Interesting album from Herbie Hancock, 1983’s Future Shock is best known for Rockit, a five minute exploration of sampling and turntablism. Rockit became a hip-hop/electro classic, largely because of its music video, which received a lot of airtime on MTV once the network started to play music by black artists. Future Shock was originally conceived by Material’s Bill Laswell and Michael Beinhorn, with Herbie Hancock playing keyboards and releasing the album under his name. The album is very textured and incorporates drum machine rhythms to maintain a consistent feel, but still brings out some feeling in the keyboards and vocals.
A departure for Herbie Hancock for sure, Future Shock is an interesting record for its intersection of Material’s No Wave experimentation, Herbie Hancock’s virtuosity and the rapidly developing instrumentation in hip-hop. While Robert Christgau thinks “those who esteem “Rockit” as highly as Head Hunters are too kind to Head Hunters“, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle, and Future Shock is a great addition for anyone who likes Herbie Hancock or Material.
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