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Body Count (album)
Encyclopedia
Body Count is the eponymous debut album of American heavy metal
band Body Count
. Released in 1992, the album material focuses on various social and political issues ranging from police brutality to drug abuse. The album presents a turning point in the career of Ice-T
, who co-wrote the album's songs with lead guitarist Ernie C
and performed as the band's lead singer. Previously known only as a rapper, Ice-T's work with the band helped establish a crossover
audience with rock music fans. The album produced one single, "There Goes the Neighborhood
."
Body Count is best known for the inclusion of the controversial song "Cop Killer
," which was the subject of much criticism from various political figures, although many defended the song on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech
. Ice-T eventually chose to remove the song from the album, although it continues to be performed live. Although the album received mixed reviews, it was ranked among the Village Voice
's list of the 40 Best Albums of 1992, and is believed to have helped pave the way for the mainstream success of the rapcore
genre, although the album itself does not feature rapping
in any of its songs.
While Ice-T
was primarily known for his work in the hip hop
genre, he had long been a fan of various genres of rock music
and had sampled
songs by Jimi Hendrix
, Black Sabbath
and Led Zeppelin
, among other artists. He formed Body Count out of this interest. The band comprised musicians Ice-T had known from Crenshaw High School
. Ice-T states that "I knew we didn't want to form an R&B group. [...] Where am I gonna get the rage and the anger to attack something with that? [...] We knew Body Count had to be a rock band. The name alone negates the band from being R&B."
Ice-T co-wrote the band's music and lyrics with lead guitarist Ernie C
, and took on the duties of lead vocalist. Ice-T states that "I knew I couldn't sing, but then I thought, 'Who can sing in rock 'n' roll?'" Aside from Ice-T and Ernie C, the original line-up consisted of Mooseman on bass
, Beatmaster V on drums and D-Roc on rhythm guitar
. According to Ice-T, "We named the group Body Count because every Sunday night in L.A.
, I'd watch the news, and the newscasters would tally up the youths killed in gang homicides that week and then just segue to sports. 'Is that all I am,' I thought, 'a body count?'"
Ice-T introduced the band at Lollapalooza
in 1991, devoting half of his set to his hip hop songs, and half to Body Count songs, increasing his appeal with both alternative rock
fans and middle-class teenagers. Many considered the Body Count performances to be the highlight of the tour. The group made its first album appearance on Ice-T's 1991 solo album O.G. Original Gangster. The song "Body Count" was preceded by a staged interview in which the performer referred to the group as a "black hardcore
band," stating that "as far as I'm concerned, music is music. I don't look at it as rock, R & B, or all that kind of stuff. I just look at it as music. [...] I do what I like and I happen to like rock 'n' roll, and I feel sorry for anybody who only listens to one form of music."
Recording sessions for the group's self-titled debut took place from September to December 1991. The album was released on March 31, 1992, on compact disc
, vinyl
, and audio cassette. Ice-T states that Body Count was intentionally different from his solo hip hop albums in that "An Ice T album has intelligence, and at times it has ignorance. Sometimes it has anger, sometimes it has questions. But Body Count was intended to reflect straight anger. It was supposed to be the voice of the angry brother, without answers. [...] If you took a kid and you put him in jail with a microphone and asked him how he feels, you'd get Body Count: 'Fuck that. Fuck school. Fuck the police.' You wouldn't get intelligence or compassion. You'd get raw anger." From the album, "There Goes The Neighborhood" was released as a single, while "Body Count's in the House" was featured in the film Universal Soldier
.
Ernie C and Ice-T conceived the album with the dark, ominous tone and Satanic
lyrical themes of Black Sabbath
in mind. However, Ice-T felt that basing his lyrics in reality would be scarier than the fantasy basis in Black Sabbath's lyrics; the inner artwork depicts a man with a gun pointed at the viewer's face. Ice-T states, "To us that was the devil [...] what's more scary than [...] some gangster with a gat pointed at you?" Ice-T defined the resulting mix of heavy metal and reality-based lyrics as "a rock album with a rap mentality." The album's musical style is primarily described as speed metal
and thrash metal
. Jon Pareles
of The New York Times
wrote that with Body Count, Ice-T "has recognized a kinship between his gangster raps and post-punk, hard-core rock, both of which break taboos to titillate fans. But where rap's core audience is presumably in the inner city, hard-core appeals mostly to suburbanites seeking more gritty thrills than they can get from Nintendo or the local mall."
Despite Ice-T's attempts to differentiate Body Count from his work in the hip hop genre, the press focused on the group's rap image. Ice-T felt that politicians had intentionally referred to the song "Cop Killer
" as rap to provoke negative criticism. "There is absolutely no way to listen to the song Cop Killer and call it a rap record. It's so far from rap. But, politically, they know by saying the word rap they can get a lot of people who think, 'Rap-black-rap-black-ghetto,' and don't like it. You say the word rock, people say, 'Oh, but I like Jefferson Airplane
, I like Fleetwood Mac
— that's rock.' They don't want to use the word rock & roll to describe this song." Body Count has since been credited for pioneering the rap metal
genre popularized by groups such as Rage Against the Machine
and Limp Bizkit
, although Ice-T does not rap on any of the album's tracks. Ernie C stated that "A lot of rappers want to be in a rock band, but it has to be done sincerely. You can’t just get anybody on guitar and expect it to work. [...] [We] really loved the music we were doing, and it showed."
Like Ice-T's gangsta rap albums, Body Counts material focused on various social and political issues, with songs focusing on topics ranging from police brutality to drug abuse. According to Ernie C, "Everybody writes about whatever they learned growing up, and we were no exception. Like The Beach Boys
sing about the beach, we sing about the way we grew up." Ice-T states that "Body Count was an angry record. It was meant to be a protest record. I put my anger in it, while lacing it with dark humor." The spoken introduction, "Smoked Pork" features Ice-T taking on the roles of a seemingly stranded motorist and a police officer
who refuses to aid, telling him that "my job is eatin' these doughnuts". When the officer recognizes the motorist, gunshots are heard. The final voice on the track is the motorist confirming his identity.
In the lyrics of "KKK Bitch," Ice-T describes a sexual encounter with a woman whom he soon learns is the daughter of the Grand Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan
. The lyrics go on to describe a scenario in which members of Body Count "crash" a Klan meeting to "get buck wild with the white freaks". Ice-T makes humorous reference to "[falling] in love with Tipper Gore
's two twelve year old nieces", and ponders the possibility of the Grand Wizard coming after him "when his grandson's named little Ice-T." In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that "'KKK Bitch' was ironic because the sentiments were true. We'd play Ku Klux Klan areas in the South
and the girls would always come backstage and tell us how their brothers and fathers didn't like black folks. [...] We knew that 'KKK Bitch' would totally piss off the Ku Klux Klan. There's humor in the song, but it fucks with them. It's on a punk tip."
"Voodoo" describes a fictional encounter between Ice-T and an old woman with a voodoo doll. "The Winner Loses" describes the downfall of a crack cocaine
user. "There Goes the Neighborhood" is a sarcastic response to critics of Body Count, sung from the point of view of a racist white rocker who wonders "Don't they know rock's just for whites? / Don't they know the rules? / Those niggers are too hardcore / This shit ain't cool." For the song's music video, the word "nigger
" was replaced with the phrase "black boys". The music video ends with a black musician implanting an electric guitar
into the ground and setting it on fire. The final image is similar to that of a burning cross
.
"Evil Dick" focuses on male promiscuity. Its lyrics describe a married man who is led to seek after strange women after his "evil dick" tells him "Don't sleep alone, don't sleep alone." "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight" follows the account of a black teenager who murders and dismember
s his racist mother after she reacts negatively when he brings a white
girl home. In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that the song's lyrics are metaphorical, explaining that "Whoever is still perpetuating racism has got to die, not necessarily physically, but they have to kill off that part of their brain. From now on, consider it dead. The entire attitude is dead."
Ice-T referred to the album's final track, "Cop Killer" as a protest song, stating that the song is "[sung] in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality." The song was written in 1990, and had been performed live several times, including at Lollapalooza, before it had been recorded in a studio. The album version mentions then-Los Angeles
police chief Daryl Gates
and the black motorist Rodney King
, whose beating by LAPD
officers was recorded on videotape. In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that the song "[is] a warning, not a threat—to authority that says, 'Yo, police: We're human beings. Treat us accordingly.'" In an interview for Rolling Stone
, Ice-T stated that "We just celebrated the fourth of July
, which is really just national Fuck the Police Day [...] I bet that during the Revolutionary War
, there were songs similar to mine."
s, a promotional device that drew minor criticism. The album debuted at #32 on Billboard
's Top 50 albums, peaking at #26 on the Billboard 200
. By January 29, 1993, the album sold 480,000 copies, according to Variety
. J. D. Considine
wrote in Rolling Stone
that the album "offers the sort of sonic intensity parental groups fear even more than four-letter words," while Allmusics Stephen Thomas Erlewine
called the album "a surprisingly tepid affair." Entertainment Weekly
and The Village Voice
both gave the album A- reviews, with Entertainment Weekly stating that the album was "moronic, sexist, profane, gratuitously violent, loud and morally reprehensible—yep, a heavy metal album. But this time it's a good one." The Village Voice ranked the album at #31 in their list of the 40 Best Albums Of 1992. Don Kaye of Kerrang!
described the album as a "noisy, relentless musical attack", giving it four out of five Ks.
The track "Bodycount's In The House" was featured in the end credits of the movie Universal Soldier
.
The album was originally set to be distributed under the title Cop Killer, named for the song of the same name, which criticizes violent police officers. During the production of the album, Warner Bros. executives were aware of the potential controversy that the album and song could cause, but supported it. At a Time-Warner shareholders' meeting, actor Charlton Heston
stood and read lyrics from the song "KKK Bitch" to an astonished audience and demanded that the company take action. Sire responded by changing the title to Body Count, but did not remove the song. In an article for the Washington Post, Tipper Gore condemned Ice-T for songs like "Cop Killer," writing that "Cultural economics were a poor excuse for the South's continuation of slavery. Ice-T's financial success cannot excuse the vileness of his message [...] Hitler
's anti-Semitism
sold in Nazi Germany
. That didn't make it right." The Dallas Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas launched a campaign to force Warner Bros. Records
to withdraw the album. CLEAT called for a boycott of all products by Time-Warner in order to secure the removal of the song and album from stores. Within a week, they were joined by police organizations across the United States. Ice-T asserted that the song was written from the point of view of a fictional character, and told reporters that "I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie
is an astronaut
," in reference to Bowie's song "Space Oddity".
The National Black Police Association
opposed the boycott of Time-Warner and the attacks on "Cop Killer," identifying police brutality as the cause of much anti-police sentiment, and proposed the creation of independent civilian review boards "to scrutinize the actions of our law enforcement officers" as a way of ending the provocations that caused artists such as Body Count "to respond to actions of police brutality and abuse through their music. [...] Many individuals of the law enforcement profession do not want anyone to scrutinize their actions, but want to scrutinize the actions of others." Critics argued that the song could cause crime and violence. Others defended the album on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech
, and cited the fact that Ice-T had portrayed a police officer in the film New Jack City
. Ice-T is quoted as saying that "I didn't need people to come in and really back me on the First Amendment. I needed people to come in and say 'Ice-T has grounds to make this record.' I have the right to make it because the cops are killing my people. So fuck the First Amendment, let's deal with the fact that I have the right to make it."
Over the next month, controversy against the band grew. Vice President Dan Quayle
branded "Cop Killer" as being "obscene," and President George H.W. Bush publicly denounced any record company that would release such a product. Body Count was removed from the shelves of a retail store in Greensboro, North Carolina
after local police had told the management that they would no longer respond to any emergency calls at the store if they continued to sell the album. In July 1992, the New Zealand Police Commissioner unsuccessfully attempted to prevent an Ice-T concert in Auckland
, arguing that "Anyone who comes to this country preaching in obscene terms the killing of police, should not be welcome here," before taking Body Count and Warner Bros. Records to the Indecent Publications Tribunal, in an effort to get it banned under New Zealand's Indecent Publications Act. This was the first time in twenty years that a sound recording had come before the censorship body, and the first ever case involving popular music. After reviewing the various submissions, and listening carefully to the album, the Tribunal found the song "Cop Killer" to be "not exhortatory," saw the album as displaying "an honest purpose," and found Body Count not indecent.
The controversy escalated to the point where death threats were sent to Time-Warner executives, and stockholders threatened to pull out of the company. Finally, Ice-T decided to remove "Cop Killer" from the album of his own volition, a decision which was met by criticism from other artists who derided Ice-T for "caving in to external pressure." In an interview, Ice-T stated that "I didn't want my band to get pigeon-holed as that's the only reason that record sold. It just got outta hand and I was just tired of hearing it. I said, 'fuck it,' I mean they're saying we did it for money, and we didn't. I'd gave the record away, ya know, let's move on, let's get back to real issues, not a record but the cops that are out there killing people."
"Cop Killer" was replaced by a new version of "Freedom of Speech," a song from Ice-T's 1989 solo album The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say
. The song was re-edited and remixed to give it a more rock-oriented sound, using a looped sample from the Jimi Hendrix
song "Foxey Lady." Alongside the album's reissue, Warner Bros.
issued "Cop Killer" as a single. Ice-T left Warner Bros. Records the following year because of disputes over his solo album Home Invasion, taking Body Count with him. The studio version of "Cop Killer" has not been re-released, although a live version of the song appears on Body Count's 2005 release Live in L.A. According to Ernie C, the controversy over the song "still lingers for us, even now. I'll try to book clubs and the guy I'm talking to will mention it and I'll think to myself 'Man, that was 17 years ago.' But I meet a lot of bands who ask me about it too and I’m real respected by other artists for it. But it’s a love/hate thing. Ice gets it too, even though he plays a cop on TV now on Law & Order SVU
."
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
band Body Count
Body Count
Body Count is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1990. The group is fronted by rapper and actor Ice-T, who founded the group out of his interest in heavy metal music, taking on the role of vocalist and writing the lyrics for most of the group's songs. Lead guitarist...
. Released in 1992, the album material focuses on various social and political issues ranging from police brutality to drug abuse. The album presents a turning point in the career of Ice-T
ICE-T
* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
, who co-wrote the album's songs with lead guitarist Ernie C
Ernie C
Ernie Cunnigan, better known by his stage name Ernie C, is the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Body Count.-Early life:Cunnigan grew up in Compton, California and attended Crenshaw High School with Ice-T. Cunnigan was one of the few students attending the school who was interested in rock music,...
and performed as the band's lead singer. Previously known only as a rapper, Ice-T's work with the band helped establish a crossover
Crossover (music)
Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers appearing on two or more of the record charts which track differing musical tastes, or genres...
audience with rock music fans. The album produced one single, "There Goes the Neighborhood
There Goes the Neighborhood (Body Count song)
"There Goes the Neighborhood" is the twelfth track of Body Count's self-titled debut album. The song is a sarcastic response to critics, sung from the point of view of a racist white rocker who wonders "Don't they know rock's just for whites? / Don't they know the rules? / Those niggers are too...
."
Body Count is best known for the inclusion of the controversial song "Cop Killer
Cop Killer (song)
"Cop Killer" is a song by American band Body Count, from its 1992 self-titled debut album. The lyrics are sung from the point of view of an individual who is outraged by police brutality and decides to take the law into his own hands by killing police officers...
," which was the subject of much criticism from various political figures, although many defended the song on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
. Ice-T eventually chose to remove the song from the album, although it continues to be performed live. Although the album received mixed reviews, it was ranked among the Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
's list of the 40 Best Albums of 1992, and is believed to have helped pave the way for the mainstream success of the rapcore
Rapcore
Rapcore is a subgenre of rap rock fusing vocal and sometimes instrumental elements of hip hop with punk rock .-History:...
genre, although the album itself does not feature rapping
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
in any of its songs.
Conception
ICE-T
* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
was primarily known for his work in the hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
genre, he had long been a fan of various genres of rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and had sampled
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
songs by Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
, Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
, among other artists. He formed Body Count out of this interest. The band comprised musicians Ice-T had known from Crenshaw High School
Crenshaw High School
Crenshaw High School is a secondary school located in South Los Angeles, California.The school first opened in 1968 and currently enrolls an average of 2,600 students. Its address is 5010 11th Avenue, near the corner of 50th Street. The school colors are blue and gold, and its mascot is the...
. Ice-T states that "I knew we didn't want to form an R&B group. [...] Where am I gonna get the rage and the anger to attack something with that? [...] We knew Body Count had to be a rock band. The name alone negates the band from being R&B."
Ice-T co-wrote the band's music and lyrics with lead guitarist Ernie C
Ernie C
Ernie Cunnigan, better known by his stage name Ernie C, is the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Body Count.-Early life:Cunnigan grew up in Compton, California and attended Crenshaw High School with Ice-T. Cunnigan was one of the few students attending the school who was interested in rock music,...
, and took on the duties of lead vocalist. Ice-T states that "I knew I couldn't sing, but then I thought, 'Who can sing in rock 'n' roll?'" Aside from Ice-T and Ernie C, the original line-up consisted of Mooseman on bass
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, Beatmaster V on drums and D-Roc on rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar
Rhythm guitar is a technique and rôle that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse in conjunction with singers or other instruments; and to provide all or part of the harmony, ie. the chords, where a chord is a group of notes played together...
. According to Ice-T, "We named the group Body Count because every Sunday night in L.A.
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, I'd watch the news, and the newscasters would tally up the youths killed in gang homicides that week and then just segue to sports. 'Is that all I am,' I thought, 'a body count?'"
Ice-T introduced the band at Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
in 1991, devoting half of his set to his hip hop songs, and half to Body Count songs, increasing his appeal with both alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
fans and middle-class teenagers. Many considered the Body Count performances to be the highlight of the tour. The group made its first album appearance on Ice-T's 1991 solo album O.G. Original Gangster. The song "Body Count" was preceded by a staged interview in which the performer referred to the group as a "black hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
band," stating that "as far as I'm concerned, music is music. I don't look at it as rock, R & B, or all that kind of stuff. I just look at it as music. [...] I do what I like and I happen to like rock 'n' roll, and I feel sorry for anybody who only listens to one form of music."
Recording sessions for the group's self-titled debut took place from September to December 1991. The album was released on March 31, 1992, on compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
, vinyl
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, and audio cassette. Ice-T states that Body Count was intentionally different from his solo hip hop albums in that "An Ice T album has intelligence, and at times it has ignorance. Sometimes it has anger, sometimes it has questions. But Body Count was intended to reflect straight anger. It was supposed to be the voice of the angry brother, without answers. [...] If you took a kid and you put him in jail with a microphone and asked him how he feels, you'd get Body Count: 'Fuck that. Fuck school. Fuck the police.' You wouldn't get intelligence or compassion. You'd get raw anger." From the album, "There Goes The Neighborhood" was released as a single, while "Body Count's in the House" was featured in the film Universal Soldier
Universal Soldier (1992 film)
Universal Soldier is a 1992 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as soldiers who kill each other in Vietnam but are reanimated in a secret Army project along with a large group of other previously dead...
.
Music and lyrics
Ernie C and Ice-T conceived the album with the dark, ominous tone and Satanic
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
lyrical themes of Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
in mind. However, Ice-T felt that basing his lyrics in reality would be scarier than the fantasy basis in Black Sabbath's lyrics; the inner artwork depicts a man with a gun pointed at the viewer's face. Ice-T states, "To us that was the devil [...] what's more scary than [...] some gangster with a gat pointed at you?" Ice-T defined the resulting mix of heavy metal and reality-based lyrics as "a rock album with a rap mentality." The album's musical style is primarily described as speed metal
Speed metal
Speed metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from NWOBHM and hardcore punk roots. It is described by Allmusic as "extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding" music....
and thrash metal
Thrash metal
Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized usually by its fast tempo and aggression. Songs of the genre typically use fast percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work...
. Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles
Jon Pareles is an American journalist who is the chief popular music critic in the arts section of the New York Times. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. In the 1970s he was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s an associate...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that with Body Count, Ice-T "has recognized a kinship between his gangster raps and post-punk, hard-core rock, both of which break taboos to titillate fans. But where rap's core audience is presumably in the inner city, hard-core appeals mostly to suburbanites seeking more gritty thrills than they can get from Nintendo or the local mall."
Despite Ice-T's attempts to differentiate Body Count from his work in the hip hop genre, the press focused on the group's rap image. Ice-T felt that politicians had intentionally referred to the song "Cop Killer
Cop Killer (song)
"Cop Killer" is a song by American band Body Count, from its 1992 self-titled debut album. The lyrics are sung from the point of view of an individual who is outraged by police brutality and decides to take the law into his own hands by killing police officers...
" as rap to provoke negative criticism. "There is absolutely no way to listen to the song Cop Killer and call it a rap record. It's so far from rap. But, politically, they know by saying the word rap they can get a lot of people who think, 'Rap-black-rap-black-ghetto,' and don't like it. You say the word rock, people say, 'Oh, but I like Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane
Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band formed in San Francisco in 1965. A pioneer of the psychedelic rock movement, Jefferson Airplane was the first band from the San Francisco scene to achieve mainstream commercial and critical success....
, I like Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
— that's rock.' They don't want to use the word rock & roll to describe this song." Body Count has since been credited for pioneering the rap metal
Rap metal
Rap metal is a subgenre of rap rock which fuses vocal and instrumental elements of hip hop music with heavy metal.-History:Rap metal originated from rap rock, a genre fusing vocal and instrumental elements of hip hop with rock...
genre popularized by groups such as Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine is an American rock band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1991, the group's line-up consists of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello and drummer Brad Wilk...
and Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. Formed in 1995, the group's lineup consists of Fred Durst , Wes Borland , Sam Rivers , John Otto and DJ Lethal . The band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album Significant Other, released in 1999...
, although Ice-T does not rap on any of the album's tracks. Ernie C stated that "A lot of rappers want to be in a rock band, but it has to be done sincerely. You can’t just get anybody on guitar and expect it to work. [...] [We] really loved the music we were doing, and it showed."
Lyrical themes
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
sing about the beach, we sing about the way we grew up." Ice-T states that "Body Count was an angry record. It was meant to be a protest record. I put my anger in it, while lacing it with dark humor." The spoken introduction, "Smoked Pork" features Ice-T taking on the roles of a seemingly stranded motorist and a police officer
Police officer
A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...
who refuses to aid, telling him that "my job is eatin' these doughnuts". When the officer recognizes the motorist, gunshots are heard. The final voice on the track is the motorist confirming his identity.
In the lyrics of "KKK Bitch," Ice-T describes a sexual encounter with a woman whom he soon learns is the daughter of the Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard
Grand Wizard was the title given to the leader of the Reconstruction-era Ku Klux Klan which existed from 1866 to 1871.In 1915, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was created, initially as a fraternal organization. The highest-ranking leader of the latter organization was the Imperial Wizard. National...
of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
. The lyrics go on to describe a scenario in which members of Body Count "crash" a Klan meeting to "get buck wild with the white freaks". Ice-T makes humorous reference to "[falling] in love with Tipper Gore
Tipper Gore
Mary Elizabeth "Tipper" Gore , née Aitcheson, is an author, photographer, former second lady of the United States, and the estranged wife of Al Gore...
's two twelve year old nieces", and ponders the possibility of the Grand Wizard coming after him "when his grandson's named little Ice-T." In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that "'KKK Bitch' was ironic because the sentiments were true. We'd play Ku Klux Klan areas in the South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
and the girls would always come backstage and tell us how their brothers and fathers didn't like black folks. [...] We knew that 'KKK Bitch' would totally piss off the Ku Klux Klan. There's humor in the song, but it fucks with them. It's on a punk tip."
"Voodoo" describes a fictional encounter between Ice-T and an old woman with a voodoo doll. "The Winner Loses" describes the downfall of a crack cocaine
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
user. "There Goes the Neighborhood" is a sarcastic response to critics of Body Count, sung from the point of view of a racist white rocker who wonders "Don't they know rock's just for whites? / Don't they know the rules? / Those niggers are too hardcore / This shit ain't cool." For the song's music video, the word "nigger
Nigger
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people , and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur...
" was replaced with the phrase "black boys". The music video ends with a black musician implanting an electric guitar
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...
into the ground and setting it on fire. The final image is similar to that of a burning cross
Cross burning
Cross burning or cross lighting is a practice widely associated with the Ku Klux Klan, although the historical practice long predates the Klan's inception...
.
"Evil Dick" focuses on male promiscuity. Its lyrics describe a married man who is led to seek after strange women after his "evil dick" tells him "Don't sleep alone, don't sleep alone." "Momma's Gotta Die Tonight" follows the account of a black teenager who murders and dismember
Dismemberment
Dismemberment is the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing. It may be practiced upon human beings as a form of capital punishment, as a result of a traumatic accident, or in connection with murder, suicide, or cannibalism...
s his racist mother after she reacts negatively when he brings a white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
girl home. In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that the song's lyrics are metaphorical, explaining that "Whoever is still perpetuating racism has got to die, not necessarily physically, but they have to kill off that part of their brain. From now on, consider it dead. The entire attitude is dead."
Ice-T referred to the album's final track, "Cop Killer" as a protest song, stating that the song is "[sung] in the first person as a character who is fed up with police brutality." The song was written in 1990, and had been performed live several times, including at Lollapalooza, before it had been recorded in a studio. The album version mentions then-Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
police chief Daryl Gates
Daryl Gates
Daryl Gates was the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1978 to 1992.-Early life:...
and the black motorist Rodney King
Rodney King
Rodney Glen King is an American best known for his involvement in a police brutality case involving the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991...
, whose beating by LAPD
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
officers was recorded on videotape. In The Ice Opinion: Who Gives a Fuck?, Ice-T wrote that the song "[is] a warning, not a threat—to authority that says, 'Yo, police: We're human beings. Treat us accordingly.'" In an interview for Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, Ice-T stated that "We just celebrated the fourth of July
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
, which is really just national Fuck the Police Day [...] I bet that during the Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, there were songs similar to mine."
Release and reception
Initial copies of the album were shipped out in black body bagBody bag
A body bag is a non-porous bag designed to contain a human body, used for the storage and transportation of corpses. Body bags can also be used for the storage of corpses within morgues. Before purpose-made body bags were available, cotton mattress covers were sometimes used, particularly in...
s, a promotional device that drew minor criticism. The album debuted at #32 on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
's Top 50 albums, peaking at #26 on the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
. By January 29, 1993, the album sold 480,000 copies, according to Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
. J. D. Considine
J. D. Considine
J. D. Considine is an established music critic who has been writing about music professionally since 1977. His work has been published in numerous newspapers and music magazines, and he has contributed to several books. Over the years, he has claimed to have put over three million words into...
wrote in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that the album "offers the sort of sonic intensity parental groups fear even more than four-letter words," while Allmusics Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is a senior editor for Allmusic. He is the author of many artist biographies and record reviews for Allmusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes. He is also frontman and guitarist for the Ann Arbor-based band Who Dat?Erlewine is the nephew...
called the album "a surprisingly tepid affair." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
and The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
both gave the album A- reviews, with Entertainment Weekly stating that the album was "moronic, sexist, profane, gratuitously violent, loud and morally reprehensible—yep, a heavy metal album. But this time it's a good one." The Village Voice ranked the album at #31 in their list of the 40 Best Albums Of 1992. Don Kaye of Kerrang!
Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a UK-based magazine devoted to rock music published by Bauer Media Group. It was first published on June 6, 1981 as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper...
described the album as a "noisy, relentless musical attack", giving it four out of five Ks.
The track "Bodycount's In The House" was featured in the end credits of the movie Universal Soldier
Universal Soldier (1992 film)
Universal Soldier is a 1992 American science fiction action film directed by Roland Emmerich and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren as soldiers who kill each other in Vietnam but are reanimated in a secret Army project along with a large group of other previously dead...
.
Controversy
Charlton Heston
Charlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
stood and read lyrics from the song "KKK Bitch" to an astonished audience and demanded that the company take action. Sire responded by changing the title to Body Count, but did not remove the song. In an article for the Washington Post, Tipper Gore condemned Ice-T for songs like "Cop Killer," writing that "Cultural economics were a poor excuse for the South's continuation of slavery. Ice-T's financial success cannot excuse the vileness of his message [...] Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
sold in Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
. That didn't make it right." The Dallas Police Association and the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas launched a campaign to force Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
to withdraw the album. CLEAT called for a boycott of all products by Time-Warner in order to secure the removal of the song and album from stores. Within a week, they were joined by police organizations across the United States. Ice-T asserted that the song was written from the point of view of a fictional character, and told reporters that "I ain't never killed no cop. I felt like it a lot of times. But I never did it. If you believe that I'm a cop killer, you believe David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
is an astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
," in reference to Bowie's song "Space Oddity".
The National Black Police Association
National Black Police Association (United States)
-History:The National Black Police Association was organized in November of 1972. This organization started after a meeting in St. Louis, Missouri where there were over thirteen different African American Peace Associations present...
opposed the boycott of Time-Warner and the attacks on "Cop Killer," identifying police brutality as the cause of much anti-police sentiment, and proposed the creation of independent civilian review boards "to scrutinize the actions of our law enforcement officers" as a way of ending the provocations that caused artists such as Body Count "to respond to actions of police brutality and abuse through their music. [...] Many individuals of the law enforcement profession do not want anyone to scrutinize their actions, but want to scrutinize the actions of others." Critics argued that the song could cause crime and violence. Others defended the album on the basis of the group's right to freedom of speech
Freedom of speech
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...
, and cited the fact that Ice-T had portrayed a police officer in the film New Jack City
New Jack City
New Jack City is a 1991 crime film starring Wesley Snipes, Ice-T, Mario Van Peebles, Judd Nelson, and Chris Rock. Snipes stars as Nino Brown, a rising drug dealer and crime lord in New York City during the crack epidemic...
. Ice-T is quoted as saying that "I didn't need people to come in and really back me on the First Amendment. I needed people to come in and say 'Ice-T has grounds to make this record.' I have the right to make it because the cops are killing my people. So fuck the First Amendment, let's deal with the fact that I have the right to make it."
Over the next month, controversy against the band grew. Vice President Dan Quayle
Dan Quayle
James Danforth "Dan" Quayle served as the 44th Vice President of the United States, serving with President George H. W. Bush . He served as a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from the state of Indiana....
branded "Cop Killer" as being "obscene," and President George H.W. Bush publicly denounced any record company that would release such a product. Body Count was removed from the shelves of a retail store in Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S...
after local police had told the management that they would no longer respond to any emergency calls at the store if they continued to sell the album. In July 1992, the New Zealand Police Commissioner unsuccessfully attempted to prevent an Ice-T concert in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, arguing that "Anyone who comes to this country preaching in obscene terms the killing of police, should not be welcome here," before taking Body Count and Warner Bros. Records to the Indecent Publications Tribunal, in an effort to get it banned under New Zealand's Indecent Publications Act. This was the first time in twenty years that a sound recording had come before the censorship body, and the first ever case involving popular music. After reviewing the various submissions, and listening carefully to the album, the Tribunal found the song "Cop Killer" to be "not exhortatory," saw the album as displaying "an honest purpose," and found Body Count not indecent.
The controversy escalated to the point where death threats were sent to Time-Warner executives, and stockholders threatened to pull out of the company. Finally, Ice-T decided to remove "Cop Killer" from the album of his own volition, a decision which was met by criticism from other artists who derided Ice-T for "caving in to external pressure." In an interview, Ice-T stated that "I didn't want my band to get pigeon-holed as that's the only reason that record sold. It just got outta hand and I was just tired of hearing it. I said, 'fuck it,' I mean they're saying we did it for money, and we didn't. I'd gave the record away, ya know, let's move on, let's get back to real issues, not a record but the cops that are out there killing people."
"Cop Killer" was replaced by a new version of "Freedom of Speech," a song from Ice-T's 1989 solo album The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say
The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech...Just Watch What You Say
The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech... Just Watch What You Say is the third album by Ice-T.Released in 1989, the album has an uncharacteristically gritty sound, featuring some of the darkest musical scores Ice-T has ever released.-History:...
. The song was re-edited and remixed to give it a more rock-oriented sound, using a looped sample from the Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
song "Foxey Lady." Alongside the album's reissue, Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
issued "Cop Killer" as a single. Ice-T left Warner Bros. Records the following year because of disputes over his solo album Home Invasion, taking Body Count with him. The studio version of "Cop Killer" has not been re-released, although a live version of the song appears on Body Count's 2005 release Live in L.A. According to Ernie C, the controversy over the song "still lingers for us, even now. I'll try to book clubs and the guy I'm talking to will mention it and I'll think to myself 'Man, that was 17 years ago.' But I meet a lot of bands who ask me about it too and I’m real respected by other artists for it. But it’s a love/hate thing. Ice gets it too, even though he plays a cop on TV now on Law & Order SVU
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
."
Track listing
26878
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45139
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Personnel
- Ice-TICE-T* Ice-T, an American rapper and actor* ICE T , a tilting model of the German InterCityExpress series of high-speed trains...
– lead vocals - Ernie C.Ernie CErnie Cunnigan, better known by his stage name Ernie C, is the lead guitarist of heavy metal band Body Count.-Early life:Cunnigan grew up in Compton, California and attended Crenshaw High School with Ice-T. Cunnigan was one of the few students attending the school who was interested in rock music,...
– lead, rhythm and acoustic guitars - Mooseman – bass
- D-Roc – rhythm guitar
- Beatmaster "V" – drums