Kanye West, Yeezus, 6/18/13 (TBC because who knows anymore)

scattershot and nothing really sticks but at least he got it off his chest.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-owens/kanye-west-new-slaves_b_3300051.html

when debating whether someone is worthy of their cult of personality, "hypocrisy" is always a tough move. Anyone successful criticizing the culture that allowed their success is a hypocrite. Hard to distinguish between the reasons a song doesn't resonate and why the singer doesn't come off as heroic. I think people tend to conflate that, esp with Kanye

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/on-listening-to-new-slaves-with-white-people

ugh why can't white people just understand anything

i thought it was more of a "capitalism makes slaves of us all" than a "black folks are still slaves" thing. i guess i was wrong.

the first thing i think of naturally is prime minister sinister pete nice's immortal line "ears hang trunk in a slave hold". but i would.

kanye fever:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/05/21/185781341/kanye-west-stands-alone

http://globalgrind.com/music/kanye-west-most-dangerous-black-man-america-blog

I'm a little iffy on Kanye's political stuff but that HuffPo piece is dreadful.

I hate to go down the "you just don't get this artist" road but man, that HuffPo piece. If you can listen to Kanye West and think he isn't grappling with the contradictions of promoting and lamenting "black materialistic adoration", then I'm not even sure we're listening to the same artist. How well he grapples with that is another conversation entirely, but it's not like he's unaware he's as much a product of the shit he's criticizing as anyone else is.

Also how hard is it to google an artist's charity work before insisting that they don't give back at all?

I don't even feel right using the word "promoting" because that implies some degree of aspiration. If there's one thing I've taken away from Kanye West music it's that for all the surface glammer of it, when it gets right down to it I shouldn't aspire to be Kanye West.

I'm a little iffy on Kanye's political stuff but that HuffPo piece is dreadful.

― Simon H., Tuesday, May 21, 2013 3:27 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to be fair, you could see this about almost any huffpo piece

i really kinda hate "New Slaves" on a musical level, it tries to be super intense without drums and would probably be striking for that if that Meek Mill intro hadn't done the same thing 10 times more effectively a few months ago.

If you can listen to Kanye West and think he isn't grappling with the contradictions of promoting and lamenting "black materialistic adoration", then I'm not even sure we're listening to the same artist.

kind of feel kanye grappled with that much more smartly and also crucially more empathetically and emotionally on the college dropout and late reg - these days it's more like he's grappling with himself through the lens of it, though the grappling is definitely angrier

yeah. also the nature of his writing is so scattershot that he never really bears down and says much of anything, it's just a lot of signifiers and then he gets distracted and compares himself to Adam Sandler's character in The Waterboy.

i find it so weird that when i say my favourite kanye albums are the first two, people think i'm the weird one. songs like "all falls down" and "gold digger" had so much more insight and wit about this subject...

Well like I said, how well he grapples with it is up for debate and I agree with Lex re: earlier records handling it more intelligently, but just noting the contradiction like that HuffPo piece does as if that is by itself a novel observation about Kanye's music is such a surface read.

People think its weird to like Ye's first two albums the most?

depends on who you talk to, i think there's an emerging generation gap in his fanbase, happens to anyone who's this big for this long

I thought that was common knowledge. Kids huh

lex otm about the first album, although I prefer Graduation to Late Registration because the latter feels so damn long.

and the album ranking cycle begins again in earnest

he's def clearer and more controlled and has more perspective on dropout/registration but he also makes it p clear that if he ever becomes very famous and successful he will go insane more or less exactly like this. that's why you always see him with at least one of his watches. i wouldn't want the last few records to be any different because i really like that trajectory, from clever but besotted observer of the_beast to totally devoured inhabitant. i also like that, as omnipresent villain/lover/foil, consumer capitalism/amerikkka is almost totally indistinguishable from his own lusts. i think that's an important idea for an artist to enact and he couldn't have done it if he'd just kept writing college dropouts.

it really just bums me out, because for all his faults jay figured out a way to get to the same place while still comfortable in his skin. kanye is all pride, no dignity.

well, jay became a curator, no? that's why he never personally embarrasses himself. as a private citizen sure he's got way more dignity than kanye but as an artist in 2013 he's the guy who put together the great gatsby soundtrack.

also feel like there is something important in the "guy the president hangs out with" / "guy the president calls a jackass" dichotomy and if i were trying to make something useful out of my status as a hugely popular artist i would probably want to be the second one. even tho lol i'm sure kanye DESPERATELY wants to be the first.

not just the guy the president calls a jackass, but when the president does it, absolutely nobody says hey that's out of line or has his back at all, it's just yeah prez didn't hold his tongue

that's kind of a terrible place to be imo. it doesn't make him dangerous or counter culture, it just makes him a punchline.

late registration is the best, kanye's still a compelling artist post brain implosion, etc.

yeah, i'm not denying he's Often Ridiculous or saying that because obama calls someone a jackass (it was for swiftgate, right? he was indeed a jackass) that person must be fighting the power. if you're gonna make a kanye/jay comparison tho i think it's relevant: jay has chosen to be cool and quiet. i don't want to overstate the value of friction but i do think people overstate the value of smoothness.

xp

Lex I'm totally with you on kanye's first two albums

I dunno why I think he'll get back to that level, I keep hanging on

depends on who you talk to, i think there's an emerging generation gap in his fanbase, happens to anyone who's this big for this long

― my mans ray manzarek (some dude), Tuesday, May 21, 2013 7:47 PM (2 hours ago)

yep, same with jay

if kanye wasn't obnoxious and constantly contradicting himself he wouldn't be famous. that's his thing.. his albums are extensions of the drama of his public persona, in addition to being for the most part very good. it's his thing. he's supposed to embarrass himself.

People think its weird to like Ye's first two albums the most?

― Spottie_Ottie_Dope, Tuesday, May 21, 2013 7:42 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah it actually depresses me that people hold MBDTF in such high regard. 95% of the time i'm met with pure astonishment when i'm like "yeah it's definitely his worst album"

is it? i think graduation holds that title

fuck, let's rank these things

CD>LR>808s>MBDTF>Graduation

I don't really have an opinion of WTT, held off on listening to it until well after the hype died down and still haven't listened enough.

did i miss an album? i feel like i did

please do not do this

***RANKING KANYE***

ah ok

my bad

kind of feel kanye grappled with that much more smartly and also crucially more empathetically and emotionally on the college dropout and late reg - these days it's more like he's grappling with himself through the lens of it, though the grappling is definitely angrier

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Tuesday, May 21, 2013 7:00 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

this is a salient point but on the other hand i'm not sure what other route he had except to shun superstardom which very few artists are going to do... he's definitely very wrapped up in exactly the things he's trying to examine now. but he still has the touch... "what's a black beetle anyway? / a fucking roach" comes to mind

i actually wish he was more political... one of the problems i had with MBDTF is that i don't give a shit about him choking out his GF and fantasizing about fucking porn stars

er, black beatle

http://lovelyrides.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Volkswagen-Beetle-Black-HD-Wallpaper.jpg

i actually wish he was more political... one of the problems i had with MBDTF is that i don't give a shit about him choking out his GF and fantasizing about fucking porn stars

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 21, 2013 11:06 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm gonna just start declaring that "Hell Of A Life" was low key his first song about Kim

kind of feel kanye grappled with that much more smartly and also crucially more empathetically and emotionally on the college dropout and late reg - these days it's more like he's grappling with himself through the lens of it, though the grappling is definitely angrier

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Tuesday, May 21, 2013 7:00 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

just another OTM on this. when i heard "all falls down" i was sort of knocked out because it felt like he was thinking about things that weren't really out there in rap music, and also weren't even necessarily out there in as interesting or thoughtful ways in cultural discussions more generally -- like he was actually opening up a discussion for some people. It was mixed but there was so much potential. And maybe "school spirit" wasn't as unique as a whole, but it was certainly something new as far as rap went. And then he's developed musically since then (even though his earlier productions are just as good, if different...) but it feels like even by the second album he was less able to address anything outside his own head, and i lost track for a few years and all of a sudden he was a punchline.

I'm glad he wants to try and turn things up lyrically but A) it was easier for him when he had a more explicitly goofy sense of humor [oh man "we don't care" got away with so much because it couched it as a gag -- "joke's on you we're still alive" is just brutal] and B) new slaves is really really incoherent.

http://3lc3lc3lc.tumblr.com/post/51064842008/who-will-survive-in-america-who-will-survive-in

yeah that's good apart from 1) i'm not convinced kanye really hates himself 2) kim kardashian is white?

she isn't?

she's ethnically armenian

most people in America consider Armenians white