Body Count
Body Count
(Sire/Warner Bros., 1992)

Rapper Ice-T’s inaugural thrash-metal experiment Body Count answered the following important question: What’s more offensive than a song about anal sex at a Klan rally? Why, a song about shooting cops, of course. Anyone who was alive in 1992 remembers the mushroom cloud of controversy this album’s final track, “Cop Killer”, kicked up. No less than Charlton Heston and the fucking President of the United States (George H.W. Bush) took up the rally against “Cop Killer”, labeling it more obscene and harmful to America than any program Morton Downey, Jr. had ever done. Outraged citizens protested in the streets, police organizations across the country called for Ice-T’s head, and the blood pressure of Warner Bros. stockholders went through the goddamn roof (Body Count was released on Sire Records, a subsidiary of the WB). You could have cut the tension with a chainsaw.

It should be noted that “Cop Killer” specifically targeted police officers who exercised unnecessary brutality in their dishing out of the law. That part of the song sailed past everyone’s ears, and moral crusaders still went after Body Count like a pack of blood-thirsty dogs. Protected by the Constitution but feeling an indescribable amount of testicle-crushing pressure, Ice-T decided to pull “Cop Killer” from Body Count. A goofy rap about the First Amendment was dropped in the offending song’s place and order was seemingly restored to the country. Relieved, America went back to watching In Living Color and wearing purple Zoobas.

Now, here we are, all these years later. The first Bush presidency is but a blip on our hazy historical horizon. Charlton Heston is dead, but so are three Body Count members who played on “Cop Killer” (I’m sure THAT isn’t awkward at Heaven’s buffet table). The strangest postscript of all? Ice-T, whose commanding shouts of “Die, pig, die!” propelled the most infamous recording of his lengthy musical career, has now portrayed a New York City detective on Law & Order: SVU for an astounding 10 seasons. Irony has rarely been better scripted. Of course, few people dare to seriously question Ice-T’s life decisions, as he still possesses a speaking voice that could frighten paint off a wall. The only person who ever had the cajones to call T out was Soulja Boy; the world hasn’t seen much from him since.

One question remains, though: How does Body Count stand up as an album today, sans the only song most people remember it for? Unevenly, as it bounces between the legitimately awesome, the unintentionally hilarious, and the painfully dated. The album starts off strong with a few snarling metal rippers that give classic Priest a run for their money (Body Count’s “In the House”, “Body Count”, and “Bowels of the Devil”). Ice-T booms over the tasty, often ominous riffage about how “shit ain’t like” The Cosby Show in his ‘hood (”Life’s insane as you drink champagne, and I’m livin’ in Black Rain!“—still the best lyric I think I’ve ever heard that addresses the socio-economic gap in these United States). The playful “KKK Bitch” finds our heroes gloriously baiting all the serious bigots out there with a lurid tale of interracial sex. When Ice-T revels in his success impregnating the Grand Wizard’s daughter after numerous other unholy encounters, it feels like a real victory against hate groups (even though the narrative of the song is probably entirely based in fiction).

At the midway point, Body Count kind of falls apart. “Voodoo”, Ice-T’s first-person account of being tortured by black magic, sounds like it was written by a sugar-addled nine year old (”She cut off my fingers, AAAHHHHH!!!!!!”). “The Winner Loses” is a trite and labored anti-drug song, the kind of thing you’d expect to hear at a junior high school assembly performed by the “hipper” members of the D.A.R.E. program. Written in the style of a power ballad, “Winner” drags on for an unbearable six minutes and boasts such clichéd lyrics as “You wanna get high as the sky / You’re kissin’ your life goodbye!” Just as eye-rolling is Ice-T’s proto-Eminem maternal slasher fantasy, “Momma’s Gotta Die Tonight.” It takes an eternity for T to reach the climax in that song, which involves the rapper taking his mother’s disassembled body parts to all 50 states (”You wanna go to Connecticut, bitch?”). Oh, and don’t even get me started on “Evil Dick.” Apparently, Ice-T’s dick is evil. It’s never shot a cop, but it does force his owner to go trolling for wizard sleeve at all hours of the night.

Saving the latter half of Body Count is “There Goes the Neighborhood”, an imposing table-pounder that probably should have opened the album. The band’s chops are on full display in this one, and “Neighborhood” probably has the best arrangement of any song on the album (the breakdown more or less defines “epic” and “balls-out soloing”). By the time the Count lurches into the final, mosh-happy verse, one can’t help but want to turn over a few chairs and punch the nearest punk-ass mark bitch. Yet even on this, their strongest track, Body Count has to waste approximately 30 seconds of our time with a drum solo. Yeah, you read that right. There’s a fuckin’ drum solo in Body Count’s “There Goes the Neighborhood.” The crazy part is it’s not the only drum solo on the album! There are multiple drum solos on Body Count’s debut album. Dubayew Tee Eff.

Such wild cock rockery suggests Body Count felt they had something to prove as an all-black band playing heavy metal. Perhaps they did, although their basic sonic approach brimmed with more excitement and menace than most of their rock contemporaries, regardless of color. Allowing themselves to get bogged down in showier instrumental moments took away from that, hurting the pacing of what could have been a real gut-punch of an album. The greatest crime of Body Count, though, is the exile of “Cop Killer”, the album’s leanest, catchiest, and most driving tune. To this day, the song is absent from copies of the album; substituting is “Freedom of Speech”, a five-minute complaint rap about how the first amendment is bullshit set to Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxxy Lady.” “Freedom” rings hollow when you remember no court or legislative body removed “Cop Killer” from Body Count. Ice-T made the call himself. I suppose rapping about how angry you are at yourself isn’t as cool as rapping about Tipper Gore or “the system.”

In case you’re wondering, the deceased Body Count members include drummer Victor Ray Wilson (nicknamed “Beatmaster V”), bassist Lloyd “Mooseman” Roberts (who later played on Iggy Pop’s underrated Beat ‘Em Up album), and guitarist Dennis “D-Roc the Executioner” Miles (aka the guy who wore the hockey mask like Jason Vorhees). Wilson was the first to go, felled by leukemia in 1996; Roberts died in a drive-by shooting in 2001, while Miles lost a battle with lymphoma in 2004. It’s a shame they’re gone, because, outside of all the hubbub, these three were unquestionably talented musicians who surely had more to give the world artistically. Let us hope they’re tearin’ off some fat jams on the other side, and that Mr. Soylent Green isn’t giving them too hard a time.

Listen: “Cop Killer” [at youtube.com]

Like this article? DIGG it and sign up for our RSS feed!