''Hack'' is an album by the

freestyle Freestyle may refer to: Brands * Reebok Freestyle, a women's athletic shoe * Ford Freestyle, an SUV automobile * Coca-Cola Freestyle, a vending machine * ICD Freestyle, a paintball marker * Abbott FreeStyle, a blood glucose monitor by Abbott Lab ...

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

band

Information Society An information society is a society where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid inf ...

. The album sold quite well but did not outsell the band's first album. It is the only major-label-distributed title that has the modern Tommy Boy Records logo on it.

Artwork and packaging

The menacing car on the cover is "Vector", Kurt Harland's heavily customized 1973 Plymouth Satellite Sebring. The cassette tape for this album used an unusual naming convention for the sides. Instead of 1 and 2 or A and B, there was the Gilligan Side and the Skipper Side. The vinyl edition had a Scooby Side and a Shaggy Side.

Musical style

Riding on the success of its self-titled major-label debut, Harland decided to have the band experiment on this album with a more radical, harsher sound. The other members agreed somewhat, feeling that they should stay on level ground with the pop sensibilities. This is more pronounced on tracks like "Seek 200" and "Hard Currency". This notion eventually lead to '' Don't Be Afraid'', Harland's solo album. Like the others, this album is thick with samples and loops, including

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize t ...

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the hono ...

Nitzer Ebb Nitzer Ebb () are a British EBM group formed in 1982 by Essex school friends Vaughan "Bon" Harris (programming, synthesizers, drums, vocals), Douglas McCarthy (vocals), and David Gooday (drums). History Initial releases (1983–1987) The ...

and

Beastie Boys Beastie Boys were an American rap rock group from New York City, formed in 1978. The group was composed of Michael "Mike D" Diamond (vocals, drums), Adam "MCA" Yauch (vocals, bass), and Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz (vocals, guitar, programming) ...

''Star Trek'' references

There are multiple references to the first ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' series on various tracks on the album. On the track "Charlie X", the line "I could make you all go away, any time I want to" is a reference to the episode " Charlie X". On "Come with Me," the following lines are a reference to the episode " The Changeling":

"What is the meaning?" "Singing, What purpose is singing?" "I like to sing. I felt like music"

Track listing

Note *The sub-listings under several main tracks are

index Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...

2, while each of the main tracks is index 1. These are listed as the

decimal The decimal numeral system (also called the base-ten positional numeral system and denary or decanary) is the standard system for denoting integer and non-integer numbers. It is the extension to non-integer numbers of the Hindu–Arabic numeral ...

part of the track number on the back cover of the jewel case. For example, "Slipping Away" is 14.1, "Here Is Kazmeyer" is 14.2, though they will usually play or be ripped as a single track numbered 14.''

Personnel

Adapted from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

Information Society * Paul Robb – mixing, producer, programming * Kurt Harland – programming, vocals * James Cassidy –

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

* Information Society –

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

, producer, programming * Think Tank – MIDI Additional musicians * India – backing vocals * Nocera – backing vocals Artwork * Janette Beckman –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is emplo ...

* Kim Champagne – art direction Technical * Paul Berry – assistant, assistant engineer * Debi Cornish – assistant engineer * Kevin Laffey –

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights ...

, producer * Fred Maher – engineer, mixing, producer, programming * Lloyd Puckitt – engineer, mixing * Bob Rosa – engineer, mixing * Dana Vlcek – assistant, assistant engineer

Notes

External links

Kurt Harland comments on ''Hack''
{{Authority control 1990 albums Information Society (band) albums Albums produced by Fred Maher Tommy Boy Records albums Freestyle music albums