Vanilla Ice To The Extreme CD

Personnel includes: Vanilla Ice (rap vocals); Don Diego (saxophone); Paul Loomis (keyboards); George Anderson (bass); Craig Pride, Princess (background vocals).
Producers includes: Vanilla Ice, Wayne Stallings, Darryl Williams, Khayree, Kim Sharp.
Engineers include: Paul Loomis, George Anderson, TC & Floyd.
The debut single "Ice Ice Baby" was the first rap song to reach No. 1 on the pop singles chart.
Personnel: Vanilla Ice (vocals); Craig Pride (vocals); Paul Loomis (keyboards, keyboard bass).
Photographer: Michael Lavine.
One of the flashiest flash-in-the-pans in pop history, Vanilla Ice quickly rose to fame in 1990 with his debut, TO THE EXTREME, and its massively successful single, "Ice Ice Baby." Shamelessly ripping off David Bowie and Queen's "Under Pressure," the bass-heavy tune brought hip-hop to a new level of popularity, and made the slick, flamboyant rapper (born Robert Van Winkle) a superstar. However, Ice's popularity was short-lived--thanks in large part to both false claims of a notorious past and a really bad haircut--leaving this album, which also features a raucous, boastful track built around Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music," to stand as an amusing document of his fleeting fame.
An enormous hit in its time, with sales of over seven million copies, To the Extreme proved that a white rapper could be made into a mainstream pop idol. It also proved that traditional pop-idol marketing tactics wouldn't work for very long on rap audiences. Ice's undoing wasn't so much his actual music as it was his fabricated credibility -- his wholly imaginary street-gang background, his ridiculous claims that "Ice Ice Baby" was not built on an obvious sample of Queen and David Bowie's "Under Pressure." It's hard to listen to To the Extreme now and believe a word he's saying; the posturing just doesn't ring true at all. The odd thing is, not all of the record is as awful as it's cracked up to be. Ice's mic technique is actually stronger and more nimble than MC Hammer's, and he really tries earnestly to show off the skills he does have. Unfortunately, even if he can keep a mid-tempo pace, his flow is rhythmically stiff, and his voice has an odd timbre; plus, he never seems sure of the proper accent to adopt. He's able to overcome those flaws somewhat in isolated moments, but they become all too apparent over the course of an entire album. Outside of "Ice Ice Baby" and the not-as-good "Play That Funky Music" ("steppin' so hard like a German Nazi"???), there are some decent dance tracks and a few forgettable mediocrities. There are also a few inexcusable low points: the poorly rapped sexcapade "Life Is a Fantasy," the awkward reggae toasting of "Rosta Man" [sic], and "I Love You," a lyrically simplistic, overemoted ballad that makes LL Cool J's "I Need Love" sound like "Straight Outta Compton." Overall, To the Extreme might technically be better than Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em, but its hubris isn't quite as much fun. ~ Steve Huey
On the strength of the incessantly catchy single "Ice Ice Baby," To the Extreme was an enormous success, holding the number one slot for 16 weeks and selling over seven million copies in America. Apart from that single and a cover of Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music," the album was unmemorable, with limp beats and tepid rhymes. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine