Kanye West

Not to derail the thread, but in Jazz there was also the blatant lie that Miles went to Newport in 1969, saw Sly & The Family Stone, realized he was “an old man playing trumpet in a jazz band” (Wynton’s words), and decided then and there to go electric. The problem with this is that Miles had already gone electric — he’d recorded In A Silent Way months prior — and his (electric) Newport set in 1969 featured material that would later end up on Bitches Brew.

ken burns also made a whole documentary about country music even though he is a self-described "all music except rap and country" guy

He wasn't exactly an avid jazz listener when he decided to make Jazz either. According to Philip Booth at Orlando Weekly.

Before he embarked on "Jazz," the former record-store clerk owned fewer than 10 jazz albums, expected classics by Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others. "I owned a handful," he says. "But I haven't known about any of the subjects I've done `before beginning the research`. I make these films to share with the world what I discover."

His journey into the world of Armstrong, Davis, Coltrane, Sidney Bechet, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and others began during a "Baseball" interview with writer Gerald Early. "He said that 2,000 years from now, America will be known for only three things: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music. I realized that I was now involved in a trilogy of American life."

So if someone insists this happened in this building, and all public records show that said building didn't exist during the given time, it doesn't help to just insist "well, they said it happened in the building, so it must've been there."

Why are you making a documentary about it? It's not just about what you, the filmmaker, believes - you're making the case to the public. Sure, there will be people who have already made up their mind, but it's misguided to characterize everyone in your audience in that manner.

2,000 years from now, America will be known for only three things: the Constitution, baseball and jazz music

Baseball? Don't think so.

Journalism isn't like the law, though.

birdistheword, I still don't understand your objections. Documentaries have advocated for a single POV for decades (Claude Lanzmann?); even Frederick Wiseman's putatively fair documentaries indict something or someone.

I reviewed the thing in 2019, and my problems weren't with its single-mindedness so much as with the way it looks like a long Dateline episode.

Why are you making a documentary about it?

xps the burns example was meant to be funny. I share everyone’s critiques of its conservatism.

My point was what Alfred is saying: it is ok for a filmmaker to express their own point of view.

Kind of lol that Kanye is now so singularly uninteresting that his thread is now about jazz documentaries and Michael Jackson (I 100% endorse this, let Kanye turn into an embarrassing footnote in musical history)

I’m not really a child welfare or education expert, but out of curiosity is running a school for children under the conditions described in the article something that could uh get one thrown in jail or is that not what americas all about

xps I'll start over, but simply expressing a point-of-view is not problematic - if anything it's unavoidable and subjectivity has always been a part of filmmaking (never just documentaries) from the very beginning.

Wiseman and Lanzmann's work don't feel like good comparisons for what I was trying to get at - Wiseman's documentaries usually encompass an entire world or process (inherently from multiple perspectives) and the films that have come out of Lanzmann's work on Shoah collectively have a similar scope.

I thought a better comparison would be to Errol Morris's films. I'll focus on The Thin Blue Line even though aesthetically his later interview films come closer since they're usually built around one interview subject. (I'm more comfortable making the comparison to The Thin Blue Line because one of the main subjects is a wronged victim - of his later films, the ones I've seen usually revolve around somebody who bears a measure of responsibility for some great wrong.)

Going back to the beginning, I was responding to the remark that some people still argue that Jackson is weird but ultimately innocent of anything criminal. I've actually had this argument with other people - I think most people believe he's guilty but there seems to be a substantial number of people who have doubts about whether he committed molestation or sexual abuse even when they believe he was likely a pedophile.

When you look at how Morris puts across Randall Adams's story, there's no comparison - where Finding Neverland falls short, it succeeds on a spectacular scale. Morris's films always have that tension between the need for finding the truth and the understanding that people's view of the past will always be flawed. That's a big reason why The Thin Blue Line held up under intense scrutiny - you walk away having a complete understanding of why so many people didn't believe Adams while believing like Morris that a great injustice was done. The fact that Adams's conviction was overturned because of the film is a testament to that.

Journalism isn't like the law, but if your reporting or your film is trying prove criminal wrongdoing, ethically and morally it should hold up to higher standards. I think a lot of documentaries these days tend to be no more than mouthpieces or approach their topics like propaganda, but I've never been a fan of that approach - it's a big reason why Michael Moore remains problematic for me. (Even at their best, they're more about preaching to the choir and I'm skeptical they actually lead to the kind of change he's hoping for.) Great documentary films aren't so cavalier about subjectivity, at least not the ones I would call great - on some level, they always address the problems and struggles with finding what's true, even interrogating themselves in the process.

should be LEAVING Neverland

Baseball? Don't think so.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Saturday, April 8, 2023 10:32 PM bookmarkflaglink

i’m skeptical too but it’s a better call than the constitution

RIP Morbs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6zYwe3YCiI

cool going full Burzum album cover now, what a piece of shit

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0xKwxjCeRf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=ZTcxMWMzOWQ1OA==

motherfuck

managed to completely avoid hearing about the new album/single until earlier today so good job everyone. everyone involved with the new album should be ashamed of themselves

Who is even bothering with him anymore?

Apologetics for this guy must feel like Trump lawyers, only difference is that they KNOW they're not going to get paid for it in the end.

According to the middle school teacher I know, he is still remarkably popular with young people, and I hear his songs played at nearly every basketball and football game I watch.

for reference:

https://i.postimg.cc/598hd73Z/Kanye-West-and-Ty-Dolla-Sign-Vultures.png

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vultures_(Kanye_West_and_Ty_Dolla_Sign_album)#Track_listing

well the credits are available here even though the album isn't out yet, but minaj has refused to let him use her years-old verse on "new body" so i figure this isn't going to be the final tracklist and there will be yet more delays/scuffed preview performances/etc. like everything he's done for years. if we're lucky it just never comes out

I get it for young people, who don’t know or care about who he actually is; I’m speaking more about people above the age of like 27

One of the instagram comments says it popped up on Apple Music for a very short time before disappearing again. Surprised Bad Bunny would be willing to be associated with this.

I was unfamiliar with Burzum. From the Wikipedia:

The cover art for Vultures consists of an 1835 Caspar David Friedrich painting, Landscape with Graves, with the album title and the subtitle "Volume 1" displayed in a black Gregorian font. An image originally believed to be the album's cover artwork, consisting of a monochromatic version of Landscape with Graves centered on a black background with the album's title displayed in white Gregorian font, was revealed on December 11, 2023, when Playboi Carti posted an iMessage exchange between him and Ye where he was sent that version.

The final cover art was revealed on December 12, 2023, by Ty Dolla Sign in an Instagram post. Writing for HipHopDX, Sam Moore described the cover as being "linked to Nazism", noting Friedrich's status as a favorite artist of Adolf Hitler; Moore further observed that the cover's typography was reminiscent of that used by Burzum, a black metal band founded by the neo-Nazi Varg Vikernes. The Burzum comparison and Hitler's adoration of Friedrich was also reported on by The Guardian and The Independent.

yeah I had no clue why the controversy behind this album cover but I knew there had to be a pretty unsubtle Nazi reference in there somewhere

yeah the font, artwork, and shading = no way in hell it wasn't intentional.

so apparently this cover is the work of this guy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosha_Rubchinskiy

who just became kanye's head of design (per genius annotation)

unsurprisingly sounds like a great guy

In December 2018, it was alleged by a 16-year-old boy that Rubchinskiy pressured him into sending explicit photographs of himself.[34] The boy included screenshots as evidence.[35] Shortly thereafter, another man claimed that Rubchinskiy also requested explicit photographs.[34] Rubchinskiy denied the accusations.[34

mostly lol, kinda sad:

Two days later, West previewed the album for fans at a restaurant in Wynwood, Florida, where he revealed the album's title and its release date.

Just picture him busting into Applebee's with a portable speaker and begging people to listen to his new album.

Kanye stands outside your window with a boombox

An Onion article begging to be written (but will be dismissed as “too likely”)

Just update the old Marilyn Manson piece

they are selling $2000 tickets to some "album rave" in Vegas for this

Hahaha I did flash on that

Think of all the better ways you could spend $2K

New York Times is going to write an article on the people who bought these $2000 tickets

"It was so disappointing. Kanye showed up 3 hours late. And the songs were less antisemitic than we expected."

I like Caspar David Friederich :(

video here gives you some idea of the lyrical content of the LP, if you want that.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/dec/13/kanye-west-wears-ku-klux-klan-style-hood-at-album-listening-event

Also is he going to wear that Karl Havoc outfit and saunter among the crowd at that Vegas event like he did last time?

a bit much to suggest any use of caspar david friedriech (or wagner or whatever) has nazi connotations

the cover does resemble a burzum cover though

i feel like w/antisemitism in music (let alone w/Kanye) it'll get worse before it gets better. vv depressing.

I mean if there's one dude who absolutely does not deserve the benefit of the doubt on something like this

obv fuck him!

just, don't fuck Caspar David afaik

i mean he did design an album cover based on burzum, a known anti semite and nazi sympathizer, for a guy who's said "i love hitler" and has a known history of public anti semitism so i'm not adding him to my christmas card list exactly

hope the media is smart enough to just not cover this