Dr. Octagonecologyst

Solid 90s weirdy hiphop. Sounds a bit Prince Paul by way of the Gravediggaz.

I understand it's legacy - and help create a sub-genre...but so so so much better 90's hip hop out there that this isn't. From Tribe to Jurassic 5 this aint it. Ramblings of a super horny 16 yr old boy into weird science fiction - idk, i'll pass.

First Hip-Hop album on this list! I know this album, but never listened to it. Really reminds me of "Deltron 3030". Just don't like immature lyrics, but I read that's Kool Keith's character and his sense of humour, apparently. Ah, looks like Dan the Automator produced this, so "Deltron" connection is established. Good hip-hop albums which I just rated 3.5/5.0 on RYM, could go either way here.

It's strange; some 90's hip-hop really does it for me, and some really doesn't. This one doesn't do it for me. There are elements of the acid-tinged production that I appreciate, but it stagnates extremely quickly to the point where it starts to actively annoy me after a while. The lyrics also get to me pretty quickly; I'm not prudish or humorless at all, but I was not feeling the crassness of this one tonight. Perhaps I'd be a little kinder if it were half as long, but an hour-plus of the one-note soundscapes was too much for my tastes.

2/5

Well, this exists...

Never heard of Dr O … will probably never hear him again.

Still weird and wild, like it more now than I did back in the day

I’m at a 2.5 that I will bump down to a 2, even though I genuinely liked about 7 of the tracks here.

I don’t know, man. That’s just aggressively mediocre to my ears. Kool Keith had a good feature on Jurassic 5’s “Power in Numbers”, but he sheds that general style here for the eccentricities of Dr. Octopus, the “homicidal, extraterrestrial, time-traveling gynecologist and surgeon”. I am not a big fan of Dr. Octopus. This isn’t a Slim Shady situation where the over-the-top nonsense loops back around to genuinely witty wordplay with a party flow & an enjoyable vibe. Dr. Octopus, as a character, is crass, a rapist, and an all-around generally terrible alien with not a single redeeming quality to him. It’s not enjoyable to hear about his escapades, and there’s never really a comeuppance for it. It’s kind of just torture porn, in a way.

Of course, I’m prone to give some degree of leeway since it is still so over-the-top that you can’t imagine Kool Keith advocating for any of this, but it’s aged really poorly into 2025, and even for 1996, this just feels like shock-jock perverted humor to some degree. I just don’t fuck with the lyrics that much. On top of the lyricism being an issue, what really drags this fucking album down is the beats, vocals, & flows. It’s just the most dry energy I’ve heard from a mid-90s rap album yet. Kool Keith does not have a rap voice like a Biggie, a Jay-Z, or a Tupac, and it desperately shows. He’s relatively monotone throughout the whole thing. It wouldn’t be a major issue if he just had a normal flow, but of course, Dr. Octopus being the alien scumbag that he is, simply refuses to glide on the vast majority of these already dry fucking beats. It’s a very “stream of consciousness” style of rap, but it just doesn’t work, especially with the verbosity on so many of the early tracks diluting the theming of the album.

Ultimately, I just didn’t like it that much. It’s not the worst album ever, but… fuck me, it’s just boring. The shock jock value doesn’t draw any humor (and that’s like, half the songs), and it’s an hour long, which just means it drags the fuck on. If it were shorter & tighter, I might be more inclined to barely bump it up to a 3, but… nope. It’s just not a good album experience. I don’t know if this should be on the list, really. If I’m ever thinking that, then something just isn’t clicking. Hence, a 2.5 bumped down to a 2. If it clicks for you, then good on you; I hear the appeal, but it's just not there for me. It's a shame, because I do think Kool Keith is GOOD at rapping, based on what I've heard. I just don't really like Dr. Octopus, which makes me kinda disappointed.

This was fucking weird. The guys got flow, for sure. The abstractness/surrealism/non-sequitur character of the lyrics makes it somewhat hard to tell if he's one of the greats, or uses these "features" to obscure the fact he can't maintain the flow and have substantive, meaningful rhymes. Second to none turntablism too.

This is hard to rate, but I'm going ⭐⭐⭐

One of the strangest and greatest things to happen to rap. One has to ask if there even would be a deltron 3030 without this? Odd side bar: one night I got a call at my little bar that Kool Keith (also known as Dr. Octagon) needed a holdover place to play a show. I said yes and he played to all of 45 people and rocked the little house and tagged the heck out of my bathroom and handed out old porno mags. Real story.

Well it’s not great musically, it makes light of assault by medical providers, and it’s freaking odd. I would give it one star but it definitely made me listen to see what he was going to say next. It takes stones to release something this bizarrely nasty. I fully understand the “why is this on the list?” reaction to some albums. In this one’s case I think the answer is you have to hear it to believe somebody made this- and other people apparently bought it!

This was pretty decent, but not as good as yesterday's Ghostface Killa. The beats were pretty good, I was less excited by the rapping. A middle-to-high three.

Fine. I liked “earth people” and “blue flowers,” but the song that actually made me sit up, my clear favorite, was “bear witness,” which barely has any lyrics. Maybe says something about something, that.

Such a dope album, Dr. Octagon is a weird but extraordinarily lyricist and rapper. It's almost surprising that he doesn't come up more often in Hip-Hop legends conversations. I knew Earth People previously, and I would recognize Blue Flowers, but honestly there's not a real hit on this album. It flows together really well and has some good moments, so totally worth the listen. Okay, hold up, turns out Dr. Octagon is Kool Keith, he DOES come up in conversations about greats of hip-hop! I'm going to dig in further.

I don't know if one of the best 'rap' albums of the nineties, but the underlying music is up there.

Super cool album cover and some real interesting ideas here. The humor is definitely present and the beats are good. Not sure I’d go back to this one too much due to the large presence of skits. The scratching on here is really good too. This just makes me really hope that Deltron 3030 is also on the list. Favorites were No Awareness, Blue Flowers, and I’m Destructive.

Point off for Misogyny. The flow and rhymes were of course top notch, the production was good for 90's gangster rap but I really could have used some melodic breaks.

The Good: In case we get sick, there will be a doctor in the house!
The Bad: this only applies if you get sick in your private parts…
The Ugly: I’m not a girl…

What in the actual FUCK!!!!!?????????!!?!?!?!??!?!??!?
How many times does a rapper from the ‘90s have to mention Shakespeare as this will give his “poetry” more meaning?
When will the NON OBVIOUS ABUSE of a thesaurus be rewarded?

Why my personal abuse of many CAPS and !@!!!!, well, glad you asked…
The last 7 albums, SEVEN albums, that I’ve had the DISPLEASURE of finding on this list has contained only 1 3*, 2 2*, which means 4 1*… and with this utter piece of useless TRASH that makes 5 1*

Then again, I don’t like hip hop, nor really care for country, and those were the main genres I was forced to listen to…
Here’s to tomorrow ROCKIN’ my socks off PLEASE

1*

Reveal reaction: Oh HELL yes! I used to listen to the shit out of this album, but it's been a long time. This album was never meant for general consumption, so I'm sure the overall rating is going to be dogshit, but I cannot wait to revisit this and see how it stands the test of time!

It's still really good to me. A little corny at times, but still interesting and unique. I think it's a 3.5, but I'm going to give it 4 stars because I'd happily listen to it again and again.

I can't condone large sections of the lyrical content, but this is weird and creative. Much stranger than I expected. I think it might be quite addictive.