As a college student, I worked for UNL building websites and multimedia resources. I owe much to that job, starting with my current career as a web developer. But I also made a lot of musical discoveries during that time, as my fellow college students and I would exchange CDs. Which is how I came to hear DJ Shadow’s landmark debut album. Prior to Endtroducing, I never gave much thought to DJs and turntables; I just thought of them as those guys who made those funky wicka-wicka sounds behind the MCs. But Endtroducing… forever changed my perspective, proving beyond any shadow of doubt that DJs could be composers in their own right.

Produced over the course of two years with little more than an Akai MPC60 sampler, Endtroducing… features dozens of samples from Metallica, Pink Floyd, Björk, and Beastie Boys alongside numerous lesser-known funk and R&B recordings and various bits of esoterica (like a 1974 interview with drummer George Marsh). Despite the wide range of source material, the album is incredibly cohesive, with DJ Shadow exhibiting a nigh-supernatural ability to find surprisingly organic and natural connections between the most disparate songs.

Highlights include “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt,” with its juggling, time-shifting beats; the psychedelic “Changeling,” which juxtaposes Tangerine Dream with The Chaffey College Jazz Ensemble and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness; and “Stem/Long Stem (Medley),” which turns Run-DMC into blast beats, weaves in some Giorgio Moroder and Mystic Number National Bank, and throws in some Murray Roman standup for good measure. And none of it sounds the slightest bit out of place but rather, like it was always meant to be together.