Faux,
You, like my wife, are a lawyer. You, also like my wife, apparently get pissed off when I cite specific things to reinforce my argument.
I would think lawyers would like to talk about particulars and not speculate about the artists deep twisted fantasies and then read those in to the record.
I'm glad you like Kanyes ice skating routine soundtrack album. Have a blessed thanksgiving.
so this thread got me to purchase the album. i agree with all those who say that the album is overrated by the "critics", which is sorta ironic cuz the "critic" on the board also thinks it overrated. either way, it is an interesting album, i think someone said earlier that they would rather see kanye aim high and fall short rather than settle, and thats a sentiment i share. i wonder though in this thread whether its the music that generates all this conversation or the person? i know its difficult to separate the two, but i feel like the rolling stones, p4k et al. rated the album as highly as they have because the album is symbolic to them of the story/redemption of kanye the past year and a half.
i like college dropout better. i like late registration the best.
also i think its funny that a college professor is goin back and forth with a guy who's handle is rape_donkeys.
my .02.
back to writing my diss. good distraction from org syn tho.
people arguing about who "gets" Kanye. Is he that deep? He seems to define himself every time he opens his mouth.
Yes.
It's quite possible to "get" something and still be unimpressed.
Not being a fan of his music, I have nothing to contribute to what the record sounds like???but the dude is clearly a struggling artist - just not in financial terms.
I wish he would work his shit out through his music, videos, etc. rather than on the Today Show or any other public entertainment realm.
It detracts from everything else he does imo. The sloppy cry for attention is not a good look.
It???s hard to take his ode to Matthew Barney seriously or otherwise sincere lyrics when he acts like an ass at every turn.
I have heard the Taylor Swift thing was a set-up??? - at this point, I can believe anything, and let???s play and say it???s true - to what end? There is that pathology where people create problems so they can be the one to solve them.
He could also be attempting one of the most elaborate performance art pieces ever.
I am glad West is making music, he needs to stop yanking the spotlight on himself through foolish antics though.
Oliver - what exactly are your problems with "Blame Game"? It seems to be the consensus stand out track amongst the people who are enjoying this album and IMHO it's fucking beautiful and the best distillation of what Kanye tries to do since probably "All Falls Down."
I kind of have to side with Rape Donks in that maybe you don't fully understand Kanye and/or his audience if you're reading that track in particular as the dud.
Faux,
You, like my wife, are a lawyer. You, also like my wife, apparently get pissed off when I cite specific things to reinforce my argument.
I would think lawyers would like to talk about particulars and not speculate about the artists deep twisted fantasies and then read those in to the record.
I'm glad you like Kanyes ice skating routine soundtrack album. Have a blessed thanksgiving.
Your argument, as best as I can discern, is that: a) the album fails to live up to Kanye's grandiose pronouncements; and b) it is an insufficient departure from his previous work.
The first haff of the album didnt blow mw away, but Blame Game, Lost In The World, and Who Will Survive In America rescued this shit for me, leaving a good impression in the end. Those joints are a dope dismount after a regular-ass performance.
so this thread got me to purchase the album. i agree with all those who say that the album is overrated by the "critics", which is sorta ironic cuz the "critic" on the board also thinks it overrated.
I wouldn't say it's overrated; I just can't cosign onto the idea that this is either 1) the best thing Kanye has ever done or 2) a milestone/masterpiece of game-changing proportions. But I actually "rate" the album fairly highly and I'll defend the album's strengths against many of the critiques people have offered up here.
also i think its funny that a college professor is goin back and forth with a guy who's handle is rape_donkeys.
Meh. RD's pattern of hate is charmingly fluffy compared to the typical vitriol I see thrown about by students, colleagues and administrators.
Oliver - what exactly are your problems with "Blame Game"?.
1) I don't think John Legend sounds good on it - at all - and his croons open the first minute of the song that, at this point, still has 6:50 left in the tank.
2) It was easily my least favorite track (musically) on the album. Ordinarily, I like how Ye plays with keys but sonically, the combination of elements felt like a muddled mess and it simply didn't work for me.
3) Did I mention it's nearly EIGHT minutes? It's not that I have a problem with long songs, but nothing about this song made the length feel justified. Just to put it in perspective, my single favorite song on the album was "Devil in a New Dress" and I didn't think I could tire of it but on the LP version (compared to the Good Friday) version, it just veers off into "yo, check my arrangement!" territory plus an uninspired Rick Ross cameo. So even there, I reach for the FF button after Kanye's verses are done. So my patience with a song like "Blame Game" is infinitely shorter given that I don't like the track, I hate the first minute of it and then...
4) There's the last three minutes of the song which I thought was awkward and uncomfortable (to quote Faux) but unlike him, I didn't find the redemptive element to its purpose or worth. To me, it felt like a risky idea that ran for too long.
5) I also felt like it's mis-sequenced but the more I think about, I didn't like the transition from "Hell of a Life" to "Blame Game" so it maybe that the former should been somewhere else. "Blame Game" to "Lost in the World" worked but maybe I was just so relieved the song was over, ANYTHING after it would have been welcome.
On "Blame Game," I can't help but chuckle every time I hear Chris Rock say, "You never used to talk dirty; now you're damn disgusting!" ... "This some Cirque du Soleil!"
Would an extended Quincy Jones rant about Kanye appear in any U.S. newspaper? Doubt it. As far as writing for an orchestra, maybe Kanye has not done that, but his string sections have been awesome ever since he collaborated with Jon Brion on that second album.
maybe you don't fully understand Kanye and/or his audience if you're reading that track in particular as the dud.
Noz: I think trying to understand where an artist is coming from is important - whether in terms of what he/she is motivated by or what the intentions are for the audience. But I don't think one's opinion of that music should be beholden to those things. Either a song - as a piece of music - sounds good to you. Or it doesn't. I doubt I could convince you to like a song that falls flat on your ears by breaking down every possible facet of its maker's intent.
Also: I've consistently said and written favorable things about Kanye throughout his entire career; I don't care that he makes a constant ass out of himself, he also blows my mind on the regular and I think the world of music is richer for having him in it (as you well know, that's not a universally shared opinion). I defended "808s and Heartbreaks" at a time when it seemed to be panned everywhere else because I admired the vision of it and his ability to actualize it in sound and feel. So all those times before, when I was praising Kanye, was I also not "fully understanding" him?
Also, I don't know if I "fully understand" his audience given that his audience seems massively broad and diverse beyond the point where it's really possible to make generalizations about what they like about Kanye and why.
I find the line of thinking here troubling since it suggests that there's one "right" way to consider an artist and their work, i.e. via the artist's intent and whatever "the audience" thinks of it. I mean, am I not "the audience"? Or am I in the wrong audience?
The first haff of the album didnt blow mw away, but Blame Game, Lost In The World, and Who Will Survive In America rescued this shit for me, leaving a good impression in the end. Those joints are a dope dismount after a regular-ass performance.
I went the opposite direction; I loved the momentum and energy of the first half of the album, especially with "Power" (Top 5, all-time best Kanye songs?). However, once you get to "Runaway" is where the torpor set in for me.
I also think the album would have ended just fine with "Lost in the World" (rather than going into what I thought was a rather cheap use of Gil-Scott). The end of the "Runaway" movie, where that song is blasting and Kanye's running out of the forest, was one of the few moments in that whole thing where I felt genuinely astounded. It's a great "closer" on its own.
I don't care that he makes a constant ass out of himself
You should care! Kanye making a constant ass out of himself is a large part of what makes Kanye great and what makes an album like this compelling. You cannot separate his music from the big picture multimedia personality driven aspects of his art. You can't process an emotional artist on a strictly intellectual level. "Blame Glame" isn't awesome because it meets some rubric where its length and the quality of John Legend's vocals and the mixing of the drums are perfect but because it punches listeners squarely in the gut. If you're unable engage it on that level - or at least recognize how and why his audience does - then you are missing the point completely.
Which is to say that you sound like someone who has never had rough sex in a bathroom stall.
I find the line of thinking here troubling since it suggests that there's one "right" way to consider an artist and their work, i.e. via the artist's intent and whatever "the audience" thinks of it. I mean, am I not "the audience"?
You can't process a purely emotional artist on a strictly intellectual level
Hold up: you wanted to know why I didn't like the song so I explained it, best I could. But ultimately, my *reaction* and dislike to the song is purely emotional. As in "I'm not feeling it." The song does nothing for me emotionally but since I wanted to be slightly more descriptive than just saying "I'm not feeling it" I tried to detangle what about it wasn't working. But absent that request, it's still a pretty simple, emotional thing to say that a song isn't touching you. Whereas it punched you in the gut, it did not for me.
I "get" how the song fits in with Kanye's public persona/drama. But unlike, say, listening to Marvin Gaye on "Here My Dear", "Blame Game" didn't connect with me.
noz said:
If you're unable engage it on that level - or at least recognize how and why his audience does - then you are missing the point completely.
Again, either a song works for a listener or it doesn't. I'm willing to engage the song on the basis of its intent but that's an intellectual exercise. Recognizing why other people feel the song won't make me feel it if I don't already feel it.
I want to respond at greater length to a number of points, but don't have much time right now, so I'll pop in just to dispense with a few strawmen:
- I haven't called this Kanye's best, or even this year's. Not sure who has, here. Those distinctions don't mean much IMO, nor do they matter to this discussion. I don't care if anyone thinks another album by him is superior, or if Public Enemy is better. Those records are not being released this week and people's private stratification of them is mostly irrelevant.
- Kanye rapping about himself, and others rapping about the sun in the sky, or why there's not a bean in a beanpie, are not mutually exclusive or interdependent. I think at this point it's pretty ridiculous to expect anything other than this from Kanye, he's never *not* been anything less than completely self-obsessed. So we should hang up the "but what if he were rapping about PYRAMIDS!" angle.
You can't process a purely emotional artist on a strictly intellectual level
Hold up: you wanted to know why I didn't like the song so I explained it, best I could. But ultimately, my *reaction* and dislike to the song is purely emotional. As in "I'm not feeling it." The song does nothing for me emotionally but since I wanted to be slightly more descriptive than just saying "I'm not feeling it" I tried to detangle what about it wasn't working. But absent that request, it's still a pretty simple, emotional thing to say that a song isn't touching you. Whereas it punched you in the gut, it did not for me.
I "get" how the song fits in with Kanye's public persona/drama. But unlike, say, listening to Marvin Gaye on "Here My Dear", "Blame Game" didn't connect with me.
This isn't about *your* emotions, it's about Kanye's emotions and the listeners that are able to internalize them. That you don't personally like "Blame Game" is perfectly fine but your initial claim that "Blame Game" is somehow indefensible suggests a dramatic misread of Kanye and how his music is digested.
Can you name a hip-hop song about love/bad relationships to which you had a visceral connection? Please don't say LL Cool J's "I Need Love."
Sure but my "visceral connection" to a song is almost always tied into its sonic impact *first*, rather than its thematic content. I certainly have no problems with rappers rapping about love/bad relationships as a theme. It's how you express that theme - as a song - that matters to me.
You can't process a purely emotional artist on a strictly intellectual level
Hold up: you wanted to know why I didn't like the song so I explained it, best I could. But ultimately, my *reaction* and dislike to the song is purely emotional. As in "I'm not feeling it." The song does nothing for me emotionally but since I wanted to be slightly more descriptive than just saying "I'm not feeling it" I tried to detangle what about it wasn't working. But absent that request, it's still a pretty simple, emotional thing to say that a song isn't touching you. Whereas it punched you in the gut, it did not for me.
I "get" how the song fits in with Kanye's public persona/drama. But unlike, say, listening to Marvin Gaye on "Here My Dear", "Blame Game" didn't connect with me.
This isn't about *your* emotions, it's about Kanye's emotions and the listeners that are able to internalize them. That you don't personally like "Blame Game" is perfectly fine but your initial claim that "Blame Game" is somehow indefensible suggests a dramatic misread of Kanye and how his music is digested.
Fair enough.
Looking back, I can see that I took the wrong tack in simply trying to say, "man, I really didn't like that song." It was an off-the-cuff, parenthetical remark which I didn't intend to be treated as a full-out indictment of Kanye, his ouevre or his audience.
Comments
You, like my wife, are a lawyer. You, also like my wife, apparently get pissed off when I cite specific things to reinforce my argument.
I would think lawyers would like to talk about particulars and not speculate about the artists deep twisted fantasies and then read those in to the record.
I'm glad you like Kanyes ice skating routine soundtrack album. Have a blessed thanksgiving.
i like college dropout better. i like late registration the best.
also i think its funny that a college professor is goin back and forth with a guy who's handle is rape_donkeys.
my .02.
back to writing my diss. good distraction from org syn tho.
Yes.
It's quite possible to "get" something and still be unimpressed.
Not being a fan of his music, I have nothing to contribute to what the record sounds like???but the dude is clearly a struggling artist - just not in financial terms.
I wish he would work his shit out through his music, videos, etc. rather than on the Today Show or any other public entertainment realm.
It detracts from everything else he does imo. The sloppy cry for attention is not a good look.
It???s hard to take his ode to Matthew Barney seriously or otherwise sincere lyrics when he acts like an ass at every turn.
I have heard the Taylor Swift thing was a set-up??? - at this point, I can believe anything, and let???s play and say it???s true - to what end? There is that pathology where people create problems so they can be the one to solve them.
He could also be attempting one of the most elaborate performance art pieces ever.
I am glad West is making music, he needs to stop yanking the spotlight on himself through foolish antics though.
I kind of have to side with Rape Donks in that maybe you don't fully understand Kanye and/or his audience if you're reading that track in particular as the dud.
Your argument, as best as I can discern, is that: a) the album fails to live up to Kanye's grandiose pronouncements; and b) it is an insufficient departure from his previous work.
The cited specific is too much faint guitar buzz.
There's no real relationship between the two.
You are grasping.
Yeah.
The first haff of the album didnt blow mw away, but Blame Game, Lost In The World, and Who Will Survive In America rescued this shit for me, leaving a good impression in the end. Those joints are a dope dismount after a regular-ass performance.
I wouldn't say it's overrated; I just can't cosign onto the idea that this is either 1) the best thing Kanye has ever done or 2) a milestone/masterpiece of game-changing proportions. But I actually "rate" the album fairly highly and I'll defend the album's strengths against many of the critiques people have offered up here.
Meh. RD's pattern of hate is charmingly fluffy compared to the typical vitriol I see thrown about by students, colleagues and administrators.
Give me a few hours.
1) I don't think John Legend sounds good on it - at all - and his croons open the first minute of the song that, at this point, still has 6:50 left in the tank.
2) It was easily my least favorite track (musically) on the album. Ordinarily, I like how Ye plays with keys but sonically, the combination of elements felt like a muddled mess and it simply didn't work for me.
3) Did I mention it's nearly EIGHT minutes? It's not that I have a problem with long songs, but nothing about this song made the length feel justified. Just to put it in perspective, my single favorite song on the album was "Devil in a New Dress" and I didn't think I could tire of it but on the LP version (compared to the Good Friday) version, it just veers off into "yo, check my arrangement!" territory plus an uninspired Rick Ross cameo. So even there, I reach for the FF button after Kanye's verses are done. So my patience with a song like "Blame Game" is infinitely shorter given that I don't like the track, I hate the first minute of it and then...
4) There's the last three minutes of the song which I thought was awkward and uncomfortable (to quote Faux) but unlike him, I didn't find the redemptive element to its purpose or worth. To me, it felt like a risky idea that ran for too long.
5) I also felt like it's mis-sequenced but the more I think about, I didn't like the transition from "Hell of a Life" to "Blame Game" so it maybe that the former should been somewhere else. "Blame Game" to "Lost in the World" worked but maybe I was just so relieved the song was over, ANYTHING after it would have been welcome.
Would an extended Quincy Jones rant about Kanye appear in any U.S. newspaper? Doubt it. As far as writing for an orchestra, maybe Kanye has not done that, but his string sections have been awesome ever since he collaborated with Jon Brion on that second album.
Old folks talkin' 'bout "back in my day"
But homie this is my day
Noz: I think trying to understand where an artist is coming from is important - whether in terms of what he/she is motivated by or what the intentions are for the audience. But I don't think one's opinion of that music should be beholden to those things. Either a song - as a piece of music - sounds good to you. Or it doesn't. I doubt I could convince you to like a song that falls flat on your ears by breaking down every possible facet of its maker's intent.
Also: I've consistently said and written favorable things about Kanye throughout his entire career; I don't care that he makes a constant ass out of himself, he also blows my mind on the regular and I think the world of music is richer for having him in it (as you well know, that's not a universally shared opinion). I defended "808s and Heartbreaks" at a time when it seemed to be panned everywhere else because I admired the vision of it and his ability to actualize it in sound and feel. So all those times before, when I was praising Kanye, was I also not "fully understanding" him?
Also, I don't know if I "fully understand" his audience given that his audience seems massively broad and diverse beyond the point where it's really possible to make generalizations about what they like about Kanye and why.
I find the line of thinking here troubling since it suggests that there's one "right" way to consider an artist and their work, i.e. via the artist's intent and whatever "the audience" thinks of it. I mean, am I not "the audience"? Or am I in the wrong audience?
I went the opposite direction; I loved the momentum and energy of the first half of the album, especially with "Power" (Top 5, all-time best Kanye songs?). However, once you get to "Runaway" is where the torpor set in for me.
I also think the album would have ended just fine with "Lost in the World" (rather than going into what I thought was a rather cheap use of Gil-Scott). The end of the "Runaway" movie, where that song is blasting and Kanye's running out of the forest, was one of the few moments in that whole thing where I felt genuinely astounded. It's a great "closer" on its own.
You should care! Kanye making a constant ass out of himself is a large part of what makes Kanye great and what makes an album like this compelling. You cannot separate his music from the big picture multimedia personality driven aspects of his art. You can't process an emotional artist on a strictly intellectual level. "Blame Glame" isn't awesome because it meets some rubric where its length and the quality of John Legend's vocals and the mixing of the drums are perfect but because it punches listeners squarely in the gut. If you're unable engage it on that level - or at least recognize how and why his audience does - then you are missing the point completely.
Which is to say that you sound like someone who has never had rough sex in a bathroom stall.
A lot of these dudes are listening wrong
Hold up: you wanted to know why I didn't like the song so I explained it, best I could. But ultimately, my *reaction* and dislike to the song is purely emotional. As in "I'm not feeling it." The song does nothing for me emotionally but since I wanted to be slightly more descriptive than just saying "I'm not feeling it" I tried to detangle what about it wasn't working. But absent that request, it's still a pretty simple, emotional thing to say that a song isn't touching you. Whereas it punched you in the gut, it did not for me.
I "get" how the song fits in with Kanye's public persona/drama. But unlike, say, listening to Marvin Gaye on "Here My Dear", "Blame Game" didn't connect with me.
Again, either a song works for a listener or it doesn't. I'm willing to engage the song on the basis of its intent but that's an intellectual exercise. Recognizing why other people feel the song won't make me feel it if I don't already feel it.
- I haven't called this Kanye's best, or even this year's. Not sure who has, here. Those distinctions don't mean much IMO, nor do they matter to this discussion. I don't care if anyone thinks another album by him is superior, or if Public Enemy is better. Those records are not being released this week and people's private stratification of them is mostly irrelevant.
- Kanye rapping about himself, and others rapping about the sun in the sky, or why there's not a bean in a beanpie, are not mutually exclusive or interdependent. I think at this point it's pretty ridiculous to expect anything other than this from Kanye, he's never *not* been anything less than completely self-obsessed. So we should hang up the "but what if he were rapping about PYRAMIDS!" angle.
This isn't about *your* emotions, it's about Kanye's emotions and the listeners that are able to internalize them. That you don't personally like "Blame Game" is perfectly fine but your initial claim that "Blame Game" is somehow indefensible suggests a dramatic misread of Kanye and how his music is digested.
Sure but my "visceral connection" to a song is almost always tied into its sonic impact *first*, rather than its thematic content. I certainly have no problems with rappers rapping about love/bad relationships as a theme. It's how you express that theme - as a song - that matters to me.
Fair enough.
Looking back, I can see that I took the wrong tack in simply trying to say, "man, I really didn't like that song." It was an off-the-cuff, parenthetical remark which I didn't intend to be treated as a full-out indictment of Kanye, his ouevre or his audience.
Put It In Your Mouth
Shit, if we're taking it there, I had a visceral reaction to Ak's "I Luh Hur" (but not in a good way).
http://waxidermy.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32784&hilit=kanye
This was initiated by the Syl Johnson review but if you scroll further in, they get to Kanye.