It's apples-oranges to me. A Nation of Millions was revolutionary, content-wise. Kanye's latest album, while of it's time in the way Ye continues to so brilliantly contradict his self-centeredness with self criticism, is just an amazing pop record. A Nation of Millions could meld young minds and change the way they think about the world. Not sure if Kanye could do that, or even sought to do that.
It's apples-oranges to me. A Nation of Millions was revolutionary, content-wise. Kanye's latest album, while of it's time in the way Ye continues to so brilliantly contradict his self-centeredness with self criticism, is just an amazing pop record. A Nation of Millions could meld young minds and change the way they think about the world. Not sure if Kanye could do that, or even sought to do that.
+1, although i feel his first two albums, as pop records, were the real revolution. If due wants to make an Epic pop/rap album, he shoudl have done so.
This is a deeper discussion than I can have from my iPhone but my .02 is that kids in 2010 are not tripping on some NOI, black liberation shit. That was a different time in 1988. Anyway I want to get into this more so apologies for the brevity but it's not going to work on this keypad
1) I wouldn't defend Pitchfork. I would defend Doug Wolk's review in Pitchfork of that Syl Johnson. Put the rating aside (hard as that may be) and I think Wolk made pretty salient points and this is a dude who knows his soul music; he's not someone who only listens to Arcade Fire and The Shins all day. That said, the "also-ran" jab was a harsh way to open.
2) The only probably I have with the "Nation/Illmatic" analogy is that the primacy of those albums felt - to me - cross-generational. Bottomline, if you liked hip-hop, whether you were 15, 25 or 35 at the time, you thought those albums were some game-changing shit. I just don't remember there being that much disagreement over those albums but then again, it was a different era I suppose.
3) The prog rock comparison is super-apt but I'm just surprised that there's such an open embrace for prog-rap.
Old dudes like it or not, but a certain generation will be listening to this and be getting the same impact that many of us got when we first heard Illmatic or Nation Of Millions.
And for the record I'm still loving this album.
I don't hate the album at all and in general, I've admired everything Kanye has put out - including "808s" (I just never want to listen to that album, ever again) - but I don't get what makes this album "Nation of Millions" or "Illmatic" level in terms of either 1) a just perfectly executed effort or 2) a paradigm-shifter.
What am I missing exactly?
it's generational
KanYe's not speaking for the over 25-30something
Ulysses31nicholas said:
pitchfork make a casual pithy comparison like that? nah they're way too busy mining teenage fanblogs for the latest in hauntological post-step nano-genres to pseudo-intellectualise about.
People talk as if Bohemian Rhapsody is a bad thing... I've been saying that rap music has been fully ensconced in it's Arena Rock era for a minute now but I think the comparisons to that would be much better suited with dudes like Three 3 Mafia and Birdman rapping over Tiesto-produced records. And regardless, nobody should be paying attention to the Pitchfuck ratings system. This is the same "publication" that gave TNG's Syl Johnson retrospective a 6.3 out of 10, starting their piece about him with something to the effect of "Make no mistake about it - Syl Johnson is an also ran (see here...)
But Oliver, I don't think it's something that can be measured. I don't know, it just is. Shit is good, I've given it about 2 weeks of objective listening and still think it is good. And as for someone in his mid 30s I am seeing this and for the most part all my friends in the same age bracket are as well, so that's a yes AND no with the generational argument. My Nation Of Millions was Nation Of Millions. But there's something with the way that this is resonating with that generation. Perhaps we are the ones that are missing it but I don't really think so.
I don't know I just said. But all I know is this - I really enjoy this music and think it is extremely well done - my only complaints are about sound fidelity and the brickwalling of the sound (which is more a product of the time than anything.)
But this is 2010. As Cannonball Adderley once said, "Music ain't supposed to stand still."
U can call this a Nations for this generation after '2' weeks? Seriously?
Just because its heat, you gonna say its a Genre bookmark. I know u like dude but applying the context of how big Nations was in 1988 or wack ass Illmatic was in 92 as = the Kanye in 2010 = biggin/hypin this shit up to emphasize how much you like it.
You're missing the forest for the trees. Like I said, Nation Of Millions is my Nation Of Millions... But for someone born in 1993? No question that this can - AND WILL - be this album for many people in that generation. That may be me making a prediction but I definitely see it...
Time continues to move regardless of whether or not we move with it.
How can this be their Nations? Nations was not just a good/great album. The impact made by Nations is not just within Hip Hop. The 18 year old in 2010 doesnt even have the cultural context of what made Nations big w/ this Kanye album.
This is just some silly Kobe is the next Jordan bullshit.
Can we examine this shit w/out tryin to equalize it w/ albums that made an impact when the "industry" was way different in '88.
Dirk is the new Larry Bird.......really?
Nations made niggas re-evaluate their Blackness. Illmatic revitalized East Coast lyricism outside of NY.
BTW: if this signals a prog-rap moment, then that means punk-rap is about to come back into vogue, to then be followed by the new post-hip-hop style that will be to rap music what hip-hop was to prog rock.
In other words, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" = death of hip-hop.
Cosmo might be sayin that despite the NOI shit that this album is going to have the SAME cultural impact that Nations had. Like making young kid and old folks change the way they dress and make beats they way Kanye does.
IMO the game is way too spread out to do that.
Nations played on the radio. Dont Belive The Hype wasnt some Alt shit. Old folks heard it.
As far as the Pitchfork rating, I am not sure but I wouldn't be surprised if they had a Rolling Stone-type arrangement, where the reviewer pens a review, perhaps submits a star rating, but that the final rating is determined by the editors. Them giving a perfect rating to the Kanye album is akin to the New York Times endorsing Obama for president--it's just something you would expect to happen.
lol at the dude behind 'Beer' complaining that Kanye isn't profound enough
Up your reading comprehension Dracula, I never he complained about him not being anything, I suggested "what if he was". you really need to get of my fuckin' jock fam.
I don't see that at all. Kanye's first album came out when those 25-30 year olds were what? 19-24. And six years later he's no longer speaking to the same people who liked "College Dropout" and "Late Registration"? I can't see that. Kanye didn't radically switch up his style in those six years ("808s" excepted). If anything, the kind of changes he's made - you would think - would skew more to an older audience, but that generational point is where I'm getting lost.
Back to the "Nations" comparison - was that a quote from somewhere? Because I just have a hard time seeing how the two can be comparable in terms of impact. It's not just that "Nations" changed what we thought a rap album could sound like. It also radically redrew the possibilities of what hip-hop could accomplish.
So while I can see how one might think of MBDTF as a sonically radical album, I'm having trouble understanding how it'd be able to shift our perception of what hip-hop can achieve. To put it a different way, no album in 2010 could possibly have the same impact now as "Nations" did in 1988.
Maybe it's more like..."Raising Hell"? "Low End Theory"? "The Chronic?" Now that I think about it, I'm having trouble thinking of what a good analogy would be, mostly b/c I just don't think this album is better than Kanye's first three.
lol at the dude behind 'Beer' complaining that Kanye isn't profound enough
Up your reading comprehension Dracula, I never he complained about him not being anything, I suggested "what if he was". you really need to get of my fuckin' jock fam.
so touchy
good thing no one will ever care enough about an album of yours to discuss it this way
lol at the dude behind 'Beer' complaining that Kanye isn't profound enough
Up your reading comprehension Dracula, I never he complained about him not being anything, I suggested "what if he was". you really need to get of my fuckin' jock fam.
so touchy
good thing no one will ever care enough about an album of yours to discuss it this way
Maybe it's more like..."Raising Hell"? "Low End Theory"? "The Chronic?" Now that I think about it, I'm having trouble thinking of what a good analogy would be, mostly b/c I just don't think this album is better than Kanye's first three.
Well, it's probably safe to say 808s was Kanye's The Love Movement. Which would make Kid Cudi Kanye's Dilla. Which might make this album this generation's Fantastic, Vol. 2. A little sin, a little faith, a definite Midwestern grounding, a bunch of solid guest spots. It's not so far fetched. I think I am kidding.
lol at the dude behind 'Beer' complaining that Kanye isn't profound enough
Up your reading comprehension Dracula, I never he complained about him not being anything, I suggested "what if he was". you really need to get of my fuckin' jock fam.
so touchy
good thing no one will ever care enough about an album of yours to discuss it this way
Old dudes like it or not, but a certain generation will be listening to this and be getting the same impact that many of us got when we first heard Illmatic or Nation Of Millions.
I'm not sure I agree. And that's not at all a comment on the quality of the Kanye record; it's just that with the ever-increasing fragmentation of every kind of listenership, I really question whether the kind of broad, galvanizing, and lasting impact that you're talking about is possible anymore, in rap or anywhere else.
I think the exponential increase in media saturation makes it a lot harder to have that more focused, personal relationship with a record. Before Illmatic came out, and even after, I don't think most folks had any ideas at all about Nas as a person; most of us knew him first and foremost as the guy who was rapping on the record--the rest got filled in later, if it got filled in at all. Kids coming up on Kanye records can't really say the same. I'm not saying their connection to the work will necessarily be any less valid than us old dudes' connection to Critical Beatdown or whatever, but I have to think it will be considerably more diffuse.
BTW: if this signals a prog-rap moment, then that means punk-rap is about to come back into vogue
you're joking, but punk rap is exactly what I would call a lot of current stuff, from Waka Flaka to the Odd Future crew.
I logged in specifically to make this point, but then saw that you had done it for me.
It's an imperfect analogy, but it's definitely already in full swing, and I think I would probably trace its point of origin to Soulja Boy emerging into national consciousness three years ago--a 17 year old making lo-fi music in his bedroom and overtly rejecting many of the values of older fans/artists/critics/etc. I think Soulja Boy's approach really resonated with a lot of young people and, even though others have taken his approach further and done more interesting things with it, his importance should be recognized. Noz also did some writing recently about the significance of Soulja Boy's age--since the mid-nineties rap has skewed steadily older, and Soulja's emergence marked the return of a significant self-directed teenage voice.
BTW: if this signals a prog-rap moment, then that means punk-rap is about to come back into vogue
you're joking, but punk rap is exactly what I would call a lot of current stuff, from Waka Flaka to the Odd Future crew.
I logged in specifically to make this point, but then saw that you had done it for me.
It's an imperfect analogy, but it's definitely already in full swing, and I think I would probably trace its point of origin to Soulja Boy emerging into national consciousness three years ago--a 17 year old making lo-fi music in his bedroom and overtly rejecting many of the values of older fans/artists/critics/etc. I think Soulja Boy's approach really resonated with a lot of young people and, even though others have taken his approach further and done more interesting things with it, his importance should be recognized. Noz also did some writing recently about the significance of Soulja Boy's age--since the mid-nineties rap has skewed steadily older, and Soulja's emergence marked the return of a significant self-directed teenage voice.
All great points (though it also points out how my original joke about punk-rap doesn't really work as analogy given what punk itself meant in its moment, i.e. it's more than just validating a teenage voice).
So where does Kanye fit into this? Because it would seem to me, his productivity skews to the generation that came before what you're describing here, esp. with this new album.
BTW: if this signals a prog-rap moment, then that means punk-rap is about to come back into vogue
you're joking, but punk rap is exactly what I would call a lot of current stuff, from Waka Flaka to the Odd Future crew.
I logged in specifically to make this point, but then saw that you had done it for me.
It's an imperfect analogy, but it's definitely already in full swing, and I think I would probably trace its point of origin to Soulja Boy emerging into national consciousness three years ago--a 17 year old making lo-fi music in his bedroom and overtly rejecting many of the values of older fans/artists/critics/etc. I think Soulja Boy's approach really resonated with a lot of young people and, even though others have taken his approach further and done more interesting things with it, his importance should be recognized. Noz also did some writing recently about the significance of Soulja Boy's age--since the mid-nineties rap has skewed steadily older, and Soulja's emergence marked the return of a significant self-directed teenage voice.
All great points (though it also points out how my original joke about punk-rap doesn't really work as analogy given what punk itself meant in its moment, i.e. it's more than just validating a teenage voice).
So where does Kanye fit into this? Because it would seem to me, his productivity skews to the generation that came before what you're describing here, esp. with this new album.
yeah but imagine what would happen if Kanye came back on some Black liberation shit education for the nation shit.
WOW
I am imagining it and am wondering why you think it's a good idea.
precisely because the mere thought of it just blew your mind. hit em in the face with the unexpected.
Well, no--the idea that somebody would look to Kanye for this type of content is mindblowing to me; I think the reality of him attempting it is likely to be considerably less interesting than the music he actually makes.
I think all the analogies and comparisons arent really relevant - music consumption and criticism exist in a completely different environment than the 90's. Even the Pitchfork or RS dudes that are speaking of this record as a landmark record are missing the point - there will be no more landmark records like Illmatic or It takes a Nation. Ever. Not because the music's bad, but because the industry doesn't function in a way that would give any meaning to this terminology..
Comments
+1, although i feel his first two albums, as pop records, were the real revolution. If due wants to make an Epic pop/rap album, he shoudl have done so.
this record is Timid
1) I wouldn't defend Pitchfork. I would defend Doug Wolk's review in Pitchfork of that Syl Johnson. Put the rating aside (hard as that may be) and I think Wolk made pretty salient points and this is a dude who knows his soul music; he's not someone who only listens to Arcade Fire and The Shins all day. That said, the "also-ran" jab was a harsh way to open.
2) The only probably I have with the "Nation/Illmatic" analogy is that the primacy of those albums felt - to me - cross-generational. Bottomline, if you liked hip-hop, whether you were 15, 25 or 35 at the time, you thought those albums were some game-changing shit. I just don't remember there being that much disagreement over those albums but then again, it was a different era I suppose.
3) The prog rock comparison is super-apt but I'm just surprised that there's such an open embrace for prog-rap.
How can this be their Nations? Nations was not just a good/great album. The impact made by Nations is not just within Hip Hop. The 18 year old in 2010 doesnt even have the cultural context of what made Nations big w/ this Kanye album.
This is just some silly Kobe is the next Jordan bullshit.
Can we examine this shit w/out tryin to equalize it w/ albums that made an impact when the "industry" was way different in '88.
Dirk is the new Larry Bird.......really?
Nations made niggas re-evaluate their Blackness. Illmatic revitalized East Coast lyricism outside of NY.
Fuck some trees and forests.....
yeah but imagine what would happen if Kanye came back on some Black liberation shit education for the nation shit.
He has told us he can and does do whatever Kanye wants, would love to so a real unexpected artistic turn. this is not that.
In other words, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" = death of hip-hop.
IMO the game is way too spread out to do that.
Nations played on the radio. Dont Belive The Hype wasnt some Alt shit. Old folks heard it.
I tried
Up your reading comprehension Dracula, I never he complained about him not being anything, I suggested "what if he was". you really need to get of my fuckin' jock fam.
you're joking, but punk rap is exactly what I would call a lot of current stuff, from Waka Flaka to the Odd Future crew.
I don't see that at all. Kanye's first album came out when those 25-30 year olds were what? 19-24. And six years later he's no longer speaking to the same people who liked "College Dropout" and "Late Registration"? I can't see that. Kanye didn't radically switch up his style in those six years ("808s" excepted). If anything, the kind of changes he's made - you would think - would skew more to an older audience, but that generational point is where I'm getting lost.
Back to the "Nations" comparison - was that a quote from somewhere? Because I just have a hard time seeing how the two can be comparable in terms of impact. It's not just that "Nations" changed what we thought a rap album could sound like. It also radically redrew the possibilities of what hip-hop could accomplish.
So while I can see how one might think of MBDTF as a sonically radical album, I'm having trouble understanding how it'd be able to shift our perception of what hip-hop can achieve. To put it a different way, no album in 2010 could possibly have the same impact now as "Nations" did in 1988.
Maybe it's more like..."Raising Hell"? "Low End Theory"? "The Chronic?" Now that I think about it, I'm having trouble thinking of what a good analogy would be, mostly b/c I just don't think this album is better than Kanye's first three.
so touchy
good thing no one will ever care enough about an album of yours to discuss it this way
:oh_snap:
So there you go! All we need now is our "Rapper's Delight" moment.
Well, it's probably safe to say 808s was Kanye's The Love Movement. Which would make Kid Cudi Kanye's Dilla. Which might make this album this generation's Fantastic, Vol. 2. A little sin, a little faith, a definite Midwestern grounding, a bunch of solid guest spots. It's not so far fetched. I think I am kidding.
Chill
I think the exponential increase in media saturation makes it a lot harder to have that more focused, personal relationship with a record. Before Illmatic came out, and even after, I don't think most folks had any ideas at all about Nas as a person; most of us knew him first and foremost as the guy who was rapping on the record--the rest got filled in later, if it got filled in at all. Kids coming up on Kanye records can't really say the same. I'm not saying their connection to the work will necessarily be any less valid than us old dudes' connection to Critical Beatdown or whatever, but I have to think it will be considerably more diffuse.
I logged in specifically to make this point, but then saw that you had done it for me.
It's an imperfect analogy, but it's definitely already in full swing, and I think I would probably trace its point of origin to Soulja Boy emerging into national consciousness three years ago--a 17 year old making lo-fi music in his bedroom and overtly rejecting many of the values of older fans/artists/critics/etc. I think Soulja Boy's approach really resonated with a lot of young people and, even though others have taken his approach further and done more interesting things with it, his importance should be recognized. Noz also did some writing recently about the significance of Soulja Boy's age--since the mid-nineties rap has skewed steadily older, and Soulja's emergence marked the return of a significant self-directed teenage voice.
WOW
I am imagining it and am wondering why you think it's a good idea.
All great points (though it also points out how my original joke about punk-rap doesn't really work as analogy given what punk itself meant in its moment, i.e. it's more than just validating a teenage voice).
So where does Kanye fit into this? Because it would seem to me, his productivity skews to the generation that came before what you're describing here, esp. with this new album.
precisely because the mere thought of it just blew your mind. hit em in the face with the unexpected.
Teenagers Believe The Hype!!!
Well, no--the idea that somebody would look to Kanye for this type of content is mindblowing to me; I think the reality of him attempting it is likely to be considerably less interesting than the music he actually makes.
Post-modern, brah