Retro Spins: The 2 Live Crew - As Nasty As They Wanna Be



There was a charm to The 2 Live Crew back in 1989. When you're a young teen, songs with curse words can tend to make you giggle, and that's exactly what this album did. Granted, I was also very naive to the actual content of the record. I'm not sure where my brother got his original cassette from back in the day, but I can tell you it never got played at any volume that would allow anyone outside of our huddled circle in his bedroom to hear.

As Nasty As They Wanna Be has been on my "want list" for quite some time, yet at the same time, I didn't really know why. When I really sit back and think about it, I think the draw was more so one of nostalgia. I couldn't remember any songs off of the album, with exception to one. Even then, it's not like it was a fantastic one. Regardless, the day came when it eventually ended up in my collection.

To be honest, I didn't make it far in my listening session.

The album is vulgar, vile and disgusting with no content beyond shock value. For someone with even the smallest amount of moral values, this record would and should be offensive. In hindsight, I regret getting it, and it could become the first album in my collection I actually get rid of. Mind you, I'll probably just throw it away because I don't see the point in passing this type of trash on to someone else.

To be fair, the collector and researcher side of me is intrigued by the history of the album. It was ruled legally obscene on June 9th, 1990 by Judge Jose Gonzalez, and even became illegal to buy in certain areas. While this ruling would eventually be overturned, it wasn't before the "group" would release As Clean As They Wanna Be. While this version of the album didn't necessarily contain no explicit lyrics, it did include tracks not available on the "nasty" cut.

Naturally, being the clean version, As Clean As They Wanna Be didn't sell as well as the original release. This makes the CD released clean cut rather rare in the wild. However, at the same time, when you do find one, it's relatively cheap. My collector side is kind of tugging at me to track this version down. Yet at the same time, I don't honestly want it. It's one of those get it because it's hard to find struggles we collector's go through.

With that said, I've spent very little time talking about this actual album, and the reason for that goes back to what I already said above. I didn't make it far into it, and overall, it's not something I feel any person with any sense of moral compass should subject themselves to. It truly is garbage in every sense of the word, and the "group" should be ashamed of themselves for even recording it.

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