Hey folks!

Today’s Best Album of 2001 match is:

#27 Cannibal Ox, THE COLD VEIN

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vs.

#102 The Dirtbombs, ULTRAGLIDE IN BLACK

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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 dueling Designated Cheerleaders today! First up, for THE COLD VEIN, it’s @padrock.bsky.social. Take it away, PadRock!

Let's settle one issue with Cannibal Ox's "The Cold Vein." Vast Aire and Vordul Mega, the groups two MCs, are...fine. Great at times! Clunky at others. A solid B effort. But that's not what makes The Cold Vein great. Because this is not their album. It's El-Ps.

El-P, or El Producto, is a New York hip hop producer and MC, known these days for his work with Killer Mike in the breakout phenomenon Run the Jewels. Back in 2001 he was an MC coming off the underground success of his group Company Flow and hungry to start his own label. That label, Definitive Jux, would go on to release albums by underground hip hop titans like Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, Del The Funky Homosapien, and RJD2. But the label's debut would be El-P's first attempt at fully producing an album: The Cold Vein.

The hip hop world is full of brilliant producers but it's rare that one can release a full sonic vision, a statement of purpose for their philosophy of the genre. Dr. Dre probably has the most famous example with his infectious G Funk sound on "The Chronic." Others include Q-Tip's sounds on "The Low End Theory," the RZA's "Enter the Wu-Tang," Dan the Automator on "Deltron 3030," Madlib on "Madvilainy," Pharrell on "Hell Hath No Fury," and The Alchemist on "Albert Einstein." (please feel free to quibble with my examples)

These albums all have phenomenal rapping, but at their core is the producer forging their singular vision into sound. And that is exactly what El-P does on "The Cold Vein."

No one sounds like El-P. He brings a gritty, dangerous New York sound to his beats but blends in elements from industrial (Trent Reznor would go on to collaborate with him) and trip-hop. If he has any clear predecessor it would be the RZA. They both mince their beats with harsh transitions and lean into sonic turbulence. But while RZA draws inspiration from comic books and martial arts films El-P is soaked in the paranoid sci-fi aesthetic of writers like Phillip K. Dick. His tracks pulse like unending klaxons on a dead space station, broken up by crashing machinery.

"The Cold Vein" is El-P at his best. While he has other brilliant albums--his first solo album "Fantastic Damage" is amazing and you can take your pick from the four RTJ albums--nothing blends his suffocating worldview together like this. Tracks come together like paintings as nebulous, dreamlike beats pulse behind samples of blaring guitars and horns sliced razor-thin.

This is the landscape that allows Vast Aire and Vordul Mega to thrive, drawing energy from the soundscape to feed their individual styles. El-P mixes their vocals to fit each track's vibe. Take the first (and best, imo) track "Iron Galaxy." Mega has a booming cadence but El-P muffles him slightly, making him sound like a fading transmission with dire warnings that will never reach a receiver. Contrast that with Vast Aire's snarling, incisive bars coming through crystal-clear. He's the man there with you in the shuttle, laughing because you don't realize you're all already dead.

As the album moves forward the narrative themes shift and fellow underground rappers drop in for guest verses. This is most effective when C-Rayz Walz drops in for "Battle for Asgard," bringing a vibrancy that the rest of the album keeps (deliberately) elusive.

"The Cold Vein" is important because it's a producer slamming his fist down onto the world of hip-hop and making his voice heard. Nothing ever sounded like this and honestly nothing has sounded like it since. Even in his solo work El-P never had the raw material of Vast Aire and Vordul Mega to complement the sounds he created. Killer Mike has been a great collaborator and allowed him to expand but nothing in those albums approaches the gorgeous terror here.

Not everyone bought "The Cold Vein." But everyone who did knew they'd never make it back to Earth alive.

Thank you, PadRock!

We have two for THE COLD VEIN, and we’re gonna publish both. Here’s @strangedisciple.bsky.social. Take it away, strangedisciple!

Cannibal Ox, THE COLD VEIN is my favorite album in the 2001 tournament, and probably in my top ten all time for hip hop. If you're new to this masterpiece, welcome; I think it will be easy to convince you to give this album a fair shake. Cannibal Ox was a NYC trio: producer and future hip hop royalty El-P with emcees Vast Aire and Vordul Mega. It's got everything you're looking for: dope beats, fire rhymes, droning synths, samples from what was once your mom's favorite movie; and oh you're looking for Norse mythology? You bet your Asgard it's here too.

If you only have time for ONE (1) song:

I get it. This album is long, you are busy and patience is thin. I see you. You are doing your best. I recommend you start with the penultimate track on the album, “Pigeon” (track 14). This song demonstrates the essence, the excellence, the powerful simplicity of what Cannibal Ox does on this album: El-P’s snare-punctuated Lynchian synth drone is so ragged and jagged at times is sounds as though Vast and Vordul are rhyming perpendicular to the beat; no hooks, just one epic verse from Vast, one of the best instrumental breaks you will hear in this tournament, followed by an even more epic verse from Vordul. A worthy investment of six minutes of your one life.

Am I hearing reports you now have the time for a second brilliant song?

Lovely news. Well maybe that was the wrong choice of words; I didn’t mean love like "love" ya know. If you're telling me you really only have the bandwidth to listen to one more song off this album right now, then I need you to become acquainted with “The F-Word” (track 8). The earliest song I knew that's about the Friendzone. Wikipedia says a 1994 Friends tv episode is the first mass media use of the term friend zone. I didn't watch Friends and the term didn't really become part of the cultural lexicon in my circles until the mid-Naughties, so this 2001 track still strikes me as a very early and astute analysis of a universal dynamic in the world of social coupling. Over smooth synths the cymbal crashes and the repetitive bleeps and bloops grab my lonely soul core, providing a beat to match the energy of the friend zone epiphany- that sudden growing feeling of dread deep in your gut, reverberating up your spine. Ick! Anyway fire beat, fire lyrics, and don't front like you haven't been f-zoned before. But the most beautiful part of this song is the irony. The irony may be that Vast and Vordul are the perfect pair artistically speaking. Vast's vulnerability is in full force in the verses while Vordul comes in with the hook as part loving friend who can empathize and part mature therapist explaining a confusing new situation to a young person; that's a loving complement. Another perfect song.

Delivering rap vocals for the new millennium

We're from Harlem marching in atomic garments

Bombing all the nonsense

THE COLD VEIN deserves your attention because it's unlike any other hip hop in this tournament: not gangsta rap; not full of lyrics about winning the game of capitalism; definitely not feel good party rap. It's dark, it's raw, and it's entirely unconcerned with fitting in with the genre conventions of its day. The album opener "Iron Galaxy" sets the mood perfectly. Vast Aire and Vordul Mega describe their vision of New York over a beat composed of El-P's watery bassline juxtaposed with some of the crispest hi hats ever recorded to tape courtesy of a classic Honey Drippers sample. You are being taken on a dark city adventure but it also feels like this urban landscape is set in outer space. It’s a solid vibe for an album, and it is consistently maintained.

The sample's the flesh and the beat's the skeleton

Let's talk about El Producto, The Producer, the one and only El-P. Producer, rapper, founder of an iconic record label (Definitive Jux), one half of Run The Jewels, it's no stretch to call this guy hip hop royalty. Futuristic grime is the phrase I've used for decades to describe the sound of THE COLD VEIN. My most recent re-listen validates my belief that El-P's production here sounds just as timeless today as it did 25 years ago. Boom bap drums + decaying signal noise + deranged samples may seem like strange bedfellows but I think it works; I think this cleared the path for future generations of producers. The instrumental version of the album is an extremely enjoyable listen too, I'll provide a link on Bsky. His early production work is in stark contrast to the Timbalands or Puffys that dominated Top 40 hip hop in the y2k era. If you are liking this production, also check out El-P’s work around the same time on Company Flow, FUNCRUSHER PLUS (1997) and his solo debut FANTASTIC DAMAGE (2002).

Flows often bananas, off the nut crunches

Can Ox emcees Vast Aire and Vordul Mega bring the heat, sustaining inventive abstract imagery and key metaphors throughout the entire album. Not much traditional hip hop braggadocio, just confident demonstrations of their lyrical dexterity. A favorite example of this is how Vast Aire not only once but twice corrects himself mid-verse seamlessly (he does this on “Raspberry Fields” and “Scream Phoenix”). Those little deliberate mistakes that are so subtle you may not catch them on your first few listens, those are the signs not of a run of the mill artist but of a master of the medium.

Def Jux don't care about your culture or creed

THE COLD VEIN has something for everyone. Are you a fan of dark stuff? It doesn’t get much darker than this. Electronic music? El-P has certainly done his homework. Pitched down Jeff Goldblum and Kermit the Frog samples? You are all welcome here. This album is a giant killer.

There's two things in life: fact and belief

Yeah, and you best to believe, it's a fact I just rolled the leaf

Thanks for reading. Thanks for writing your DCs too. I find them one of the best parts of the tournament. I don’t often get to read pieces of low stakes writing by strangers about a topic they are passionate about. If you wrote one in the past few tournaments, I have likely read and enjoyed it. You rock. Thank you.

Last, but certainly not least, for ULTRAGLIDE IN BLACK, it’s @levin.bsky.social. Take it away, Elana!

In a year so packed with so many great rock albums why is Ultraglide in Black, The Dirtbombs’ covers album one of the best albums period? NONE of the other garage revival bands of the era would be here without the groundbreaking work of band founder Mick Collins. AND because this album is a fucking party that rocks. This is the real deal Garage Revival sound straight from the source.

Detroit native Mick Collins started playing punk in the mid 80s, co-founding the groundbreaking Garage Revival band The Gories in 1986. The White Stripes will certainly tell you they wouldn’t be here without Mick Collins. In Ultraglide Mick reveals some of the non-garage rock influences on his own music.

Rather than covering garage rock standards like songs by Them, The Sonics, or The Seeds*, Ultraglide is exclusively covers of songs by Black artists (like Mick himself) such as Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Sly Stone, Barry White, and Curtis Mayfield. All of these songs were originally written by brilliant songwriters and performed by top session musicians doing complex work, and most of them are deep cuts that your average listener wouldn’t know otherwise. Playing them with a punk attitude brings them to a new audience.

Each cover has a raw, buzzing garage rock rumble from Ko Melina’s baritone bass. The band’s line-up is two basses, two drummers, and Mick on guitar and vocals (with a lot of gang vocals). Band members here were Jim Diamond, Patrick Pantano, Ewolf, Ko Melina, Ben Blackwell and Tom Potter. The lineup structure was a reaction to folks complaining that The Gories had NO bass. The Dirtbombs shift several of the songs into a minor key adding a layer of menace not present in the originals.

Thoughts on Songs.

Livin’ For the City:

A boy is brought from hard time Teocaltiche

To El Norte home, four walls that ain't so pretty

This bilingual garage rock cover of fellow Detroit legend Stevie Wonder, updates Stevie’s tale of the Second Great Migration to be about today's Mexican immigrants. Verse 4 is literally in Spanish. I find it profoundly moving. Moving it to a minor key makes the song less hopeful than the original. The solo sounds like the greatest thing ever played on a kazoo (it is not a kazoo).

Underdog: Who else has the balls to cover Sly and nail it? The gang vocals are really powerful, and feel like a call to solidarity.

Ode to A Black Man: Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott wrote this song for his 1980 solo album. It feels like a direct dialogue between Lynott and the artists he addresses in the song like Stevie Wonder, Hendrix, Professor Long Hair, and Black politicians too. This cover puts Mick in direct dialogue with all that AND Lynott himself. It’s a reminder that Black artists have always been central to rock. Look, I know WE never forgot that but a lot of people did.

*Yes I am fully aware that many of the songs these garage bands are known for are themselves by Black artists but the revival bands are mostly covering the songs as performed by the white 60s and 70s bands, not the originals.

Thank you, Elana!

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, #70 Destiny's Child, SURVIVOR defeated #59 Beulah, THE COAST IS NEVER CLEAR, 89-73-2.

Thanks,

Kent