Every couple of years I tell myself I'm ready to get into Insane Clown Posse. Not in an ironic or gawky way, or in this way where I get really fascinated with the culture around them while not actually listening to their music—the primary modes of ICP appreciation among the "media class"—but actually enjoying their music, as it exists.Not uncoincidentally, every couple of years I also realize that getting into Insane Clown Posse is incredibly difficult. This is not because Insane Clown Posse is "bad," per se; it's just that Insane Clown Posse does not conform to the conventional notions of taste as you or I understand them.When most people think about ICP, they think of two aging white guys in clown makeup sing-rapping a goofy song about miracles and wondering how magnets work. And yes, that's definitely a version of ICP, but it's not the ICP that arose in early 90s Detroit offering a local, violence-obsessed alternative to the dance-rap of 2 Live Crew, Tone Loc, and Vanilla Ice that dominated the genre's mainstream. In a sense, they should be viewed as part of a larger wave of hyper-regional DIY hip-hop scenes that were occurring in places such as New Orleans, the Bay Area, and Memphis. (For context, the first ICP album sounds way more like the first record from Memphis's Gangsta Pat than it does "Miracles.")Continue reading on Noisey