Choice Is Yours Vol. 33: The Cold Vein Vs. Madvilliany
Cannibal Ox – The Cold Vein (2001)
Vs.
Madvillian – Madvilliany (2004)
The Game is simple… if only one could exist which would it be? What’s more important… personal relevance, cultural significance, or simply being the better album all other things aside? Choice is yours…
- My Pal the Crook
June 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Never really was into Cannibal Ox… always meant to go back and have a listen. So this is an easy one for me. Madvillian! I’m not huge on MF Doom though… his monotone rap puts me to sleep. But Madlib kills it
June 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
Gotta go with can ox. It’s a cold world out there. Sometimes I get a bit frosty myself
June 30th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I’ll take Madvilliany but I’d def listen to the Cold Vein a shitload of times before I erased it from existence…great album
But Madvillainy is way more my steez
June 30th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Personally I would go with the cold vein. I have a lot of love for MF Doom but he has progressed greatly since that album, However I think that the cold vein is a classic and responsible for the darker more disjointed side of Hip Hop.
But then I’m British so what the fuck do I know.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
i can’t make a choice. this is like asking if you want bread loafs or a job during the great depression. both albums are that necessary
June 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I’ll say that after a huge build-up in my head Madvilliany wasn’t as amazing as I expected it to be, it was good but it doesn’t hold a candle to The Cold Vein. I think The Cold Vein is the best Hip Hop album of this decade.
June 30th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I’ve gotta go with Madvillainy. The Cold Vein was dope, but Vaste Aire and Vordul Mega can’t hold a candle to DOOM in my humble opinion.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Many a point has been made here, but Madvillainy takes the cake here, virtually no guest lyricists, steadier production, and quotables galore, both albums are in my top 20 of the decade so it hurts to put one out, but I can listen to madvillainy end to end more often than the cold vein…
June 30th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
DOOM…
June 30th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
As a big fan of both Madlib and MF Doom, it pains me a little bit that this is such an easy choice for me. I’d take The Cold Vein in a heartbeat (uh…no pun intended?).
Def Jux is a staple in the hip-hop scene, and I’ve always been really intrigued by the label’s overall sound, but their albums always leave me a little unsatisfied. Except for this one.
Post-90′s hip-hop hasn’t really known what to do with itself. Aside from production by the Neptunes and Kanye, there haven’t been that many major departures (and even those artists’ sounds could be said to have had their roots in earlier hip-hop).
The Cold Vein is a drastic departute because it takes hip hop’s hardbody persona somewhere completely different. It’s cold, it’s jaded, it’s mechanistic, but at the heart of it, it still feels incredibly human. This is the sound of people who realize before anyone else that robots are on their way to annihilate us all, but know they can’t do a damn thing to stop them.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
cold vein.
June 30th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I agree with MPTC…Cold Vein is the best I’ve heard of that era and then some. But I have to admit.. Madvillainy gets way more burns…I think it’s the short songs, but I can just play it over and over…minus a few tracks.
I wish Can Ox followed up stronger.. i kept listening to their other efforts until they lost my interest totally. Would love to see them and El-P make a comeback…or maybe they have and i’m totally out of touch.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Cold Vein, not contest. Cannibal Ox rips MF DOOM a new asshole head to head.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Great topic…both are essential underground albums to come out since the beginning of 2000 and both have different and unique sounds, but I’ll have to go with the Cold Vein. What’s ironic is that it took me awhile to actually appreciate the gem that this album is.
From the lyrical standpoint, while Doom had a solid performance throughout the album, Cannibal Ox created a more vivid and abstract poetic picture to it. It blended so well with El-P’s abstract/Bomb Squad-esque production, which I think is his best work, along with Company Flow’s “Funcrusher Plus.” That’s not to take away from Madlib’s gem on the boards for Madvillainy.
With all that said, both have stood the test of the time during the short period of time that has passed and are both classics.
June 30th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
DOOM all day.
Madvillainy is as classic as underground classics get!
June 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Man, two amazing picks, really.
Cold Vein is such an underrated album, while I don’t listen to it as much as Madvillain, when I do I listen to it the whole way through, and sometimes on repeat for a couple rounds. There’s seriously not one sleeper on that whole album, and EL-P’s production doesn’t seem out of place or over the top at any point, it’s such a great album.
I think overall Can Ox takes it for me here, put that album up against Operation Doomsday, and it might be another story.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
As much as I love Madvillainy, The Cold Vein is on a level that few hip-hop albums have ever touched in my opinion. Really, the album is ridiculously good. It is a paradigm for turn of the century underground hip-hop production. Conceptually & lyrically, it’s nearly flawless. This isn’t to undermine the importance of Doom & Madlib’s collaborative contribution to music, I just don’t think they can hold up to Vast & Vordul’s lyrics laid over El-P’s beats.
Besides, I have plenty of other albums to satiate my appetite for Doom, but nothing has stood up as a suitable follow-up or replacement of Can Ox’s shining masterpiece.
July 1st, 2009 at 1:35 am
TOUGH CALL BUT ILL KEEP THE COLD VEIN. I’VE HEARD MADVILLAINY ENOUGH BY NOW.
July 1st, 2009 at 2:09 am
Can-O
July 1st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Gonna go with Cold Vein as well, a little late on this but whatever.
Madvillainy is great but I enjoy many of DOOM’s other albums more, even though Madlib kills it.
July 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 am
There are few records that I can actually play and not skip tracks, and Madvillainy is one of them. I’m sorry no one who has ever graced the mic, or studio operates on the level that Doom and Madlib do, I’m not saying that they are better than anyone else, it’s just that together they made something unforgettable. The production is insane, and Dooms lyrics are locked in the padded room next door. That’s how I feel.
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 pm
CAN OX!!!
July 7th, 2009 at 5:10 am
Like BRUCE IN THE BLUE SUIT, let’s get it Poppin! Hooks that grapple!! Arachnoid Beach boys slung an arm a masked helmet, he who smelt it, last delt it
Old Man said Tongue Kissin was a bit like fencing
Metalic winged Pigeon!!
—cold veins todos los Dias!
I think I got all those lyrics wrong, but you know what I mean.
To me the vein was as soulful as Motown shit, and made me want to have a honest, good hearted, weed smoking, contemplative stress chested weed smoking black friend really bad
Because of this album, I gave up N*gg#* Jokes.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
i agree w/ almost every ones comments… haha
but- i expected a lot from madvilliany and maybe i expected too much – i def think doom stepped his game since but cold vein is like blao… i was just like oh so this some new shit when i heard it