Wu-Tang Clan – Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

Each month we take a look at a classic track or album and discuss it from a music production perspective, examining any sonic innovations that took place during its recording. This month we discuss the debut Wu-Tang Clan album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers); an album that came out of nowhere and became an iconic record.

Released on November 9, 1993, the album is an excellent example of a record that is technically not that polished, but is nonetheless a stone-cold classic. The Wu-Tang arrived on the scene with a ready-made mythology built around kung-fu film samples, extravagant stage names and wild flows, the likes of which had not been heard before. This, along with producer RZA's ability to find killer samples and develop claustrophobic and intense soundscapes, led to the record becoming a huge artistic and commercial success, even if the audio fidelity is sometimes a little lacking.

Chris Gehringer, mastering engineer, describes the technical issues in no uncertain terms; 'It was a little bit of a shit-show! It wasn't the cleanest of audio, and it wasn't audiophile material, and they didn't spend a lot of time mic-ing and recording stuff, but sometimes art shows up in funny ways. I get that when people do stuff real grimy, and that record just seemed to work. I took that approach when I was working with it to maintain the dirt and the griminess, but at the same time, make it pump and kick and all that stuff. Most of the group were in for the album mastering and they kinda just said, 'It is what it is.''

Not that much attention could be paid to the sonics as much of the album was made on a tight budget; and a lot of what was spent, went on clearing samples. According to Yoram Vazan, Firehouse Studio's owner, the crew's first single, "Protect Ya Neck," cost $300 worth of studio time to complete,  and they apparently paid him in quarters. Vazan explains that this rough-and-ready approach was pretty standard practice at the studio; 'It was nothing different than what we did at the Firehouse at that time. They used to call it 'basement flavor,' where it's a low-budget studio doing hip-hop music that sells a hundred thousand copies. It was that early-'90s sound.'Except Enter The Wu-Tang sold two million copies in the US alone, demonstrating that music doesn't need to be presented in a pristine package to resonate with an audience.


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Casey Skyy
May 23, 2018
Love me some old school Wu-Tang Clan! I would LOVE to hear what people with more experience hear.

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