From the fire vocaled/Ash and molten glass like EyjafjallajöPOLL - ILM Artist Poll #108: MF DOOM. Voting til April 11.

https://i.imgur.com/FaIbUD3.jpg

yknow I still can't believe this shit. The year we all put on masks, on Halloween no less, and the word put out on new year's eve, DOOM's gone ?

If you're reading this, please vote, listen, take part.

This is gonna get unwieldy. Hopefully I won't be the only one posting loads of Youtubes (if this thread gets clogged, open it in a incognito/non-logged-in window!).

But I don't think it's controversial to say that the most popular material is going to be the run of albums from 99-09:

Operation: Doomsday (MF DOOM)
Take Me to Your Leader (King Geedorah)
Vaudeville Villain (Viktor Vaughn)
VV:2: Venomous Villain (Viktor Vaughn)
Mm..Food (MF DOOM)
Madvillainy (Madvillain)
The Mouse and the Mask (DANGERDOOM)
Born Like This (DOOM -- when he dropped the "MF" for a bit there)

I about lost my mind trying to make a bigger list (if NEHRUVIANDOOM is in then why not MA DOOM and the John Robinson album?). We'll get to trying. Together!

All to say that if you've heard a handful of the above, get at me. If you haven't, what better time?

maffew12 at hotmail dot com. Voting is open til midnight the night of April 11.

I'm leaving things pretty open. All album tracks, features, and productions are eligible. Anything that isn't a bootleg (apologies to SADEVILLAIN). If you're wondering about some obscure release, post here.

You can vote for a 2-volume Special Herbs release as an album, but not for a "0-9" set.

Please vote for a minimum of 5 albums and/or 10 tracks. There are no maximums. Would love to roll out albums, tracks, and a full spice rack (tallying various uses of beats).

Any votes for track remixes, early (12") versions or live takes I'll be combining. However album votes for "Madvillainy 2", the remix album, will stand on their own. Top album is probably going to be tight, and we're not having it decided on the back of down-ballot secondary Madvillain votes!

I realize this all leaves us open to having Ghostface's "9 Milli Bros" topping the tracks. But cmon now.

Spread the word

https://i.imgur.com/HbI6QPa.png
source

I have to spend more time with the KMD albums. Onyx recently posted a bit on Instagram...

https://i.imgur.com/sb9DDNL.png

https://i.imgur.com/ojqhfLq.png

From the fire vocal
Ash and molten glass like
EyjafjallajöPOLL

fk!

Really excited for this!

Tempted to vote for cellz pt 1. I do think that in terms of quintessential doom beats, and I consider his approach to beats to be essential to what doom is all about, the gheedorah album is perfect.

Hey maf!

So excited for this. Gonna listen to ridiculous amounts of doom this week. Currently trying to put together a Spotify playlist but there are some obscure ass singles on his wiki page (the only thing that seems to be missing is vik Vaughn 2)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2rWNVlUvbmfiN2m204DozP?si=g_zi0zY6Rhy1inLlaW3OXg

Here is everything I could find. It’s open so if you wanna add anything, feel free. I just put albums on wholesale so there may be some repeats where they put similar versions on extended versions etc. and instrumentals too.

Putting it on random while walking the dog I’ve already heard Ace In The Hole and Rock Co.Kane Flow, two absolute gems I’m gonna have to vote for

Great, thanks! Spotify does have an impressive amount of his material, but the "complete" playlists that people make never seem to catch all of it. We can have a go.

Reading back, not sure I was totally clear up top: I don't know how many albums he was involved with (or authorized use of his beats for... and I didn't want to get into that distinction), let alone tracks. If there's a big fan of "Escape from Monsta Island" out there, I want to hear about it. I wasn't about to set a minimum of time on the mic or something.

I've been hearing a lot of shit I haven't heard in almost 20 years, and still finding new things. Til last night, I had no idea this existed (a hoy hoy caught it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS2O5pMCOa0

Working with Jneiro Jarel 5 years before JJ DOOM - cool 🤿

lol@ that fan video

Rock Co.Kane Flow

might be top 10 for me... you sent me back to this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWiUeU6VCso

why am i awake this early. I'll be back after a big bowl of MF-O's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVPypARduMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIggvDVt_eU

This is a low key banger off the end of Danger Doom.

It is. Danger calming the cartoon album down for a minute. The record is a lot of fun... but easily my least favourite of the album run I put in the OP. Which is wild.

Reminded me of this stray track Danger and Mark Linkous did with DOOM that was put out in 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJCohAV7NtM

you missed it on Spotify so I added it!

"I Hear Voices" had me wondering if I'd seen all the videos he actually appeared in. KMD had a couple, there's "?" and "Dead Bent" off Doomsday (still with this chopped up Halloween mask thing), 2 Madvillain singles, 2 JJ DOOM... think that's it? Anyway the animated stuff is great, and there's no shortage of crazy fan videos. Since we're on Danger, I just found this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQakz9-kvfI

More Tony Starks? Alright

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtkArIh0O2E

posting this from 2018 as a friend was involved with it, also it's pretty good and samples JLT which must be a unique combo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9hRLLj1Ur0

I played the shit out of that when it, er, dropped and I never bothered to look up the sample. Thanks! Is YOTA still active?

Not sure, they did a single with Noel Gallagher in 2019 which was uh less good, have not heard anything since then, may check in with him and find out

The JLT track is on Bob Stanley's English Weather compilation, it was quite a surprise to come across it.

https://i.imgur.com/0wwxeYe.jpg

his wiki page

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MF_Doom_discography - That is a good reference for people looking. And before we get to "skipping" thread length I'll link some more that I've found handy:

Genius: https://genius.com/artists/Mf-doom (click Show All Songs and then there's a few sorting options)
RYM: https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/mf-doom (Appears On section pretty solid)

Also here's a 10 year old snapshot of a site that was a good reference for herb usage
http://web.archive.org/web/20111120101315/http://metalfacedoom.com/

Anyways let's get talking faves soon.

For now, I've discovered there's chill lofi doom to relax/study to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twlDZPbnlO0

someone did an update on the Herbs listing and included the sample sources too: http://special-herbs.github.io/

hey
you
guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYQ16Dzj81A

now if i could keep things at exactly the same speed a minute... here's a top 10 for sure, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5s6jcuw6NM

just found this fan version wtf?!

His remix of pounds up by MOP is just all time classic and so perfect I wish they worked together.

That sounds like something I need to hear right now

Thank you so much for doing this. Sorry if this was already said but KMD albums and tracks are fine to use here?

also, what a beat this is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBr1ebmBjME

Yes! Vote KMD! Honestly if Sub Roc didn’t die, I could still see them going in a similar vain. He was just as talented and loved by Doom, his contributions should be 100% be part of this.

Unless maff says otherwise I want to vote for It Sounded Like A Roc. They are only inseparable only by death (man this took a dark turn, but so did his career)

I guess even if Subroc didn’t die, Elektra would have still lost their shot over Black Bastards. (I think he already died but soz if I got the timeline wrong.) It would have been two brothers figuring out how to come back as super villains (+onyx maybe)

I've played a DOOM project every day since Jan. 1.

Dooms sound would prob have been diff if his brother survived. My understanding is subroc tightened their stuff up a bit whereas doom was much looser

oh absolutely, if subroc survived he might've remained zev love x and never put on the mask

Personally, BB is my fave doom album. I love lots on his solo albums, but that album was an apex in a way. In some ways I think he got better and better and more adventurous, but I liked the playfulness of bb even as it was more hard bitten than mr hood. But kmd also showed doom is maybe 'tighter' when given a collaborator, like when he did dangerdoom ir jjdoom, but the way he did beats as a solo artist made him my favourite hip hop producer of that period. I get everyone likes madvillainy but I'll take the highlights of doomsday,food and born like this over that.

madvillainy demos > the final officially released madvillainy

Eligibility is wide open, everything but bootlegs! Sorry if it was confusing to put the big run of albums up top in an effort to try and engage more casual fans.

Also this is my first poll so by all means question my decisions here. It was hard to try and pin down a similar past poll. A pretty unique career.

oh absolutely, if subroc survived he might've remained zev love x and never put on the mask

What about this line though?
https://genius.com/Kmd-what-a-nigga-know-lyrics#note-1509464

From listening to some podcasts since his death, like the Serch one, I think Subroc was a more meticulous producer and DOOM’s style was always more a lofi, choppy kinda style. If Sub was still alive, the beats might have sounded a bit smoother but I think similar ideas would have been thrown around.

I recently listened to a podcast with Prodigy where he introduced Havoc to the Sp. even though we all think of Havoc as the Mobb deep producer, I think understanding that they all have an input is interesting. Subroc was the Havoc to KMD, but Doom knew enough to take his ideas to Bobito’s house after his death to launch a solo career.

I do wonder how much 88-94 was a collective effort of friends. Someone who loved jazz, heard something no one else did and took that to their mate Diamond D or whoever is basically the apex of music to me.

I recently heard a record Pete rock sampled and was amazed how he found so much potential in literally what I think was barely two bars. For me, doom without his own beats isnt really, truly doom. a bit like wu tang members and rza. Prob cos I'm not someone to be that wowed by rap lyrics, I'm more a flow and beats person, with a few exceptions. But the way ppl geek out over dilla is how I feel about doom beats.

I'm not putting on Herbs collections to listen to like I would Donuts or something... but I'm with you that you can't beat DOOM rhyming on his own beats. The way he puts together this whole world on Doomsday and Food. Madvillainy's great but it's something different.

fwiw, 8 tracks of DOOM rhyming on DOOM beats that don't appear on DOOM(etc) albums
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1yA9HLeOIPOZWQjUtQcEJL?si=a5w6HTlPTtaKm3p4ptfwFQ

I Hear Voices pt 1
w MF Grimm - Impostas (MF EP)
MF Grimm - Foolish
Monsta Island Czars - MIC Line
Hell Razah feat. Talib Kweli & MF DOOM - Project Jazz
John Robinson - Sorcerers
MA DOOM - Think I Am
DOOMSTARKS - Victory Lap
DOOMSTARKS - Lively Hood

I think that's it?

9*!

oh and "MEATHEAD"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smVoxgny20U
came out about a year ago... must be the last production of his there is right now

I have that MIC album somewhere. I think I got it for one song but literally dont know the rest.

i wish that it was much better, yes i doooooooo

Here's a deep cut I like. The beat is so infectious!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJpwKJcLjao

wtf i had no idea that reissue had new stuff, that's gorgeous. thank you

i think I'm gonna be doing more than one album resequencing as i try and process everything to squeeze a ballot out in time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHKIg17oHPI

Recently learning where the sample from The Finest and freaking out hearing it on the radio gave me a new appreciation for it. It’s weird how big a noise people made about puffy sampling pop hits from the 80s to take over the charts and DOOM did exactly the same thing to idk fictionally take over the planet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULEzINHZv3o

Yeah though DOOM never took part in that dumb criticism or any other rappity rap tropes, far as I recall... other than the idea of the mask gimmick being talked of as an anti-superstar-image, anyone-could-be-under-there kind of concept... when it suited him.

From listening to some podcasts since his death, like the Serch one,

Thanks, I hadn't grabbed this. We should compile a list of good interviews/shows. Gilles Peterson's tribue mix had a good monologue by Dante Ross at the start, though it just made me more confused about who did what in KMD.

Definitely going to vote in this, have just about got a shortlist together. Will lean very heavily on the main albums - have enjoyed going through those again.

maffew12 do you have a preference for how ballots are formatted i.e. just the track names or with the artist on there as well?

Doesn't matter. Just titles will be fine. I didn't put out a full list so I'll be wrangling things at counting time.

OK cool!

That Herbs Guide upthread is great. I should have sought more of these sample sources before now!

Also: are unranked track ballots are an option?

Weighted only, sorry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdyY20rGpJ8

I really need to make my list in the next couple days

Controps time? I don't normally mind hiphop album excesses, but most of the non-DOOM bits of Madvillainy drive me up a wall. It's weird cuz I can listen to Madlib all day. Going through all of the Mad/DOOM material for this ballot, I made a playlist of my faves... with a little of the Four Tet remixes too. Goes 56 minutes.

Avalanche (single)
Operation Lifesaver
Closer (off The Further Adventures of Lord Quas)
Bistro
Raid
Rainbows
Meat Grinder (Four Tet remix)
Supervillain Theme
Strange Ways
Fancy Clown
Butter King Jewels (off Madvillainy 2, uses DOOM vocal from Dabrye's "Air")
Monkey Suit (off Madvillainy 2, remix of "Monkey Suite")
Great Day Today
All Caps
Interlude (Koushik)
Victory Laps (Madvillainz Remix) (off DOOMSTARKS' Victory Laps single)
Boulder Holder (off Madvillainy 2, remix of "Money Folder")
Accordion
Shadows of Tomorrow
Figaro (demo/leak version)
Savage Beast instrumental (off Madvillainy 2)
Rhinestone Cowboy (Four Tet remix... which DOOM re-remixed and re-recorded the vocal for)
Curls
Knock Knock (off MED/Blu/Madlib Bad Neighbor album)
Papermill (single)

(See also "One Beer" and "Absolutely", perfect where they're at on DOOM's albums)

Madness! Madvillainy is the best one because it has the best skits. In fact it is one of the only hip hop records in the whole damn history of the genre where I can play it the whole way through.

BECAUSE of the skits? lolololol

I meant because of the whole listenability, which I presume is not a word. It’s rare for a hip hop record to flow so seamlessly, and the skits and instrumentals are a big part of that. Quas and VV turning up too

It might be the samples of the narrator that kill me. And Zappa. And "Hardcore Hustle". And "Eye" is far weaker than any of DOOM's own deep-cut "one for the ladies" tracks.

so speaking of..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MW4d-Cp19E

These fan-made cartoon videos are great. I thought this one had compiled all of the Mm Food ones out there, but nope.

Stahhr/Angelika still doing it btw! I love this one so much (on Born Like This and Stahhr's own Almost Neva Was)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qWUj_ZXNvU

trying to get a ballot together so i'm not influenced by the trickle of ballots coming into my email. Don't anyone forget the original DOOM ladies track, the man's best ever, Doomsday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33gKblbeffM

Still people posting about "who is Pebbles the Invisible Girl?" when her only job on the record was to impersonate Sade and Barbara Weathers from Atlantic Starr (on "The MIC"). She does sound nice tho. I suspect it was just someone from the neighborhood, like Mr Fantastik. Hopefully they didn't also meet at a arms deal.

Vote!

So what does "there are no maximums" mean in practice for tracks? I'm guessing that a ranked list of all 576 (or whatever) appearances is not really what you had in mind, lol?

Any fans of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_to_the_Kuffs ? To me it feels like the last proper Doom album. I'll probably vote for 'Winter Blues' on the track list. We could live forever like Henrietta Lacks cells

xp Uh,well, OP might've been written on a couple shots and a few beers..but who cares. In practice, placements will be worth the same across all ballots, so if someone sends in hundreds of tracks, their last place will be 1 or 2 points, and on up from there. We could end up with pinball-looking scores. Here's hoping.

xp I think Kuffs could've been a great EP!

Way worse than I remembered: VV2
Way better than I remembered: DANGERDOOM (dump the CeeLo and Kweli tracks for anything from the EP or reissue and this really holds up... not that I can rank it like that exactly)

I remember VV2 being awful, unfortunately. I was so excited that Kool Keith as Dr Doom turning up too.

I actually really like the Cee Lo and Talib joints, makes me wish Doom did more with name artists over the years, I think he could have carved quite the niche for himself. He only ever really got to being like 16th on a gorillaz bill though, when it came to collabs. Rock Co Kane Flow is an obv sign he could have killed it.

Really need to sort a ballot out

I like those guys fine generally, but those two tracks, i dunno, yikes.

Apparently DOOM had a habit of turning down features that didn't come with a payday. At least it's something that came up a bunch of times in coverage this year. Wonder what he was charging some of these kids for features recently.

I've whittled my ballot down to 83 tracks. I'll keep going til the deadline.

I hadn't really paid much attention to JJ DOOM before last week. Often quite good, is my belated impression.

I'll be voting for "Bite the Thong" from JJ DOOM fairly high up. Awesome electro-style beat, with a typically abstract DOOM take on the machinations of the record industry, complete with EPMD references. Magnificent.

xp No need to whittle, can just rank

I used to have a friend when I was 16 and we used to go to Soho to buy records we couldn’t find in our small town. Getting the train back, I remember one of my first instances of annoying-white-guy-says-rap-lyrics about a 12” of Hoe Cakes. He was an indie / jazz type, and even that young he was mad into understanding what was going on deep in 1960s jazz, whether it was free or spiritual or whatever and had a distaste for fusion because people on the internet said that wasn’t real jazz. He hated rap he would hear on the radio.

After that, I tried not to talk to him about rap, there was too much other great music to not talk about something he didn’t like. That train journey always bugged me though cos Hoe Cakes is a fucking journey for anyone who loves both rap and everything weird or different in rap. In a different world, that sample could have been a hit. Instead it’s a deep cut.

A couple years later, when I hadn’t seen him for a while and we had grown a bit, I met him in the street and we ended up chatting for hours. All he could talk about was how much he loved indie rap, and Doom specifically, especially Madvillain, and all I could think was him reading the lyrics off the back of that 12.

Fucking love this shit. Need to make my ballot like yesterday

In which discussion did you guys cover the intricacies of "treat her like a daughter, taught her how to bust a nut"?

I got a copy of that 12 a few years ago on discogs. Every one of the listings didn't get the diner menu back sleeve design and was described like, "back is dirty and has a pricetag on it, otherwise great."

uh this album's the best one isn't it

just gonna vote and live with the regret

just got home for the day and determined to sort mine out,lol

Regardless of your top pick, how do people compare Food and Doomsday? I think Food is the absolute peak and yet.. Doomsday is the original/the return and has more moods..is just more than the sum of its parts.

side 4 of Madvillainy >>>>>> oxygen

Mm Food suffers for having like 10 skits in a row in the middle, makes me wanna skip half the record

It is a weird move. Easy to skip, though I usually don't. Bit of a rest between barrages of classics. What would drag it down for me is if the Paul Barman track (on the Leftovers EP) had made it on there! As it is, pretty much perfect. If you've got that original Kookies beat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhzavmxEzaY

Deadline tonight! I didn't say a timezone, but i won't be doing anything with them tonight, so by Monday 7AM Eastern let's say.

Trying to make my list now and errrr this is a lot harder than I thought it would be. I’ve not even considered kmd yet

Should we maybe extend this? I said I’m doing the graphics for it and even I’ve not had time to vote. Ilx has seemed quiet for the past 2 weeks too, maybe we can hopefully get more folks involved with another weeks drive

Are weekends a bad time to end? Maybe Thursday night? Who else could use a bit more time?

I could get a ballot in by Thursday

Cool. I've heard from others too. We push on to Thursday night.. midnight Pacific. Thanks all.

I just saw this and 100% will vote – might need a day tho to marathon some albums.

oops – thursday is great thx!

Sorry, never voted in one of these things before. Do I have to email or can I just post my votes here?

Email it to the address in the opening post.

Already feels like ages since I voted. Being lazily Sp*tify-centric these days I neglected to check back on VV2 until afterwards. I'll not be losing tooooo much sleep over it, it turns out.

apparently he selected the producers for that one via raffle. and it sounds like it!

"Back End" is nice though -- with a young Diplo producing? And warns you off buying the record in the first line.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7lTrzJGjEw

I was listening to vintage busta today and thought it was a shame no one tried to pair him with doom. He always sounded best on kinda lo fi ummah or DJ scratch beats and he had his own apocalypse comic book shit going on, it would have been really easy to make up a storyline

there was this in 2016 at least

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1uN139ceB0

a random older track he guests on that one my favs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxRGUo4tLjE

THE FINAL (29) HOUR(S) IS HERE FOR THE PEOPLE OF ILX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKDeN198j8M