| June 1997 | Mute | EXPLOSION1CD |
| 01. Get With It 02. Can’t Stop 03. Son of Sam 04. Cool Vee 05. Afro 06. R.L. Got Soul 07. Blues X Man 08. Watermain 09. Love All of Me 10. Fuck Shit Up 11. Hot Shot 12. Skunk 13. Vacuum of Loneliness 14. Sticky |
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Promo only live album issued in card sleeve (also issued on vinyl in the US).
Available as a promo album in the US and UK. Officially released in Japan with five additional tracks (1997) and the 2010 expanded edition featured a total of 29 tracks. Release date of June ’97 is what was stated in the Record Collector article. The sleeve for this release is referred to in a 2000 word article titled Mo’ Bitter Blues (Vox, May 1997): “To the casual observer the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion may seem like little more than surly, self-important nihilists with an all-encompassing persecution complex. Yet their studious reserve in the face of journalistic interrogation is hardly surprising when you consider that the staunch traditionalists of the American rock media have recently branded them as racists, simply because they’ve dared to treat the blues as something other than a sacred museum piece. A situation soon to be exacerbated by the band’s forthcoming promo live album, rather incautiously titled ‘Controversial Negro’ and garishly illustrated with a day-glo Warhol print of Mick Jagger’s iconic countenance. Ultimately, Jon Spencer is playing with fire. He’s gleefully taunting the inverse-racists of so-called liberal America with incendiary images. He is, after all, a graduate of semiotics (the brand of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols), so he knows exactly what he’s doing. ‘Controversial Negro’ works on two distinct levels: firstly it’s a timely reminder to the journalistic ‘squares’ of far simpler times, when Jagger and his Rolling Stones (now untouchable old-guard stalwarts) were similarly decried for ‘bastardizing the blues’; secondly, it’s a forceful visual communiqué that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion staunchly refuse to be intimidated into artistic compromise.” – Vox, May 1997 The title for this album comes from the Public Enemy song Burn Hollywood Burn from their 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet. Towards the end of the track someone asks Flava Flav the following question: “Now we’re considering how do you for a part in our new production, how do you feel about playing a controversial negro?” The artwork used on the promotional version along with the title Controversial Negro was originally intended for Now I Got Worry. |
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| SONG CREDITS: | |
| Recorded live November 25, 1996 at The Hotel Congress in Tuscon, Arizona. Mixed: Jim Waters Assisted: Saylor Breckenridge The disc to this release gives credits as follows: (c) & (p) 1997 Mute Records The following writing/publishing credits are taken from the original releases: 01. Get With It 02. Can’t Stop 03. Son of Sam 04. Cool Vee 05. Afro 06. R.L. Got Soul 07. Blues X Man 08. Watermain 09. Love All of Me 10. Fuck Shit Up 11. Hot Shot 12. Skunk 13. Vacuum of Loneliness 14. Sticky |
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| SLEEVE NOTES: | |
| “Recorded live November 25, 1996 at The Hotel Congress in Tuscon, Arizona. For Promotional Use Only, Not For Sale. Mute, 429 Harrow Road, London, W10 4RE.” |
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ARTWORK: Back Cover Photograph: Brian Velenchenko BARCODE: n/a MATRIX: “C6850 EXPLOSION 1 CD IFPIL153 NIMBUS IFPIL153” |
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