think". The album has been regarded by music writers as one of early hip hop's best albums and a landmark release of the new school hip hop movement in the 1980s. According to journalist Peter Shapiro, the album's 1983 double-single release "It's Like That"/"Sucker MCs" "completely changed hip-hop ... rendering everything that preceded it distinctly old school with one fell swoop."Shapiro, p. 401 Run-D.M.C. rapped over the most sparse of musical backing tracks in hip hop at the time: a drum machine and a few scratches, with rhymes that harangued weak rappers and contrasted them to the group's success. "It's Like That" is an aggressively delivered message rap whose social commentary has been defined variously as "objective fatalism", "frustrated and renunciatory", and just plain "reportage". In 1989, the album was ranked number 51 on Rolling Stones list of the 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 240 on Rolling Stones list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album's ranking moved to number 242 in the 2012 version of the list, and to number 378 in the 2020 update. In 1998, the album was selected as one of The Source's 100 Best Rap Albums. "It's the first rap album that broke big," observed Ice-T, "which paved the way for everybody into being able to make rap albums, not just singles." Accolades The Observer – no. 40 at "50 albums that changed music" (2006) NME – no. 25 at "101 Albums To Hear Before You Die" (2014) Rolling Stone – no. 51 at "100 Best Albums of the Eighties" (1989) Rolling Stone – no. 240/242/378 at "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" (2003/2012/2020 editions of the list, respectively) Rolling Stone – no. 26 at "100 Best Debut Albums of All Time" (2003) Rolling Stone – "The 40 Most Groundbreaking Albums of All Time" (2013) Spin – no. 11 at "The 25 Greatest Albums of All Time" (1989) Spin – no. 7 at "The Ten Reasons We Wish Spin Had Started In 1984" (2005) The Source – "100 Best Rap Albums" (1998) The Source – "Albums Rated 5 Mics (Out of 5)" (1998) The Source – "100 Best Rap Singles" (1998) Beats Per Minute – no. 73 at "The Top 100 Albums of the 1980s" (2011) XXL – "40 Years of Hip-Hop: Top 5 Albums by Year" (2014) Uncut – no. 33 at "50