Wu-Tang Forever is released

Why it matters

Wu-Tang Forever came out June 3, 1997, on Loud. It is the Wu-Tang Clan's second group album, four years after Enter the Wu-Tang. It is a double LP (27 tracks, 112 minutes), it sold 612,000 copies in its first week (debuting at #1 on the Billboard 200), and it is the album that confirmed Wu-Tang had become, by 1997, the dominant collective in rap. The production is denser than 36 Chambers. RZA had moved to a more layered, more sample-rich, more soundtrack-shaped approach by 1997. The MCs had had four years of solo records to sharpen what they were each doing individually. The album does not have the basement-tape rawness of the first one. What it has, in exchange, is precision: each of the nine MCs functioning at their most refined version of themselves, on production that has caught up to them. "Triumph" is the most-cited track (a six-minute, no-chorus posse cut with all the MCs). "Reunited." "It's Yourz." "Severe Punishment." Wu-Tang Forever is not as universally beloved as 36 Chambers. It is the album some people will tell you is actually better. You should pick a side after listening to both.