Viktor Vaughn Vaudville Villain


Ha! Second 6, i told you something from MF Doom would be in here. Vaudville Villain is the second MF Doom album after the infamous Madvillainy demo leak, under the pseudonym Viktor Vaughn. It's about the mundane situations a time traveler stuck in 1990s NYC experiences as he tries to make enough money to fix his time machine and get the hell out of there. Now that, my friends, is a concept.

It occurs to me that maybe you don't know that back then he was a young NYC rapper named Zev Love X, and he was 1/3 of KMD. He adopted the persona of MF Doom a few years after his brother, Subroc, died crossing the Nassau Expressway. Now you know.

I think everyone can agree MF Doom is one of the greatest rappers of all time, but he can be an intimidating listen. One, his rhyme schemes and wordplay are incredibly complex and draw heavily from pop culture, cartoons, sci-fi, and character backstory/mythos. Two, the beats are often bombastic, densly layered, and extremely experimental. Usually he produces his own, but Vaudville Villain uses beats by various producers from Sound-Ink. Three, he's totally willing to use gibberish words and phrases as though they aren't gibberish. It's deceptive how intricate and detailed the songs really are, and you can get completely lost a few seconds in. 

But wow is it good. It goes right up on the top shelf with Deltron 3030 as one of my personal favorite albums in any genre. A true classic album in every respect. What are you waiting for? Go on out and enjoy it for yourself.

LP 4

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w...
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho...
Read more

J. Geils Band - Freeze Frame

Image
Speaking of New Wave, I just listened to the penultimate J. Geils Band album, Feeze Frame, and it is awesome. You know the title track and Centerfold, but i highly doubt you know the album closer, Piss On The Wall.  It's not even really reviewable, to be honest, it's Freeze Frame, couple songs, Centerfold, couple more songs, and Piss On The Wall. I guess i could rehash what Post-Punk/New Wave New Wave was all about (actual dance club Rock & Roll with quirkily expensive synth leads), but you know The Cars and The Motels and Talking Heads. Believe it or not, the Ramones were considered New Wave rather than Punk in the beginning. Now we'd call them Pop Punk, but the point is that Rock in the late 70s existed on a spectrum from Corporate Cock to Nerdly Neurotic Pocket Protector, and in 1980/81 J. Geils Band said hold my beer, I gotta take a leak, how's this for "radio-friendly, twitchy nerd Rock with huge sing-along choruses?" Freakin' awesome, dude, freak...
Read more