Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#33 Aesop Rock, LABOR DAYS

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vs.

#96 Tori Amos, STRANGE LITTLE GIRLS

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To vote, follow this link to the Google Form. You will need a Google login to vote. If you can’t or won’t have one, let me know ASAP (either through this newsletter, my email [kentmbeeson@hey.com] or on the Best Album Brackets Bluesky account) and I’ll see what I can do.

We have one Designated Cheerleader today, it’s for LABOR DAYS, and it’s from @padrock.bsky.social. Take it away, padrock!

I cannot speak to Tori Amos, but as a guy who got way too into backpack hiphop around 2006, I can talk about Aesop Rock. Probably not as much as Aesop Rock could though. The man doesn't rap as much as he detonates the dam of his mind so it rushes out at once. The flow is relentless, it isn't as much stream-of-consciousness as it is a hurricane of consciousness, with ideas crashing against each other as long as their rhymes vaguely align.

Labor Days is Aesop Rock's debut album, released on El-P's burgeoning label Def Jux (make sure to check out Cannibal Ox's upcoming contender The Cold Vein for the label's first release). The label fit El-P's paranoid, industrial dystopian style but rather than being a defiant call to action against the powers that be, Rock's rapping flits between resisting a smothering society (see his tale of a girl who refuses to conform with his crowd pleaser "No REgrets") and giving up and taking a nap (he still has my favorite riff on Gil Scott-Heron in "I Alone" with the line "if the revolution ain't gonna be televised, fuck I'll probably miss it").

What separates this album from all the other post-matrix paranoid freakout albums--and definitely separates it from Rock's future less-frenitc (read:boring) work--is how his rapping is both cutting and drowsy, sinister and sleepy. On a track like "Save Yourself" his flow is simultaneously lurching and rapid, like the Cheshire Cat grinning while lulling you into a crazed slumber.

Rock fits into what I call "wordcount rap" where the prevailing ethos is "more rapping is better rapping." Often this devolves into a parlor trick, as you can only hear someone's rapid-fire verses for so long. Look at Eminem's later work which remains techincally flawless but in terms of style and substance feels like chewing on week-old gum. But on Labor Days, Rock's dense, wordsmith rhymes have a purpose. He is intentionally overwhelming you, dazzling you, confusing you with his contradictory messages and imagery. You can barely process one metaphor before he's laid on twelve more pulled from every corner of his brain (and yours). Is he warning you about a hypersensory world blotting out your mind? Or is he the world itself blotting out your mind? Is all this talk of taking back control and rising up another tool to hold you down?

This doesn't have a 100 percent hit rate. You can feel the facade crumble whenever Rock gets too direct or sincere (another drawback of his later work). Personally I find "No rEgrets" a cheesy low point of the album but I may be in the minority on that one.

The true standout track for me is the opener, "Labor Days." That is where Rock unleashes his full range of powers, changing tempo, packing together internal rhymes, and processing his flow through each stage of his sleep cycle. It's also where the production most meets the Def Jux house style, with harsh, crashing sounds that feel like someone threw a guitar through a hardware store. It holds you in place and forces you to inhale its disjointed nonsense, leaving it to you to find the meaning as the album drags your exhausted ears to forward the next track.

Unlike other Def Jux rappers, Rock didn't involve El-P in the production but rather kept duties to himself and collaborator Blockhead. That gives the rest of the album room to explore softer, trippier sounds, with woodwinds, strings and keyboards giving a smoky jazz feel. These aren't beats to jolt you out of the matrix the way El-P would demand of you, or even fellow anti-establishmentarians like Public Enemy or Dead Prez. These are beats to accompany you as you consider the walls of your pod. Yes, you could rise up. But these strings feel so comfortable. What are you saving, honestly? Maybe you're better off here than the madness outside.

Maybe your own madness is enough. No time to think about that, though, Mr. Rock is on to his next verse.

Thanks, padrock!

Click here to see the current results for the entire tournament, and click here to see the current results for the prediction bracket contest.

Yesterday, #16 Low, THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE defeated #113 Thursday, FULL COLLAPSE, 161-52-2.

Thanks,

Kent