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42 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Conflicted Review, September 21, 2006
In art, sometimes things get produced that are strange and influential, considered within the scope of their origin (Van Gogh, for example), and sometimes things get created that are strange for no good reason and we can only hope aren't influential at all (e.e. cummings). There's no question that Madvillainy is not a "normal" hip hop record. The question is whether that's okay.
For some people, I figure it will probably work out. For others, it won't. It's really that simple.
To address the common complaints, all of which have some validity:
1. The tracks tend to be short. Well, that's not quite true--the tracks, as divided by the album listing--are on the short side of average. The thing is that many of those tracks are almost divisible into sub-tracks, with the end result being that most of the vocal snippets (the actual rapping) don't last for more than about a minute at a time.
2. DOOM doesn't take himself seriously. I honestly don't know what to tell you about that. I think people that are faulting him for his subject matter have a stick somewhere uncomfortable they need to remove. Popular music, like any mass artistic medium, is supposed to be entertaining. It doesn't necessarily have to make sense to be fun, though that's not really a problem that DOOM has (his stuff frequently makes sense--at least, it does to me, though the fact that my perusal of lyrics at a couple of sites suggested that a number of listeners don't know who Worf is tells me I may be coming from a little bit different area of subject expertise).
2.5. Some people think there are too many skits. I classify this is a non-observation or a sub-complaint for several reasons. First off, if you think that THIS has too many "skits" (not sure what that means, at this point), you should stay far away from some of DOOM's other releases. More likely, this relates to a general feeling that the record doesn't form a cohesive artistic statement, but feels more like somebody swept up a bunch of fragments from a cutting room floor and glued them together.
The fact is, those objections are correct. You can't take DOOM seriously all the time, and if you'll do him the charity, you'll find that he's got a lot more wit to him than almost any other MC I can think of off the top of my head. The album is exceedingly fragmented, mostly in response to the frankly monotonous and overwrought state of mainstream hip hop, if you are to believe the press. There's probably a better compromise between six minutes of the same beat in a loop and a blender full of strange beats, but that doesn't necessarily imply this is bad.
Taken on its own, this is, at the least, an interesting record. I'd consider it one of the better hip hop recordings of the past five years (and no, I'm not concerned with being considered "down with the underground"). It's very different, has some great rhymes, and never stays in one place long enough to get boring, which is by far the greatest crime other hip hop commits these days.
My only real problem with Madvillainy is the fact that it puts me to sleep. And I mean that literally. If I put it on in my car on the way home, I'm drifting off by the time I hit my freeway exit. Some of that is due to homogeneity of tempo (oddly enough, even though the beat changes a LOT, it tends to gravitate back towards a few checkpoint tempos, and the frequent transition actually emphasizes that more to me than it downplays it), and some of it is admittedly due to the fact that the constant motion in the record sort of encourages you to tune it into background noise.
Ultimately, I can't recommend this album as a starting point for anybody. It's just not very accessible. We're not talking about Radiohead here (I doubt that there will be any fistfights in bars about whether or not this record is the grand statement of everything that sums up my entire life and makes me feel like some odd British git really understands what I'm going through and the utter and complete helplessness and ennui that comes from our existence in a world pervasively permeated by technology and information--and don't laugh too hard, because I'm pretty sure that at least two people have used those exact words in that same order before me, here, and, if you can't tell, I don't have much respect for that particular breed of Radiohead fan), but this isn't the sort of thing that you're going to pick up and fall directly into.
If you're a serious hip hop enthusiast, you should have this record. Whether you like it or not, this is an IMPORTANT record, if only because it attempts to do something completely different from mainstream hip hop and succeeds. If you're a casual listener, it would be ideal if you could get your hands on it before you buy and listen to it a time or two to see if it grows on you. If you're a DOOM or Madlib fan, you already have the record and I'm not sure what you're reading for.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow, October 21, 2004
Forget the gun talk, put away your gang signs and for crying out loud tear that price tag off your baseball cap before I rip it off myself and stuff it down your throat. Put on your metal Dr. Doom mask and prepare yourself for the evil genius that is Madvillain.
All that gangster rap you're listening to is nowhere near as dark and intimidating as Madvillain's "Madvillainy", an album so pure in beats and rhymes that it almost makes me angry that this isn't getting more exposure. Similar to the Jaylib album "Champion Sound", comprising of super-producers J Dilla and Madlib, this is another underground collab featuring Madlib and excentric MC extraordinaire MF Doom. Also similar to "Champion Sound", this album is bananas. Madlib dishes out what I believe to be his most consistent lineup of beats to date, and MF Doom's dark slurring flow is both on point and pure genius.
The beauty of this album is that you can't categorize it. While yes, it is an uber-underground hit, it is nonetheless an album that most people can appreciate because it's impossible not to feel Madlib's production and despite the fact that MF comes off as a pretty crazy cat nobody can deny that he spits fire on the mic. Madlib's beats are unbelievable: it wouldn't surprise me if his beats and MF's flow were separated at birth because they literally go hand-in-hand. Lib's funk-heavy classic sound remains intact on tracks like "Eye" and "Meat Grinder", yet he also opts for a more gothic sound, ultimately complimenting MF's dark personna beautifully, on tracks like "Accordion", where the beats centralizes on the slow droning sound of an accordion.
I have a theory that when Rob Base dissapeared from the scene in like, 1990 or whatever, he actually went underground and became MF Doom. MF's got a crazy deep voice that pours onto the mic like mollases. His lyrics are original and never redundant, which is refreshing because redundance is a recurring problem in today's rap game. He shines on the opening track "The Illest Villains" and is never afraid to adapt to unfamiliar environments, like on the romance-flavored "Eye", featuring Stacy Epps singing the hook.
I've never been a huge fan of dark music but this just changed the whole game for me. I've always turned to music as a source of uplifting energy, yet with this album I can't turn away from it. Despite the fact that "Madvillain" is not what I would normally pick up for my CD collection, I am so intrigued and impressed by this album that its dark quality is just as if not more uplifting than most so-called "positive" albums that I've picked up recently. In an industry that is becoming more and more candy-assed with each day that passes, this darkest-of-dark albums has actually become the light at the end of the tunnel.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
one of the best albums i've ever heard, December 10, 2004
I don't write a lot of reviews, but I had to add in my two cents about this album. I have barely heard of Madlib and MF Doom before I picked up this album. It is one of the best albums I have ever heard. i have purchased around 20 or 30 hip hop albums in the last couple months to make up for a few years of laziness, as well as listening to new artists. Madvillainy gets the most rotation. The production is amazing, and Doom's voice fits like a puzzle over madlib's beats.
I must say when i first listened to this cd, i didnt give it too much thought. It wasn't until the second listen when I became amazed. My fav tracks are accordian, figaro, strange ways, fancy clow, and rhinestone cowboy. I also heard a sweet remix of figaro that I think is on the 12". Don't sleep on this album, you'll be sorry.
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