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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

The Private Press
by DJ Shadow


8.0

based on 24 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 24 votes
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Rate this album

The Outsider

The Bay Area's Josh Davis (aka DJ Shadow) finally returns with a proper full-length follow-up to 1996's groudbreaking 'Endtroducing,' which achieved near-legendary status for its imaginative use of samples (a style that would later be adopted by acts such as The Avalanches).

LABEL:	MCA
RELEASE DATE:	04 June 2002
DISCS:	1 disc / 2 discs
GENRE(S):	Electronic, Hip-Hop

NOTES: Available in clean and explicit versions. Also available in a limited edition with a bonus CD containing an 18-minute live track ("Pushin Buttons") and two additional bonus tracks.

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Village Voice (Consumer Guide)

The overall effect is less grand than that of Endtroducing six years ago, popper and rocker and r&ber. But an overall effect there is, grounded in Shadow's trademark-tremendous bass 'n' drum.

Entertainment Weekly

Few approach this style of record making with as much playfulness and gravity.

All Music Guide

The depth of his production sense and the breadth of his stylistic palette prove just as astonishing the second time out.

Mojo

With The Private Press DJ Shadow ups even his own considerable ante. [May 2002, p.96]

PopMatters

The Private Press is a more diverse collection of styles and sounds, and still surpasses anything else out there.

Nude As The News

The Private Press does not break ground like Endtroducing... did, but it showcases a wiser, more versatile Shadow, and in many ways it is a better record than its predecessor.

E! Online

In essence, it's a younger, fitter and infinitely hipper version of what Moby is doing.

Almost Cool

The Private Press is not only more ambitious, but simply more all over the place as well (which makes for brilliant moments as well as some inconsistent ones).

Mixer

By using his hip-hop chops to express some next school emotions, Shadow comes up with something that doesn't just sound new, it feels new. [Jun 2002, p.86]

Uncut

This is much more than the usual retro-action.... DJ Shadow remains elusive to the end. [Jun 2002, p.127]

Neumu.net

The Private Press is full of rollicking beats, spectral tone colors, and enough subtle textures and supple surfaces to fill a textile warehouse.

New York Magazine

It's less rootsy than its predecessor, as Shadow moves from the bohemian, jazzy hip-hop he's come to be associated with to more synthetic sounds like electro and synth pop.

Village Voice

The record sounds like it came a year or so after Endtroducing--which is to say, it goes a little deeper in summoning Gothic textures and awesome drum samples, and arrives as a delayed, well-fitting follow-up to a landmark.

Playlouder

It's all good folks but let's be clear. IT'S NOT GENIUS.

Blender

Two long, draggy pieces near the end of The Private Press are its only intimations of mortality. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.102]

Billboard

An aurally hypnotizing collection that is comparable to, if not better than, Endtroducing.

Rolling Stone

The Private Press is a moody, murky album, by definition not as groundbreaking or epochal as Endtroducing . . . but fascinating enough in its own right.

Pitchfork

The Private Press is more solid an album than anyone dared expect from an older, wiser DJ Shadow, and though it won't be televising another revolution, I'd be lying if I said its celebratory pleasure centers didn't communicate directly with my own.

Dot Music

It feels like the work of a man groping his way, fastidiously but uncertainly, towards the next level.

The Onion (A.V. Club)

At first, The Private Press plays like a bland kiss-off to followers expecting a big-time event record. But once its blood has time to flow, the album swells from a strained capillary to a coursing vein.

Austin Chronicle

An intentionally loose-strung concept of hip-hop and psychedelia, which at times loses focus.

Launch.com

Accomplished and occasionally great as this album is, Endtroducing still casts the biggest shadow on it of all.

New Musical Express

'The Private Press' isn't a remarkable record - it lacks that startling and instinctive excitement capable of pushing music into the realm of the era-defining.

Alternative Press

It was probably inevitable, but having raised the bar so high for cut-and-paste music, Shadow spends a little too long here looking up at it. [Jul 2002, p.96]

The average user rating for this album is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

eric m gave it a10:
just get it.

Vinny A gave it a10:
Davis makes pretty much everything on the radio sound idiotic. It's nice to here a real artist evolving and growing instead of pumping out the same old thing. The rest of the music industry would do well to embrace musicians whos music can be called art, istead of going for the quick buck song of the week that no will remember or care about three years from now. Shadow stands head and shoulders above the largly unlistenable tripe that MTV proports as Hip-Hop. Music like this develops loyal fallowings that last years beyond the top forty. You won't be dissapointed.

Lawrence P gave it a9:
Please don't compare this to "Entroducing". That's just not being fair and you will enjoy this record.

Eric G. gave it a 9:
This is good stuff. This is truly shadow's style. Im goin to be listenin to this on my ipod 4 awhile. Best thing since Entroducing.

JayMal gave it an 8:
Not as great as Entroducing...., But still a solid album all around.

Mac M gave it a 9:
Rivetting from start to finish. Perhaps not Q-U-I-T-E as multi-dimensional as Endtroducing but indespensable all the same.

Noble L. gave it a 9:
Just what I expected from Shadow ... the unexpected - 'You can't go home again' will be on my playlist for years to come.

The Private Press by DJ Shadow

The Private Press
by DJ Shadow