Viktor Vaughn – Vaudeville Villain
morning folks! this week continues our discography review of MF DOOM, this time checking out a record he released as Viktor Vaughn, Vaudeville Villain.
Vaudeville Villain opens with a, unsurprisingly, sound bites in Overture, with a very smooth transition into the title track. the looped lower sax sounds create an interesting bass that there’s plentiful flairs on top of, from horns to drums, and DOOM himself rapping some very neat verses over top – lotta really smooth flow on this track. neat intro to the Viktor Vaughn persona of the record. Lickupon has some really dense plays on sound, its a very fun track. im mostly still mulling over the section that starts with “do you bust your crossbow?…”, like, damn. also, the transitions on this album continue to be seamless, and it makes the last couple tracks not having chorus feel like just long verses of the same record. The Drop’s p solid – not my fave but some fun stuff in there. Lactose and Lecithin has a dark kinda humor, going back in time to get cheap cocaine and getting swindled, haha. fun track. A Dead Mouse has a mellower beat to it, but still has some great lines. i gotta give credit to any track dropping a Voyager reference, haha. Open Mic Nite, Pt 1 breaks the smooth transitions for a sudden but funny one, and it made me laugh audibly the first time. also i really like this premise to bring some guest vocals on. the verses here by Benn Grimm, Rodan, and Louis Logic are all p good. fun track. Raedawn apparently gets its name from Tommy Chong’s daughter, but i thought for sure given the mad villain angle it was gonna be a play of radon. (also, “want not, waste not, front not” is a great line). Can I Watch?, which features Apani B, is a great track – i really like the one real view we have from outside Vaughn’s perspective on the record, and its both a little bit of a bummer but they also get a couple jokes in, haha. Saliva has one of the best beats on the record, hands down, and some great lines to match. Modern Day Mugging is p good, but i dont have much to say about it. Open Mic Nite, Pt 2 has verses from Hydro, Creature, and Vaughn. Hydro’s verse is extremely funny. Never Dead features M. Sayyid and a lil bit of time travel to keep with the theme of the record. fun track. Popsnot has the sound bite that makes me think of the Mr Fantastic bits off of Operation: Doomsday. otherwise, the track’s p good but not super notable for me. Mr. Clean’s p short, to the point, and full of some fun play on sounds. G.M.C. is our formal closer track here, closing the sound bite loop and providing a very nice beat and some good lines. i appreciate that Change the Beat has a full bit of sound effects leading into it – marking that the record aint quite done, but also separating it from the last bit of sound bites it used.
faves – Lactose and Lecithin, Saliva
dislikes –
on the whole, p neat record. conceptually i liked the Viktor Vaughn as an early DOOM angle, giving him an excuse to do some more aggressive stuff and doing a bit of loose backstory on DOOM. lotta real good beats on this one with some good linrs, but i think it only just hit me how rarely we get choruses on these tracks. its just all thick, dense verses all the way down.
real good time.
Vaudeville Villain – 7/10
next up is Madvillainy, a collab with Madlib as Madvillain from 2004.
first: Operation: Doomsday | the previous: Take Me To Your Leader | next: Madvillainy
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