The piece I’m choosing for this exercise is called Meatgrinder. A song from Madvillainy. I’m choosing this piece as this was one of the first pieces of music that opened my eyes to abstract vanguard styles of hip hop music. The album stretches between tasteful cuts of varied styles of music, looped up, chopped, and flipped into a completely new piece that pays homage to the original. Listening to this album sounds like an amalgamation of old cartoons and old music. The song Meatgrinder specifically shows this sort of aesthetic I’m speaking about.
Catalogue of attributes:
The introduction sounds like an old destroyed record playing a tv show.
It feels attractive because of the loop, feels like you’re ready to enter and tune in. It alerts the listener. The drum break Madlib has chosen alongside the sample “The jar is under the bed” Captures our attention and makes you want to nod along. It’s a crazy drum break where the player goes wild, alongside a horn instrument screaming which gives a chaotic vibe.
This goes perfectly into the first verse section, it’s very basic in comparison to the intro. Just a really attractive baseline and a shaker to give rhythm alongside bells and a nasty drum break. The drums are weaker allowing the bass line to really shine through. The rhythm section has a great swing, the balance between being on the beat and off the beat. Gives the beat a pushing sense that you fall into the pocket of the snare. As well as the mix and the sounds are chosen all sound noisy and dirty. Something I really enjoy, it sounds very DIY and authentic and creative. Non-conformitive. As well as the sample is tasteful. A ghostly slide guitar comes into the song, with sounds of mouths chewing and spitting throughout giving a textural sense to the beat. Something Madlib really does well is texture in his work. Something I want to try and use with field recordings.
In terms of the lyrics, it’s so unorthodox and intelligent, witty and complex. Alongside throwing the common hip hop/rap listeners off what they are used to. MF DOOM raps with complex rhyme schemes and a sense of uniqueness to his flow and lyrics. MF DOOM is a character and raps like one, he isn’t himself Daniel Dumile but MF DOOM the supervillain against the rap industry. The mask he wears represents being against the image and more about the music. I find the idea of making music from a different standpoint to be really interesting to me. I usually rap about how I’m feeling or my ideas and views but it might be interesting to put myself in a different point of view.
Key attributes are:
Uniqueness
Rustic
Original
LO-FI
Rough Mix
Tasteful
Breaks that knock
Passionate
Complex
Simple on the surface
Depth
