MF Doom - Operation: Doomsday (1999)

I figured I may as well start off this series with an album that people have been bugging me about since around day three of Hip Hop Isn't Dead. Daniel Dumile, for whom MF Doom is but one of many aliases, has been in the rap game quite a while, making his debut in KMD, a group featuring himself (as Zev Luv X), Onyx the Birthstone Kid, and Subroc, Daniel's younger brother. KMD released their first album, Mr. Hood, in 1991 to critical acclaim (and low sales, naturally), but on the eve of album number two, Black Bastards, Subroc was killed in a car accident, and, heartless freaks that they are, KMD was immediately dropped from Elektra Records. In the same goddamn week. Black Bastards wouldn't be officially released on any label until 2001 (for reasons that I won't go into here, since this post isn't about KMD), but, in true music industry fashion, people bootlegged the shit out of it, keeping Daniel's name alive in the underground.

During this time, Daniel withdrew from society while coping with his personal loss and battling depression. He took this time to reinvent himself as a hip hop supervillian, the scourge of record labels everywhere (as he was, rightfully, bitter about the whole "being dropped from Elektra" thing), and took to open mic nights, coffee shops, and wherever would have him, performing as MF Doom, a name inspired from the Fantastic Four's chief adversary, Dr. Doom.

In 1999, Daniel dropped Operation: Doomsday on the unsuspecting masses. Released on the legendary underground label Fondle 'Em Records, MF Doom's solo debut album was almost anti-hip hop, combining unpolished, gravelly rhymes with beats that don't necessarily scream out for rappers to join forces with them. It took off seemingly right away, rendering Daniel Dumile (and his numerous aliases) a hero of the new hip hop millennium. In fact, Operation: Doomsday is generally considered to be an indisputable hip hop classic.

Until now, anyway.

1. THE TIME WE FACED DOOM (SKIT)

Eventually manages to set the mood (with the odd musical samples creating a mythical cartoon soundtrack in your ears, coupled with the Fantastic Four dialogue), but let's be real here: this is just another rap album intro, folks.

2. DOOMSDAY

The relaxed beat helps absorb the abrasive-sounding lyrics from the star attraction. Due to (what I assume is) a poor mastering process, Doom comes off as an amateur rhyming over the beat (albeit one who sounds like a poor-quality Ghostface Killah, execpt, if this is even possible, even less coherent.) . However, the fact that he rhymes for nearly three minutes straight (and isn't completely horrible at doing so) offsets the weird flavor. Could have done without the female vocalist, although I have to admit that her presence actually fits the track well enough.

3. RHYMES LIKE DIMES (FEAT DJ CUCUMBER SLICE)

I'll say this right off the bat: I hate this beat. I can't fucking stand it. However, I like Doom's lyrics (or, at least I did, until he decides to repeat a good chunk of them), especially the line “Only in America can someone make a healthy buck/and still be in self-destruct”. Yelling “Mashed potatoes!” at the end of a rap song is also fun and contagious. It's hard to get past that shitty instrumental, though.

4. THE FINEST (FEAT TOMMY GUNN)

I loved the old-school R&B smoothness of the beat (the use of the SOS Band's "The Finest" reminded me of Eric B. & Rakim's “Paid In Full”), but damned if I could remember anything the two artists featured had to say. I will say that, when the guest's first verse started, I thought I was listening to a Jim Jones “song” inadvertently, and that is never a good thing.

5. BACK IN THE DAYS (SKIT)

Not bad, but not great. Then again, this is just a skit.

6. GO WITH THE FLOW

Other than “Rhymes Like Dimes”, of course (that song is like the U-God of Operation: Doomsday), the instrumentals on here are considered to be the real draw, much more so than the lyrics, which aren't anything special at all, although Daniel could be much worse behind the mic. There isn't anything that he's doing that can't be improved by a bit of tweaking. Also, he doesn't seem to believe in choruses, opting instead to rhyme for several minutes at a time, which is fantastic, although you will never bump this shit in your car, unless MF Doom is sitting in the passenger seat or you're on a road trip to either Never-Never Land or to the Williams Street studio where they produce much of the Adult Swim lineup.

7. TICK, TICK... (FEAT MF GRIMM)

Yeah, that Beatles sample (from "Glass Onion") would never fly on a major label release. MF Grimm is definitely a better rapper than his host. Doom seems to custom-fit this track to his guest, increasing and decreasing the playback speed at random, simply because he can, and Grimm meets the challenge easily. This is by far the best song on Operation: Doomsday thus far. It's too bad that the friendship between the two men fell the fuck apart.

8. RED AND GOLD (FEAT KING GHIDRA)

I couldn't stand this fucking song, but it's worth noting that King Ghidra (which would later be spelled Gheedorah) is simply one of Doom's many aliases. Dude rivals only Kool Keith in the multiple monikers derby.

9. THE HANDS OF DOOM (SKIT)

The beat presented here is among my favorite MF Doom special herbs. (Which is interesting, as it seems to have been provided by Daniel's late brother Subroc.) It would have been better if someone were actually rhyming over it, but I guess you can't have everything. Sure, it's a simple combination of a drum machine and a guitar sample looped together, but it fucking works.

10. WHO DO YOU THINK I AM? (FEAT KING CAESAR, RODAN, MEGALON, KAMACKERIS, & KONG)

A not-bad posse cut featuring David's weed carriers from the collective, the Monsta Island Czars. (The majority of these guys would later leave that group, but once again, not today's top story.) Despite the incomplete feel of the beat, I'm reminded, fondly, of “Protect Ya Neck II Tha Zoo”, the Brooklyn Zoo posse cut from Ol' Dirty Bastard's debut solo album. Now that guy would have sounded great over some of these special herbs. A fucking shame. But this is still a good track.

11. DOOM, ARE YOU AWAKE? (SKIT)

I didn't care for the music within this interlude.

12. HEY!

The very epitome of what I think about whenever people talk about Doom's instrumentals: ripping off Scooby-Doo. But that statement doesn't do justice to what the man manages to do with the show's theme song: this track is rather impressive. I can completely understand why he kept the beat for himself, but Doom really should have given it to a much more capable rapper, or at least invited someone to stand alongside him: the man does actually sound pretty inspired for the first time on Operation: Doomsday, though. Be forewarned: the beat has a way of sneaking into your mind and recalling itself at the worst possible times, which gets very annoying after a while.

13. OPERATION: GREENBACKS (FEAT MEGALON & KING GHIDRA)

This song sucks the sperm out of a rhinoceros cock, but I still found the use of Teena Marie's “I Need Your Lovin'” interesting, if only because my wife loves that song. Keep in mind, though: rhinoceros cock.

14. THE MIC

Well, at least it's short.

15. THE MYSTERY OF DOOM (SKIT)

Not interested, thanks.

16. DEAD BENT

Remember when I used to poke fun at Nicolas Cage's movies? You can apply the same humorous comment in this very space.

17. GAS DRAWLS

Doom basically spits for a few minutes straight, save for a short break after the first verse. The title itself is actually misspelled, which becomes distractingly apparent after hearing the phrase used in context of the song. Ultimately, though, you won't care, since the song and the beat are both quite dull.

18. ? (FEAT KURIOUS JORGE)

Although the title is the most interesting aspect of this song, I found Daniel's words about his late brother quite touching.

19. HERO VS. VILLIAN (EPILOGUE) (FEAT E. MASON)

A spoken-word outro? Seriously? What the fuck?! (Later pressings of Operation: Doomsday replace this outro with a different song, “I Hear Voices, Part 1”, a duet with MF Grimm: that song is a much better way to end the “festivities”, as it were.)

FINAL THOUGHTS: Operation: Doomsday is generally regarded as a classic underground record, with skilled wordplay from MF Doom, some truly inspired musical backdrops, and music critics generally falling all over themselves to suck at the scrotum of the artist in question. But here's the thing: MF Doom's rhymes on here are almost uniformly unimaginative. Aside from the fact that the vocals appear to have been recorded in someone's bedroom closet, Daniel Dumile comes off as a rookie, one who is trying way too hard to fit as many words as possible into a single bar, lest the bus explode. Which is troubling, since, as part of KMD, MF Doom already had two albums worth of experience by the time this project was conceived. The instrumentals, as creative as some of them are (they're not all great: some of them actually sound pretty fucking terrible, a fact most critics seem to overlook) also sound incredibly dated, although that's most likely a byproduct of their overexposure, given Doom's tendency to reuse his beats for other artists upon request. All in all, this album is a disappointment, although it's not a complete wash. Readers, state your criticisms below. Don't worry, I'm expecting them after pulling back the curtain like this.

BUY OR BURN? If you don't already own this one, as I'm sure a lot of my two readers do, I would recommend a burn. There isn't much on here that will turn mainstream fans toward the unfamiliar. There also isn't much on here that anybody would bump more than once. However, the tracks listed below should be heard at all costs, even if you have to kill someone for standing in between you and your computer. Bury him in the backyard (respectfully, of course), and then listen to the songs on repeat right up until the cops beat down your door.

BEST TRACKS: “Tick, Tick...”; “Hey!”; “Who Do You Think I Am?”; “The Hands Of Doom (Skit)” (for the instrumental alone)

-Max