i mean it's possible the next decade will suck eggs so bad that this album will skate into the canon as the best album of 2010-2019 -- i just hope it doesn't, i'm rooting for Kanye and humanity in general to aim higher
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:17 (thirteen years ago) link
maybe Kanye really is a teenager at heart and his beautiful dark twisted fantasy is "I'm gonna die and you'll all be rly sad"
Ha ha, yes.
― The baby boomers have defined everything once and for all (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:19 (thirteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8utgCo86lpo
(Apologies if posted this last time deej brought up his mountain analogy.)
― The baby boomers have defined everything once and for all (Dorianlynskey), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Kanye said in a bunch of interviews that he was suicidal in the run-up to releasing this album so that all makes sense.
Also, to go back to the frankly stupid "but 'Runaway' is a celebration!' nonsense, this is the only interview I can find where he really talks about the lyrics to "Runaway":
http://www.accesshollywood.com/kanye-west-talks-runaway-inspiration-and-his-connection-to-the-people_article_38664
Kanye said the cut, which features lyrics like, “Let’s have a toast for the douchebags…” and “I don’t know how I’d manage if you’d up and leave,” is inspired by a lot of things.“In a way, it’s funny… it’s like… the song sounds like it’s talking about a girl — could also be talking about my relationship with society or my relationship with the fans or anyone who I let down or people who had to defend me that really love me,” he said. “I like leaving songs ambiguous a little bit, where it’s like, it could be about other people, It could be about yourself. It’s funny — it’s like a man’s anthem, but it’s a woman’s anthem. Like, ‘Let’s have a toast with a douchebag!’”
“In a way, it’s funny… it’s like… the song sounds like it’s talking about a girl — could also be talking about my relationship with society or my relationship with the fans or anyone who I let down or people who had to defend me that really love me,” he said. “I like leaving songs ambiguous a little bit, where it’s like, it could be about other people, It could be about yourself. It’s funny — it’s like a man’s anthem, but it’s a woman’s anthem. Like, ‘Let’s have a toast with a douchebag!’”
It still feels to me like a fundamental misunderstanding of what Kanye is saying in the song to say that line is celebratory and not sarcastic, especially when combined with some of the things he said in connection with the film:
http://rapradar.com/2010/09/14/kanye-west-explains-runaway-concept/
“I’m color-correcting this film I shot in Prague a couple weeks ago. I want to edit the film on a boat. Where are the good editing boats?” — is called Runaway, and is a 40-minute noir piece based on his new album. “It’s the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth, and I make her my girlfriend, and people discriminate against her and eventually she has to burn herself alive and go back to her world,” he told us. “I’ve been feeling the idea of the phoenix. It’s been in my heart for a while. It’s maybe parallel to my career. I threw a Molotov cocktail on my career last year, in a way, and I had to come back as a better person.”
― "Kiss Players♥" (DJP), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:20 (thirteen years ago) link
acting like the Imperial Bedroom comparison has to make sense on every single level to hold weight is like saying "does this album have a 5 mile high elevation? is it covered in rocks? then it's NOT A MOUNTAIN"
― some dude, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:16 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
no because sales & popularity are directly related to influence?
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:22 (thirteen years ago) link
what the hell is the mountain
― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:23 (thirteen years ago) link
HAPPY 4,000th POST!
― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:24 (thirteen years ago) link
"this hill is not the same size as this mountain -- ergo they are not comparable"
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:25 (thirteen years ago) link
now we're arguing about whether the album is/will be influential? when did that happen?
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:26 (thirteen years ago) link
stop denying the mountain
― kanellos (gbx), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:17 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
when did u start bagging on me all the time
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:26 (thirteen years ago) link
― some dude, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:26 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
sorry, 'important' -- same effin deal
the impression im getting is that al wants to will this album to be not-a-big-deal & the historical comparisons make so little sense. was imperial bedroom really a hugely successful pop phenomenon?
kanye isn't competing against elvis costello's sales, but his own. His first three albums all sold about 2-3 million copies, so unless this album takes him to a whole new tier of success - which there's no evidence that it will - MBDTF could easily seem "not-a-big-deal" compared to Dropout and Registration, just as Imperial seems not-a-big-deal critically compared to My Aim is True and This Years Model now.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:27 (thirteen years ago) link
haha, what? i've disagreed with you in like....three threads in the last month. and the mountain thing is funny, relax
― kanellos (gbx), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:28 (thirteen years ago) link
i think that critical canonization is the kind of thing that trickles down at this level, tho -- joe 15 CD-owner will look back on this record as a 'classic'
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:28 (thirteen years ago) link
― kanellos (gbx), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:28 PM (18 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
the mountain thing is funny, yeah, but al is using it as a way of prying at my arguments w/ him in this thread & it gives the impression of a pile-on against my argument instead of simple lols
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean i straight up asked him if he was just being all lol sparring & he said no
joe 15 CD-owner will look back on this record as a 'classic'
well he only has 15 cds
― da croupier, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:29 (thirteen years ago) link
not saying this is A CONSPIRACY bfore yall start in on the paranoia ish again
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:30 (thirteen years ago) link
all i'm saying is this album's "importance" feels like a foregone conclusion. if someone told you in January that Kanye would have the most acclaimed album of the year it wouldn't be any kind of surprise. why even discuss that as a virtue unto itself?
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:30 (thirteen years ago) link
the arcade fire album had a song called "mountains beyond mountains". or maybe that was just the hook, and the song was called something else. but anyway, it was clearly the best song on the album, which sold decently well, and is thus at least doubly (possibly trebly?) mountainous
― unemployed aerosmith fans I have shoved (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:31 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean joe 15 probably has College Dropout, sure, i'm just not 100% sure this one's on his Xmas list.
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:31 (thirteen years ago) link
i pop into this thread like every hundred posts, at this point i'm not keeping tabs on who is actually arguing with who, or about what
― kanellos (gbx), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:31 (thirteen years ago) link
― da croupier, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:29 PM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
kanye is point blank a bigger pop star now than he was when his 2nd lp was released. individual songs arent as popular (although monster aint doing bad) but hes a more known figure now
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:32 (thirteen years ago) link
― some dude, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:30 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
i dont think its a virtue per se!
lollin @ this thread still goin
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
ndividual songs arent as popular (although monster aint doing bad) but hes a more known figure now
elvis costello was better known by 1982 than in 1977, sticking around tends to make more people aware of you, but it's not like Lou Reed's New York is more revered than the Velvet Underground's albums.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:33 (thirteen years ago) link
Isn't the recent round of talk about the importance of this album all a direct reaction to you saying "20 years from now, no one will be talking about this album"? How exactly is someone supposed to disagree with that statement without putting some weight on the near-unanimous acclaim this thing is getting?
― "Kiss Players♥" (DJP), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:35 (thirteen years ago) link
and just to reaffirm, the only reason I brought up EC was that it was suggested too much of a "critical narrative" was based on this album being Kanye's apex. My point was that plenty of late-in-the-game albums received more immediate praise then the earlier ones that actually wound up in the canon.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:36 (thirteen years ago) link
man, i go to lunch and we got imperial bedroom and leslie west up in this motherfucker. hell yeah.
― in my world of Hmong ppl (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:36 (thirteen years ago) link
Mississippi Queen is funkier than anything on this album btw
i didn't say "20 years from now, no one will be talking about this album", just that i don't think it will be AS talked about as College Dropout or maybe even 808s.
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:37 (thirteen years ago) link
lol, no it isn't
― "Kiss Players♥" (DJP), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:38 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean i'm not trying to sweep it under the rug and erase it from history, i just feel like it's worthwhile to put it in the context of his whole career and not just the context of a bunch of magazines hurdling towards the end of 2010 and latching onto the most obvious Black Friday blockbuster as their EOY savior.
― some dude, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:39 (thirteen years ago) link
(xp) this is, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGn2V7mgnN4
― "Kiss Players♥" (DJP), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:39 (thirteen years ago) link
the most obvious Black Friday blockbuster as their EOY savior
SPIN's #1 should have been "Your favorite Glee cover"
― da croupier, Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:41 (thirteen years ago) link
DJP u crazy, there's nothing really funky about this kanye album IMO
get up on sum nasty cowbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFhM1XZsh6o
― in my world of Hmong ppl (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
mountain song opening bassline is all time tho
actually this bass might be funkier than janes or mountain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umeZtszNShk
― in my world of Hmong ppl (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
[please forgive the talk of "a critic's job" and "obligation" in the following. it's not mine to say, but i don't know how else to say it...]
the "importance" talk is a red herring. way upthread, there were posters who at least seemed to argue that this album's importance was sufficient in itself to justify its extremely high ratings and unanimously positive critical response. as though you almost had to give kanye those points, whether or not you actually liked or respected the album yourself, simply because the indisputable significance of this dark twisted fantasy could not be denied. (and no, i'm not paraphrasing any specific poster's argument, and i'll be fucked if i'll go digging for source quotes in this monster thread. maybe i'm completely wrong here, but i seem to recall this being the gist of at least a few posts.)
thing is, it's not really critic's job to notice and laud mere importance, especially when the importance in question is of the sort conferred by anticipation, popularity and sales. those things announce and laud themselves. it's certainly a critic's job to point out that which seems important by virtue of its ambition, artistic courage, and consonance with or commentary on the culture at large, but none of these things are necessarily positive traits in isolation. when critics of popular commodities make buyer's-guide-style quality judgments, such as numerical ratings, a key component of their evaluations, they must speak plainly about how good they think the thing in question is: what it does, how it does it, and most crucially, what it does and doesn't get right along the way. the rating should reflect not only the supposed importance of the thing, but also the critic's own personal assessment of its quality, value and aesthetic appeal. that's how i see it, anyway.
i'd say that this critical obligation extends equally to all albums & songs, no matter how objectively important they might seem. if anything, supposedly moment-defining "event albums" deserve more honest and less generous criticism than marginal releases that few will ever hear in the first place. important albums don't automatically deserve glowing reviews and 10.0 ratings, especially if one doesn't actually like them or believe that they're entirely successful relative to their ambitions. it seems to me that those once-in-a-blue-moon superlatives should be reserved, yes, for seemingly important albums, but more specifically for those few important albums that also seem timeless, all but flawless and satisfactorily successful relative to everything they attempt. and even then, only when you really, honestly love the music to death, in every moment, and want to play it over and over and over again until the day you die, or until your spouse "accidentally" breaks/loses/deletes it, or at least for the next six months. otherwise, 9.3, 'A' for effort...
― Today, if he makes a grunge (contenderizer), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 21:59 (thirteen years ago) link
"the "importance" talk is a red herring. way upthread, there were posters who at least seemed to argue that this album's importance was sufficient in itself to justify its extremely high ratings and unanimously positive critical response. as though you almost had to give kanye those points, whether or not you actually liked or respected the album yourself, simply because the indisputable significance of this dark twisted fantasy could not be denied. (and no, i'm not paraphrasing any specific poster's argument, and i'll be fucked if i'll go digging for source quotes in this monster thread. maybe i'm completely wrong here, but i seem to recall this being the gist of at least a few posts.)"
no one was arguing this
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 22:39 (thirteen years ago) link
i did argue that it made sense *for pitchfork* to vote that way bcuz of the way the album is sorta 'culturally placed' but thats a different issue; i didnt vote for it in y-e
― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, 15 December 2010 22:43 (thirteen years ago) link
looking back, j0rdan seems to have been the first to suggest that pitchfork's GOAT makes sense in light of kanye's importance and p4k's own cultural positioning. others quickly took up the chorus that the rating had to have been based more on these qualities than on musical merit and/or personal affection alone: dayo, dorianlynsky, etc. though it's just a throwaway comment, the [redacted] tumblr that dayo quoted articulates the critical stance i was reacting against above:
10. Do I enjoy the record? No, not especially, or at least not as a 70 minute experience. Parts of it. Songs on shuffle. But it’s exhausting! In the way Important Records usually are. I’ve played it three times through - hardly enough to have an opinion - but I’m not really reaching for it again.
that's the sort of thing i was responding to, and most of it was said three weeks ago. didn't have anything to do w/ you in particular, deej.
― a man called hearse (contenderizer), Thursday, 16 December 2010 05:46 (thirteen years ago) link
***RANKING KANYE***
I would like to point out that I have been OTM
― dayo, Thursday, 16 December 2010 05:47 (thirteen years ago) link
i know people like to make fun of jay-z's verse on monster. generally i don't have a problem with it but there's something hilarious about having the line "all I see is these n-ggas I've made millionaires / milling about, spilling their feelings in the air" on a kanye west song
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 16 December 2010 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
lol
(that's actually a pretty good line, too!)
― unemployed aerosmith fans I have shoved (bernard snowy), Thursday, 16 December 2010 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
well it's a direct diss at beanie sigel, but yeah
― *plop*timist (J0rdan S.), Thursday, 16 December 2010 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
ha i didn't think it was actually directed at kanye but it's funny how you could say the same things about kanye and it's, you know, on a kanye song
― congratulations (n/a), Thursday, 16 December 2010 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah it's about beanie...actually it's not a bad line and it's one of jay's more tolerable recent verses - any time he can get to 6/10 it's an accomplishment
― k3vin k., Thursday, 16 December 2010 21:37 (thirteen years ago) link
LOOOOOOOVE notwithstanding...god i wish jay from 10 years ago could see himself now
a ferrari, a jaguar, switching four lanes,top down, screaming out LOOOOOOOOVE
― markers, Thursday, 16 December 2010 21:39 (thirteen years ago) link