in front of footage of (probably Scott's hands) playing guitar -- his hands and arms look normal, the rest looks like a negative.
A crowd member (ahem, stuntman) takes a spectacular dive from atop the mountain of speakers as the verse ends, and then the crappy speaker graphics begin strobing in front of footage of the bands onstage and everyone thrusts their fists as the song reaches its conclusion. Flav makes a pained face, and we see footage of Charlie drumming, then Flav, flashing back and forth between the two of them while Chuck, Scott et al. boogie down onstage.
THE VERDICT Will we ever solve the riddle of what was truly the seminal rap-rock fusion tune? Who can we blame for Fred Durst? While the former will forever be argued, and the latter well, I don't think I can bring myself to wish that distinction on anyone, it is without doubt that Rick Rubin played a big part in it. Let me just say it loud and clear for everyone: Rick Rubin is the man! (In the most positive sense that one can be "the man.")
Now I know you're scratching your head like, wait, Rick Rubin did not produce this song, nor either of the above-mentioned albums it appears on. He did, however, produce the soundtrack to one of my all-time favorite movies, Less Than Zero (which is also hands-down my all-time favorite book and damn near my all-time favorite soundtrack), which is where P.E.'s original version of "Bring the Noise" first appeared (yes, before It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, which Rubin also executive produced).
What else has Rick Rubin produced? Run-D.M.C. (he was particularly instrumental in convincing them to cover "Walk This Way"), Slayer (who rule), LL Cool J (way back before he was all "Mr. Smith" and stuff), and, getting to my point, the Beastie Boys (who he also talked into adding rock riffs to Licensed to Ill -- think Zep's "The Ocean" on "She's Crafty”" and Kerry King's guitar on "No Sleep Till Brooklyn").
Where am I going with this? Oh yeah, right. Even though Anthrax (to the best of my knowledge) never worked with Rick Rubin, they were clearly deeply influenced by his work. Just look at "I'm the Man" -- it's like a more rockin', less sample-heavy "Cooky Puss" (and lest we forget that in the video Scott's wearing a P.E. t-shirt, if I remember correctly… I may be thinking of "Caught in a Mosh" though).
So how'd they get together? (Besides Scott's being a P.E. superfan?) I totally don't know the answer, but I did some digging and found this info on yes, MTV of all places. But you know, it's a "this week in 1991" thing, so it's just a flashback to when MTV was worth watching (don't get me started on that subject). Anyway, it's kind of cool, and has thoughtful quotes from both Scott and Chuck on their decision to work together, and you can also see a clip of Scott talking about the song on MTV News. (You can also learn about what inspired C&C Music Factory's "Things That Make You Go Hmmm," but that's another story).
Anyway, why the meandering, half-baked diatribe? Welll because one, the video doesn't have a whole hell of a lot for me to talk about that I haven't said already above. Two, I wanted to give a shout-out to Rick Rubin, without whom this song would not have existed, and who I think is a frickin' genius. And three, I wanted to lay out what I believe are some of the (very legit) foundations of this song, since a lot of critics hate it. Would it have been better if Chuck had done more of (or all of) the rapping? Probably, yeah.
At the same time though, when you compare it to more recent rap-rock tracks, it absolutely holds its own. It just depends how you're looking at it. It is interesting that on allmusic, the review of Attack of the Killer B’s refers to this track as "slamming," "highly influential," and "classic," while the site's review of Apocalypse 91 describes it as a "leaden, pointless remake." I think the answer's somewhere in between. And no, Fred Durst is not their fault.