The Amazing Jeckel Brothers
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007) |
| The Amazing Jeckel Brothers | ||||||||||||||
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| Studio album by Insane Clown Posse | ||||||||||||||
| Released | May 25, 1999 | |||||||||||||
| Recorded | 1998-1999 | |||||||||||||
| Genre | Horrorcore, Midwest hip hop, rap rock | |||||||||||||
| Length | 69:40 | |||||||||||||
| Label | Island/Psychopathic | |||||||||||||
| Producer | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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The Amazing Jeckel Brothers is the fifth Joker's Card album by the Insane Clown Posse. The Amazing Jeckel Brothers are described as a duo of soul-jugglers in the afterlife. Jake the Just and Jack the Wicked juggle the bearer's sins: those who sin too heavily and witness a fumble during the act are sent to Hell's Pit, those who see the act completed go to Shangri-La. Guests included Ol' Dirty Bastard, Twiztid, and Snoop Dogg.
The Amazing Jeckel Brothers debuted fourth on the Billboard charts, just beneath the Backstreet Boys during the pop band craze, two years after the Disney scandal. This is ICP's most successful and perhaps most well-known album. It contains what is possibly two of their most well-known songs, "Another Love Song" (for which a video was filmed and gained heavy MTV rotation) and "Fuck the World" (which they performed live at Woodstock '99).
Insane Clown Posse press materials have been asserting that The Amazing Jeckel Brothers has achieved platinum status for over a year.[1] On May 14, 2008, the album has been officially certified platinum by the RIAA.[2]
Contents |
[edit] Track listing
| # | Title | Time | Writer(s) | Guest(s) |
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| 1 | "Intro" | 1:19 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 2 | "Jake Jeckel" | 1:26 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 3 | "Bring It On" | 4:28 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 4 | "I Want My Shit" | 5:20 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 5 | "Bitches" | 4:33 | ICP Ol' Dirty Bastard |
Ol' Dirty Bastard The Jerky Boys |
| 6 | "Terrible" | 4:21 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 7 | "I Stab People" | 1:40 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 8 | "Another Love Song" | 4:09 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 9 | "Everybody Rize" | 3:21 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 10 | "Play With Me" | 4:19 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 11 | "Jack Jeckel" | 1:25 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 12 | "Fuck The World" | 3:44 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 13 | "The Shaggy Show" | 6:32 | ICP Mike E. Clark Snoop Doggy Dogg Gangster Fun |
Snoop Doggy Dogg Gangster Fun |
| 14 | "Mad Professor" | 5:49 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
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| 15 | "Assassins" | 5:15 | Ghetto Boys ICP |
The Jerky Boys |
| 16 | "Echo Side" | 5:39 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
Twiztid |
| 17 | "Nothing's Left" | 6:10 | Mike E. Clark ICP |
The song "Assassins" is a cover of a song by the Ghetto Boys.
[edit] Message
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Emerging from the Dark Carnival like phantom smoke drifting into the minds of men, they are the Amazing Jeckel Brothers. A chaotic duo of juggling masters, Jack "the sinister" and Jake "the just" juggle the sins of mortal men. The price of admission to their show is a mere human soul. When death creeps around and life decays, the departed spirit will begin its journey. A vision of a candle will begin to form like a distant dream with billowing smoke rising from its eternal flame. In this thick haze the deceased will begin to see an image of Jake and Jack Jeckel juggling red balls between themselves. Each ball soaked in fresh blood and pulsating like an erratic living heart. For every sin committed in a mortal's life another ball is added to their unearthly performance and the harder it becomes. The deceased will witness sinister Jack throwing Jake curves in a vile attempt to see a ball drop. For if they should fumble in their act, a pit of infinite evil shall open beneath the feet of the viewer and cast the soul into an eternity of pain and suffering. Success on the other hand, opens the gates of Shangri-La and grants one ascension into pure enlightenment and peace. Jack and Jake Jeckel rest in all of us for they are the very fabric of our being conscience and soul. There is no escape from their Juggling act because there is no way to escape from ourselves. Only in death will we realize this as we twist and spin to the other side...
[edit] Production
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This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) |
According to Violent J, after paying Ol' Dirty Bastard to perform on a track for the album, ODB sent them a tape of him randomly screaming garbled lines. It took ICP and producers two weeks just to scramble together some lines of his that would work and had to record the song and name it "Bitches".[citation needed] While many see the song "Fuck the World" as an anthem of hate and disgust toward everyone and everything, at the end of the song Violent J says "fuck Violent J", meaning that you can say "fuck" at anything and not really mean it. The music videos made for this album featured Twiztid first appearance in a Psychopathic Records work. They played members of ICP's posse in all three music videos. Due to their popularity at the time this album being made, a short commercial was made to promote themselves. Oddly, this commercial did not mention their music in any way, other that you'll never see it on MTV.[3] The commercial included images from the movie "Big Money Hustlas" and had sound clips of the beats from the songs "Terrible", "Jack/Jake Jeckel", "Assassins", "Play With Me", "Mad Professor" and "The Shaggy Show".
The song Everybody Rize has a hidden message at the end that when reversed says:
If You Flip This Message
Cuz You Think Theres Some Secret Message
There Ain't Shit!
[edit] Various packaging
This album has four different album packagings. Two of them feature art of Jake on the cover and booklet, the actual CD, and the name "Jake Jeckel" is on the top of the back album cover. One has a paper sleeve with ICP photography on the booklet and the other doesn't. The two Jake versions are identical to Jack's only with pictures of him, his name on the back of the album, and different ICP photography on the booklet. Besides the packaging, the song listing remains identical on all versions. Also, The Jake Jeckel version comes packaged in a red jewel case, while the Jack Jeckel Version comes in an orange jewel case.
[edit] Reception
The Amazing Jeckel Brothers is by far Insane Clown Posse's most successful and only mainstream album. It is the only album to crack the top ten on the Billboard charts at #4,[4] to feature famous rappers such as Snoop Dogg and Ol' Dirty Bastard, to have a music video receive regular airplay on MTV, and is the only other album besides The Great Milenko to sell over a million copies. This usually regarded as a result of the unexpected success of The Great Milenko two years earlier. Despite negative reviews by music critics at the time of the albums release, it is today considered by most ICP's best work.[citation needed] Rolling Stone gave the album two stars out of five, referring to Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope as "the ultimate wack MCs".
[edit] References
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