Madvillain - "Madvillainy" - Stones Throw
This album is a little bit disappointing, to be honest. With MF Doom (aka Zev Love X, Viktor Vaughn, King Geedorah) and Madlib (aka Yesterday's New Quintet, Quasimodo, Lord Quas, Beat Conductor), one might expect some amazing shit to come off this album, but instead the whole thing sounds like they smoked a couple of big fat sacks of chronic while making this album. Most of the beats are on the extremely blunted end of Madlib's repertoire, while his other styles only shine through for a couple of seconds at a time in various spots. Doom is consistent on the mic, dropping some ill rhymes (he's the pioneer of supervillain rap!) but doesn't wow me. And unfortunately, he does none of the beats. It's a solid album, but most of the songs are short - as if they got bored and decided to move on to something else.
That said, there are at least a couple of outstanding songs on the album. On _Great Day Today_, Doom comes correct with some of the best lines on the album, with even a little tongue in cheek humor:
bq. last wish - I wish I had two more wishes
and I wish they'd fix the door to the Matrix, it's mad glitches
spit so many verses sometimes my jaw twitches
one thing this party could use is some more
(pause)
Booze
There are also a couple of strong guest appearances by extended Lootpack fam - Wildchild on _Hardcore Hustle_ and Medaphoar on _Raid_ - and some fun samples that people may or may not recognize - Street Fighter II, cartoons, Steve Reich...
Anyway, I think it's a good album. The hype is ridiculous, and it can't and doesn't live up to it. But if you go into it just looking for some good rhymes and beats, yeah, they're there.
yours is the first even slightly negative review i've read.