Icon

There haven't been many Public Enemy compilations released over the years, and none of them have been very good -- not the 1992 oddities Greatest Misses or the even stranger 2006 Planet Earth, where classic PE seemed to be swapped for revisions. That left only 2001's 20th Century Masters as a disc that served up the hits, but 2014's Icon -- also an entry in an ongoing series by Universal -- easily trumps that by offering 22 classic Def Jam tracks over the course of two discs. The big songs are here -- "You're Gonna Get Yours," "Bring the Noise," "Rebel Without a Pause," "Don't Believe the Hype," "Night of the Living Baseheads," "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos," "911 Is a Joke," "Welcome to the Terrordome," "Fight the Power," "Shut Em Down" -- and it wraps up with the title track from "He Got Game," a song that functions as a coda to the golden age that is effectively showcased on this rather terrific collection. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi