The interior of the j-card has a black and white photo of Madlib with his face partially obscured by a piece of production equipment. This serves as the credits portion of the release, weighing in at a whopping eight words. Around the back it simply says that group is called Madvillain, Madlib did the beats, DOOM did the emceeing, and Stones Throw released the record (in addition to the catalogue number). Taking a look at the side spine you’ll find the album name and not much else. The rest of the j-card is also quite minimalistic. I’ve seen cassette release adaptations go really poorly, and fortunately Madvillainy is not one of those cases. Ultimately it doesn’t really matter, as the album artwork is classic and looks just about as good here as it has anywhere else. This could just be an illusion due to the fact that his shoulders have been cut out, but it stood out as slightly odd to me. One weird difference, however, is that the signature cover photo of DOOM appears to be slightly darker than on the original. These alterations don’t take much away from the artwork, and in my opinion Stones Throw did an excellent job reformatting everything. The text from the upper left corner has been removed entirely, and the orange square on the right has been trimmed into a much smaller strip. Upon first look at this cassette it is evident that a few minor design changes were made to the original cover in order to have it look natural on a j-card. The biggest variation is that the Cassette Store Day release has a shiny j-card rather than matte. This is the standard release, which has some minor changes from the Cassette Store Day release though they share the same catalogue number. The particular version we will be looking at is the cassette re-release which came out under Stones Throw Records (STH2065) in 2014. The album in question is Madvillainy, the collaborative effort between underground legends MF DOOM and Madlib under the name Madvillain. This may sound counterintuitive, but due to the album’s stature within hip-hop and grandiose sound I actually find the stark contrast quite interesting. Being the stubborn person I am, I figured the best way to break the slump would be to write about one of the most simplistic releases I own. This simplicity is a wonderful thing, but at the same time it doesn’t make for the most catching of blog posts however, Rajin recently published his own collectors corner, reminding me not to neglect this particular series. Regardless of this, many of the titles I own could be described in a paragraph or less. I adore my music collection, and have a bad tendency to put disposable income I don’t actually have into it. I quite enjoy being able to talk about some of my favorite releases more casually and personally, as opposed to the formal nature of music reviews however, physical media is not always the most interesting thing in the world.
MADVILLAINY ALBUM COVER EDIT SERIES
In an era when everyone else wants every note quantized and to sound exactly like whats already on the radio, he just makes music he likes and doesn't care who else likes it.Ever since we decided to revitalize the Collector’s Corner series of articles back in January, I’ve been racking my brain in an attempt to decide on the next album to showcase. I'm not really a fan of his music, but I respect his approach and freedom as an artist. I think its the creativity that attracts ppl though, not the sonics of his music. So naturally the end result isn't top notch sonically.Ĭombine a bunch of samples from different lo-fi records, record them on top of each other onto cheap cassette recorders and the result can be a pretty noisy/raggedy sounding recording. He kind of uses a jazz approach, but isn't the best musician and uses low budget equipment like cassette multi-track recorders. He goes into his production methods, which in a nutshell is basically just recording with whatever instruments onto whatever recorder, throwing whatever at the wall and whatever sticks goes. If you are interested, watch the Madlib interview on Red Bull Music Academy. You should expect low-budget, lo-fi albums from low budget/lo-fi record labels. there are several lo-fi albums I really dig.honest! It can totally give an album of material its own vibe, and a sense of cohesion.Madlib is an underground producer on a small underground label.
Maybe someone who is more familiar with the process of this album's recording can offer some insights here? Just chopped up those samples and sequenced it. It almost sounds like he didn't EQ, compress or anything though. like I said, this is totally what Madlib was probably going for.