Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

Actually Ren Fest could have made a great album title after the college ones. (Or maybe a remix album title, along with Reggae Fest.)

Oh ffs, the "baroque instrumentation" of Late Registration? Is there a viol-and-harpsichord version of that album that I've never heard?

code word for "jon brion collab" of course

That big important record all critics need = the eventual justin timberlake record imo xxxxxxxpost

Also late registration DID have an orchestra led live record!

Unlike Michael, he's not interested ['interested'? are you sure he's not?] in scrubbing away bits of himself-- his blackness, his candidness [!!]-- to appease the masses. And while Jackson's own twisted fantasies of paranoia and betrayal eventually consumed him whole, West is still aware of his illusions, though that mindfulness becomes increasingly unmoored [wtf] with each newspaper-splashing controversy.

Like Michael, Kanye's behavior-- from the poorly planned outbursts to the musical brilliance-- is wide-eyed in a way that most 33 year olds have long left behind. That naivety is routinely battered on Twisted Fantasy, yet it survives, better for the wear. With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye's man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic. "I can't be everybody's hero and villain, savior and sinner, Christian and anti Christ!" he wrote earlier this month. That may be true, but he's more willing than anyone else to try.

— Ryan Dombal, November 22, 2010

"I wish Michael Jackson had twitter!!!!!! Maybe Mike could have explained how the media tried to set him up!!! It's all a fucking set up!!!!"

the eventual justin timberlake record imo

He's too busy playing a bear.

Basically, I think the problem with that Pitchfork review is the voice. Had it been more conversational and personal, it would have come across more as a dude you know who was wildly, totally amped about this album and couldn't wait to turn you onto it; you may agree or disagree but the pronouncements of greatness would have been easier to digest. As it stands, it reads as a dude you know attempting to convince you using empirical evidence that this is the best album of the year and failing miserably because he is exuding uncritical fanboyishness out of every pore, causing muddled comparisons and rampant overselling of things that, if they are as good as he says they are, would speak for themselves.

Still probably going to pick this up though, because the description of the Aphex sampling track sounds great.

xp: orchestra != "baroque"

ba·roque (b-rk)
adj.
1. also Baroque Of, relating to, or characteristic of a style in art and architecture developed in Europe from the early 17th to mid-18th century, emphasizing dramatic, often strained effect and typified by bold, curving forms, elaborate ornamentation, and overall balance of disparate parts.
2. also Baroque Music Of, relating to, or characteristic of a style of composition that flourished in Europe from about 1600 to 1750, marked by expressive dissonance and elaborate ornamentation.
3. Extravagant, complex, or bizarre, especially in ornamentation: "the baroque, encoded language of post-structural legal and literary theory" (Wendy Kaminer).

Ok bumders I'm not a copy editor, just a futile hiphop nerdballs.

xp: point taken, but I maintain that is still an extraordinarily poor word choice, given that in the context of music there is a stronger, more accepted meaning of the word "baroque" than that definition

Yes, true. Sorry, I had a sudden spasm of dictionary-citing pedantry. "What is baroque? Webster's defines it as…"

my problem:
pitchfork be on some weird (and not necessarily sinister or ill-intentioned, mostly just self-serving and symptomatic) slippery equivalence of mental illness —> artistic genius —> childishness —> unmediated expression of some sort of biological essence ('candidness', like 'blackness', is apparently built right into Kanye's bad self — altho both could be 'scrubbed away' if he rly cared to...)
... ——> negation of a fallen modern (superficial, fake, technologized, etc) society. or something. basic fascist mythology, innit?

dan i think "elaborate" is the more common definition for "baroque" for all us non-classical music geeks

http://www.allmusic.com/explore/style/baroque-pop-d4555

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque_pop

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22charles+stepney%22+baroque

i dont care about this record really but i have been looking forward to the 180 everyone does once the context goes from 'much better than 808s' to 'omg 10.0 so0 overrated'

"Chamber rap" would probably be more confusing.

xpost

...and you will know us by the Trail of Backlash

― I will always think of you, while (quite) fondly, myself (Evan), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:00 AM (8 minutes ago)

Was supposed to be posted in here

my problem:
pitchfork be on some weird (and not necessarily sinister or ill-intentioned, mostly just self-serving and symptomatic) slippery equivalence of mental illness —> artistic genius —> childishness —> unmediated expression of some sort of biological essence ('candidness', like 'blackness', is apparently built right into Kanye's bad self — altho both could be 'scrubbed away' if he rly cared to...)
... ——> negation of a fallen modern (superficial, fake, technologized, etc) society. or something. basic fascist mythology, innit?

hello I would like to introduce you to Wesley Willis/Chan Marshall fandom

still think 808s is a great album

listened to it last night for first time in a while and yeah apart from broing Amazing and Heartless and the final track i enjoy v much the sound of his misery

u crazy, those are three of the best tracks!

as it is, i still haven't heard k's new album, but would be hard pressed to think anything can sum up his Important Status (as seems to be emphasized by pfork, rolling stone, et al.) more than his deadpanned line on "amazing"/808s: "my reign is as far as your eyes can seee"

my problem:
pitchfork be on some weird (and not necessarily sinister or ill-intentioned, mostly just self-serving and symptomatic) slippery equivalence of mental illness —> artistic genius —> childishness —> unmediated expression of some sort of biological essence ('candidness', like 'blackness', is apparently built right into Kanye's bad self — altho both could be 'scrubbed away' if he rly cared to...)
... ——> negation of a fallen modern (superficial, fake, technologized, etc) society. or something. basic fascist mythology, innit?

hello I would like to introduce you to Wesley Willis/Chan Marshall fandom

― ali-baba-boob-job-bomb.jpg (DJP), Monday, November 22, 2010 10:12 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

actually pretty sure this is all art criticism forever

dudes did you guys hear van gogh cut off his own fucking ear, hardcore

ha I was going to get there eventually

Well wait, it depends on whether by "final track" we are talking about "Coldest Winter" or "Pinocchio Story", because, if the latter, yeah that is truly awful.

I don't think anyone actually defends "Pinocchio Story"

yeah i was referring to that one

I don't think anyone actually defends "Pinocchio Story"

I was certainly hoping not.

ahh you're right, "pinocchio" is awful awful bad

actually pretty sure this is all art criticism forever

dudes did you guys hear van gogh cut off his own fucking ear, hardcore

― congratulations (n/a), Monday, November 22, 2010 4:23 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha I was going to get there eventually

― ali-baba-boob-job-bomb.jpg (DJP), Monday, November 22, 2010 4:30 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

tbh I think going gaga for Kanye's monomania makes more sense than going gaga for R. Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet", possibly because it is rather unambiguously about Kanye and his failings and not presented as some weird R&B/hip-hop telenovela crossed with "a peek into the lives of black people" nonsense

yeah. that's a good point.

okay I just put the album on my comp and am abt to listen, will stop spouting off uninformedly

"can we get much higher" — sure, I'm down if u want to

can youuuuuuu takeeee meee hhhiiigggheer

hooray markers is here

just made it thru "power" and I'm already tired

As it stands, it reads as a dude you know attempting to convince you using empirical evidence that this is the best album of the year and failing miserably because he is exuding uncritical fanboyishness out of every pore, causing muddled comparisons and rampant overselling of things that, if they are as good as he says they are, would speak for themselves.

Welcome to music writing, DJP. Take a chair.

"power" is phenomenal -- my fav thing i've heard from the album proper, thus far

xp

Welcome to music writing, DJP. Take a chair.

and break it against someone's head.

done and done

brb, running from security

just curious -- and again this is coming from someone who isnt really coming back to this record all that much -- what record that pfork reviews SHOULD get a 10.0 if not kanye's art-prog-rap? what record makes more sense as a 10.0? i kinda feel like -- & again, i have little invested in the perception of the site, but from an editorial perspective -- can you think of a better record to represent pfork's aesthetic outlook? anyone who says big boi gets a chop & a muff

Janelle Monae

(hoping for a rib and a clam)

but so 'retro'! not popular enough!

well also not a serious suggestion

10.0 should be rare grades: it denotes perfection. Obviously PFM thinks this record deserves it.

I haven't heard any 10.0 records in years.

I think people are just saying that scores should reflect the quality and listenability of a record and not the editorial perspective and aesthetic outlook of the publication giving the score?

xpost - Alfred otm. sometimes i'm not sure i've every heard a 10/10

i just think if p4k was going to go all out and make a big event~ out of giving it a 10.0 they should have given it a far better written & more convincing review. i was more interested in picking up the record by reading tom ewing's ten bullet points on tumblr.

yeah deej otm in that this is the only album that it makes sense to give a 10 to - regardless of the quality of it - there's more to it than that, the narrative is there, it feels like a 10.0 album even if it doesn't necessarily sound like one to you personally?

btw i'd been holding onto some Be Here Now zings about this record for a minute, pissed at you guys for beating me to it

ilxor — yeah, "power" was my favorite thing I'd heard coming into this album — I got nothing against it except that it's at least a minute too long, which wouldn't be so bad if the two tracks before it weren't also... 'shit adds up'

"all of the lights" is a p.dramatic change of pace — and "monster" right after it, even moreso!

There's more to an album than its quality?

talking about how the "narrative" "feels" is kind of a way of saying that people had this on their year-end list probably before the first or second single dropped.

10.0 should be rare grades: it denotes perfection. Obviously PFM thinks this record deserves it.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:11 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is a really boring way of using a number system imo. PERFECTION is boring

they most likely did though