So why is Madvillain’s Madvillainy on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I’ll go all the way back to the best 1,000 albums ever piece on Vaudeville Villain (#991) to quote what I wrote about MF DOOM (or Viktor Vaughn, or whatever stage name Dumile took on across his prolific career) as masterful collaborator:
It occurs to me that Daniel Dumile, the artist known as Viktor Vaughn on this album but is mostly widely known as MF Doom, is one of the great chameleons of music history. When you consider his output as Viktor Vaughn, MF Doom (multiple great albums), Madvillain (Madvillainy) in collaboration with Madlib, and particularly Danger Doom (The Mouse and the Mask) in collaboration with Danger Mouse, it’s a pretty tremendous collection of music. And then don’t forget about Zev Love X, King Geedorah, Metal Fingers, Doom, Metal Face…
And his collaboration with Madlib on Madvillainy is wildly and brilliantly its own thing.
It’s even a little hard to describe Madvillainy, so I’ll lean on Sam Samulson from All Music, who does a great job here:
Twenty-two short and blunted tracks bang out mythical stories of villains and urban (anti) heroes trying to make it through with their ganja and wits still intact — each flows together in a comic book fashion sometimes segued with vignettes sampled from 1940s movies and broadcasts or left-field marijuana-toting skits.
From my own notes during the research phase for compiling this massive albums project, I went with something much simpler: “an eclectic hip hop masterpiece.”
Because of all that, and because most of the tracks on Madvillainy run around 90-120 seconds in length, it’s an album that works best to just throw on and let it wash over you end to end.
Things really start taking off by the second track, “Accordion.” If you’re in on this one, Madvillainy is going to be your scene, as I used to like to say back in the day.
My favorite song on Madvillainy is the wild weirdo madness of “Strange Ways.” I literally can’t get enough of the sampled track on it, which blares my ways are STRANGE!
Wreak havoc, beep beep it’s mad traffic
Sleek and lavish people speaking leaking to the maverick
He see as just another felony drug arrest
Any day could be the one he pick the wrong thug to test
The piano on “Raid” is just “wow,” as is its trippy jazzy hip hop bop flow.
“Bistro” is a little bit deeper down the rabbit hole of MF DOOM levels – if you’re into this one you’re really all in.
I’m really all in.
Some stats & info about Madvillain – Madvillainy
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rap, Hip Hop, Underground Rap, Alternative Rap
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was Madvillainy released? 2004
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #164 out of 1,000
Madvillain’s Madvillainy on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Madvillain’s Madvillainy that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Obviously, they came to portion up his fortune, sounds to me like that old robbery extortion.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.