OuKast - ATLiens (1996)

This is the first of LuxDel's reviews that she wrote for the old blog, her personal favorite album, Outkast's classic 1996 effort, ATLiens.

Album intros are all at once meant to convey texture, direction and hint at what is to come.  It’s the first hit and it must be taken quickly.  With ATLiens, OutKast’s second offering, the first step is more of a face first fall into a warm abyss. You almost don’t want to escape. Neither Andre 3000 nor Big Boi make an appearance, and it’s left up to a hypnotic rendition of a well known children’s prayer in a cryptic language and a melancholic ballad about (maybe) dying, to usher in listeners to this 14 song lesson in Atlantan space invaders.

After the ’77 Seville vibe of “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik”, ATLiens at once manages to turn a sharp corner without falling over.  Production from Organized Noize and Earthtone Ideas ricochets from the riff driven “Wailin’” to the reverb heavy “E.T. (Extraterrestrial)” then returns to a synth fiends’s paradise on “Wheelz of Steel.”  Bass heads are serviced by the insistent beat of “Elevators (Me & You)”  and the title track’s menacing mix of live bass strings and sampled drums.

Running throughout the entire album is OutKast’s ability to craft a beautiful melody.  This is their second strongest asset and is never more evident than on “Jazzy Belle”, a blunt analysis of the opposite sex that contradicts the softness of the beat.  “Decatur Psalm” and “Ova Da Wudz” have disappointing construction, but the MC skills of the duo and Dungeon Family guests make the songs enjoyable, even without a dynamic beat to hold the verses.

It’s puzzling how often Big Boi is dismissed as ‘the ugly twin’ while he’s standing next to Andre.  Big Boi is an upper echelon MC.  He holds up the end of “Mainstream” beautifully, his storytelling on “Babylon” is engaging and he rips the title track into pieces, easily outshining Andre.  Mr. Benjamin delivers, putting his all into each verse.  He’s in blackout mode on “Elevators (Me & You)”, at his most scathing on “Mainstream” and totally candid in the anti-braggadocio “Millennium.”

The last true track of the album, “13th Floor/Growing Old”, is a soft landing.  Both Big Boi and Andre reflect and speculate, and the tender piano laced beat is deceptive considering the content of their lyrics are hard hitting truths that are still fully relevant over 15 years after conception.

Topped off with some trippy artwork, it’s an album that’s received critical acclaim ad nauseam.  It constantly battles with “Aquemini” for the title of OutKast’s best and is undoubtedly a bona fide classic, coming from a year that saw the hip hop genre gain at least a dozen other classics.  It’s thoroughly southern and holds down the ‘timeless’ label easily. If you’re looking for something that knocks the speakers and sparks the thoughts, cop this.

Highs:  Elevators, 13th Floor/Growing Old, production on Wheelz of Steel and Two Dope Boyz.  Andre’s verses on Millennium and Mainstream.  Big Boi’s verses on ATLiens, Ova Da Wudz and E.T.

Lows:  Average production on Decatur Psalm and Ova Da Wudz.  The bizarre and annoying vocal sample on Wailin’.  Organized Noize’s take on Elevators with their ONP 86 mix is an unnecessary addition to the album.

94/100

Dr. Octagonecologyst - Dr. Octagon (1996)

I can confidently say that that Dr. Octagonecolgyst is the best album about a time-traveling, extraterrestrial, surgeon/gynecologist who sleeps with his nurses and patients and may also be undead that you will ever hear.  Dr. Octagon is the alter-ego of Bronx rapper, Kool Keith, who first made a name for himself in the 80′s with seminal underground group, Ultramagnetic MCs.  1996′s Dr. Octagonecologyst is Kool Keith’s first solo album.

As well as being the solo debut of Kool Keith, Dr. Octagonecolgyst is the breakthrough album of Bay Area beat maker, Dan, the Automator, of Deltron 3030 and Gorillaz fame. Three time world DJ Champion, DJ Qbert lends his talents to several of the tracks, as well.  The album is credited with being instrumental in the revival of turntablism in the mid 90s.  Most of the beats are predominantly synth, giving the album a very spacey, futuristic ambiance.  Many of the samples are ripped from pornographic movies; appropriate given Dr. Octagon’s propensity for having sex with his patients and nurses.

Like I mentioned earlier, Dr. Octagonecologyst has one of the more… interesting concepts that you will encounter in a hip-hop album.  It’s an album that may require multiple listens, as the lyrics are very abstract and full of non-sequiters.  As it were, the album tells the tale of Dr. Octagon, the intergalactic discount surgeon of questionable credentials.  He’ll perform just about any procedure that you need him to, such as “relocating saliva glands” and treating “chimpanzee acne,” and he’ll do it for cheap… as long as you’re not bothered by horses running around the hospital or the mountains of corpses that are the result of all his botched procedures.  Dr. Octagon also likes to pretend he’s a woman and practice gynecology in order to get laid.  Whether or not Dr. Octagon is even human is debatable, as his only known relative, an uncle named Mr. Gerbik, is apparently a 208 year-old half shark-alligator half man with “skin like razor blades.”

Dr. Octagonecologyst is as important an album as it is a bizarre one.  Perhaps more than any other album, it can be credited with reviving underground hip-hop in the 90s.  G-Funk and east coast mafioso were dominating the charts at the time and the underground was stuck in a rut trying to follow suit.  Dr. Octagonecologyst reintroduced innovation to hip-hop.  In a time when everybody was trying to deal drugs and be hard, Kool Keith stood up and said “No, I’d rather be an intergalactic surgeon.”

Best Tracks: 3000, Earth People, Blue Flowers, I’m Destructive, halfsharkhalfalligatorhalfman

Overall: 94/100