History lesson, kids: back in 1999, when people sat in tiny fold-down chairs at the movies and typed out all their emoticons longhand over T1 connections on AOL Instant Messenger, a young and idealistic hip-hop producer and emcee MF DOOM released his now-classic debut album Operation: Doomsday.
Since then, a lot of stuff has obviously changed for the better (I’ll be damned if I ever watch a movie not from the comfort of a pleather recliner while texting animated GIFs representing my highly-nuanced, scene-by-scene emotional reactions to that movie in real time over LTE ever again), but DOOM’s record has yet to be surpassed. In fact, it keeps flying off the shelves so damn consistently that it’s been issued and reissued several times already.
But, unlike AOL, since people keep buying the thing, they just keep on cranking out new versions of this record. And today, the folks over at Rappcats have unveiled not one, but two new red-and-black vinyl editions of Operation: Doomsday, one featuring the original Fondle ‘Em Records cover from 1999, and the other featuring DOOM’s own 2011 Metalface Records version, which featured new art and design by MM FOOD collaborators Jason Jagel and Jeff Jank (both versions come as a double-LP and include an 18 x 24-inch poster).
And to help celebrate this latest 21st-century incarnation, DOOM-friendly animatorDustooned has created a new video for the track “Gas Drawls,” taking inspiration from DOOM’s usual artwork m.o. The video “was created independently,” but it “got the Doom stamp of approval just last week.” Check it out, as well as the original tracklisting for the album down below, and ya know: GET READY FOR DOOMSDAY — for the, what is this, third time now?
Operation Doomsday tracklisting:
01. The Time We Faced Doom (Skit)
02. Doomsday (featuring Pebbles The Invisible Girl)
03. Rhymes Like Dimes (featuring DJ Cucumber Slice)
04. The Finest (featuring Tommy Gunn)
05. Back in the Days (Skit)
06. Go with the Flow
07. Tick, Tick… (featuring MF Grimm)
08. Red and Gold (featuring King Geedorah (as King Ghidra))
09. The Hands of Doom (Skit)
10. Who You Think I Am? (featuring X-Ray, Rodan, Megalon, K.D., King Geedorah and Kong)
11. Doom, Are You Awake? (Skit)
12. Hey!
13. Operation: Greenbacks (featuring Megalon)
14. The Mic (featuring Pebbles The Invisible Girl)
15. The Mystery of Doom (Skit)
16. Dead Bent
17. Gas Drawls (featuring Stephen Hawking)
18. ? (featuring Kurious)
19. Hero vs. Villain (Epilogue) (featuring E. Mason)
