The Batlord

Insane Clown Posse: Riddle Box

Sweet. Up to the third Joker's Card, Riddle Box, which has always been my fav ICP album record. Granted, I'd only heard a few, but I still love this album. As it's a Joker's Card that means it introduces yet another attraction of the Dark Carnival. This time it's the Riddle Box (imagine that). When you die apparently you are taken to a dark room with nothing but a box with a crank, and when you turn the crank and the box opens you find out whether you get to go to heaven or hell. I'm not sure how this gels with the whole Dark Carnival thing from the last album since I thought it was the Ringmaster who was supposed to judge your soul but I'm guessing ICP aren't particularly concerned with continuity.




I guess their intros might be growing on me just a bit, but the intro to this album is still too damn long.


Dude, for some reason I've had Shaggy's first verse from the opener, "The Show Must Go On", stuck in my head for months. Even when I was sick and tired of them I had this verse going through my head. Let's see how much of it I can get down without listening to it. Please contain your excitement.

I'm 2 Dope and I sport tight Wranglers/Don't say a word or I'll kick you in the neck bitch/Everybody round make way for the clowns/Been to New York and LA I'm south west bound/Walked into El Ray's almost got my ass kicked/Rather just chill in the yard in my casket/Call all the hoes *can't remember*/And get a little sticky stank up in this bitch/Killer clowns kicked out the circus/Used to get live let the midget lady work this/I was the freak show they called me the pogo/I could make my ballsack bob like a yoyo/GIVE IT UP GIVE IT UP!/South west loony toon/Killed another redneck/Find his head in *something something* Goonie Boon *something something*/I can hear the loons as I sing my wicked song/The show must go on.

Alright, most of it. Bow down before something greater than yourself, trick. Bitchin' song BTW. Takes your nut sack by its short-and-curlies and doesn't let go for a minute except for a couple breaks in between for some guy talking about an evil carnival that came to his town when he was a child. Cool.

This album definitely has a harder tone than Ringmaster which is made explicit with a remix of one of their most well known songs, "Chicken Huntin'". If you've ever gone to an ICP show and heard one of their fans shout "Who's goin' chicken huntin?!" followed by the rest of the people in the immediate vicinity shouting back "WE'S GOIN' CHICKEN HUNTIN'!" then that's where that's from. The original was rather laid back, giving a feel of wandering through the countryside while answering the question "What can you do with a drunken hillbilly?" The answer apparently being "Cut his fucking eyes out and feed him to his aunt Milly." The new version has been completely rerecorded with much harsher performances that chuck tongue-in-cheek out the window for visceral violence. But the biggest difference is the beat itself which has been replaced by a simplistic guitar riff meant to beat your head into the cement and some high-energy record scratching. When they say "Blade out all over the grass/Then his little hound dog'll eat him up fast" you can almost believe they mean it.

Another thing about this album is that the offbeat weirdness has also been ramped up. Whether they're rapping about eating dead bodies, dancing with zombie Kurt Cobain, or a kid who brings murderous toys to school (I checked and sadly this song came out years before Columbine) they have topped themselves this time around. Unfortunately after this album they'd tone down the craziness and violence, so this probably stands as their crowning achievement in the field of "WTF". I'll have to listen to Ringmaster more and compare the two but this is still my fav ICP album for the moment.

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