Riddle Box

In 1995, Insane Clown Posse signed a contract with the short-lived Jive Records subsidiary label Battery Records.[2] Anticipating the album to be their first national release, the duo began work on Riddle Box. Member Joseph Bruce recalled thinking that working on the album would be "all the records we had done … rolled into one single effort."[2]

Recording for Riddle Box occurred in producer Mike E. Clark’s personal studio.[2] The group was looking to make the album more theatrical, so Clark introduced them to local guitarist and vocalist Rich Murrell.[2] Originally a member of the group Coup Detroit, Murrell later left his band to join Insane Clown Posse’s studio band along with Clark.[2] Murrell contributed to the album through guitar and various vocals in songs and skits.[2]

Jive Records' Senior Vice President of Artists and repertoire, Jeff Fenster, had told Insane Clown Posse that Riddle Box couldn’t be over one hour long.[2] When the group turned in the album at 70 minutes and 40 seconds long, Fenster was furious.[2] Joseph Bruce told Fenster that the album featured several skits, and convinced him that the length was not an issue.[2]

Riddle Box is the third Joker's Card in Insane Clown Posse's Dark Carnival concept album series.[3] The Dark Carnival is a concept of the afterlife in which souls are sent to a form of limbo while waiting to be sent to heaven or hell based on their individual actions. These concepts are related by Insane Clown Posse in a series of albums called the six Joker's Cards. Each of the six Joker's Cards relate to a specific character — an entity of the Dark Carnival — that tries to "save the human soul" by showing the wicked inside of one's self.[4][5]

Riddle Box is one of several entities used to determine the fate of the dead.[6][5][7][8] Upon death, a soul enters a dark chamber containing a jack-in-the-box on an old wooden table. The front of the box has a "painted question mark faded with time," representing the mystery of your own afterlife.[5][6] As the handle is turned, a melodic tune begins to play, and when the music stops, the choice is made. The pure see a vision of God, warming their souls as they enter eternal peace.[6] The wicked see an immense fog seeping from the box, "stripping their sanity, as they witness an image of hell, spawned and formed from their own evil; a hideous reflection of their demented souls."[6] The floor falls from underneath them, casting the doomed into the bottomless pit of Hell.[6]

"I'm Coming Home" contains a sample from "Confetti Day" by Hot Chocolate.[9] "Cemetery Girl" contains a sample from the Carnival of Carnage song "Guts on the Ceiling". "Toy Box" samples Gong's "The Pot Head Pixies" and the Pee-wee's Playhouse theme song.

The eponymous Riddle Box is a jack-in-the-box that decides whether one's soul is sent to Shangri-La or Hell's Pit in the afterlife. The album's themes revolve around death and judgement, and reveal that the fate determined by the Riddle Box can be found by looking deep within yourself, and can be changed with righteous actions.[6][7][8] In "Chicken Huntin'," the group raps about killing multiple racist rednecks, referred to as 'Chickens'.[7] The song "3 Rings" speaks against social excommunication.[7] "Joker's Wild" is a gameshow in Hell where a police officer, a judge, and a redneck are all sentenced to be tortured.[7] The song "12" tells of a misplaced execution in which the person killed takes vengeance on 12 jurors who were involved in sentencing him to death.[7] The second to last song on the album, "The Killing Fields," tells of a part of Hell where the wicked are perpetually tortured.[7]

The album also makes several references to American popular culture. The title of the song "The Joker's Wild" is inspired by the quiz show of the same name. "Ol' Evil Eye" is loosely based around Edgar Allan Poe's famous short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" and features excerpts from the story being read. Poe was given credit for the track's lyrics.