Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

What's so capital-I important about, though? Honest question.

What's so capital-I important about, though? Honest question.

Chris Rock has a long skit.

a two-star review does not = "this record has no redeeming qualities"

i find it really boring, uninvolving and uncompelling, not actively unpleasant to listen to

We're back to where this thread beached itself last week: we must at least acknowledge the album's Importance.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

well you dont HAVE to do anything, but if you want an audience reading your opinions to think yr being honest & giving a fair assessment, i think just accusing everything of failing is self-sabotage

What's so capital-I important about, though? Honest question.

kanye said it is

So, in order to avoid "self-sabotage," you must like about your feelings?

*lie

i also admit more redeeming qualities in this album than most other critics have admitted flaws

An audience, in my experience, is very good at detecting bad faith and cynicism. As long as your review, within its space limits, explains clearly why the album succeeds or fails, the audience will accept your word even if it disagrees.

So, in order to avoid "self-sabotage," you must like about your feelings?

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:29 PM (1 second ago) Bookmark

i think letting your feelings for the work as a whole / the critical response to the work overwhelm your ability to accurately describe the lp in question in a critical manner is more dishonest

i also admit more redeeming qualities in this album than most other critics have admitted flaws

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:29 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

im not arguing with ryan dombal here, im arguing w/ the lex & some dude & alfred soto

this is a lot more regular/normal than i thought it would be...like it has its quirks and odd little bits in the mix but i dunno

yeah otm i think this is exactly why i like this more than i thought i would - oh you're going to tell me that kanye west is going to release an album in 2010 with pretty good production, an even mix of good and awful rapping, requisite eyeroll lines and stylistic overreaches? you don't say!

well, basically if you already hated "Power" and "Runaway" there is little to nothing on this album that will change your mind

I liked those songs, and overall I like this album although there are a few songs on it I can do without, which basically makes it like an MIA album for me (and she is one of my favorite album artists).

Also, I think "this album is Important because Kanye said it is" is exactly right, and it says a lot about the interaction between artist/fan/critic once you reach a certain level of fame. Basically, this is his less substantive version of OK Computer as far as the critics are concerned, only because Kanye is kind of a vapid fool his on-record vapidity is parsed as artistic choice rather than mental limitation (which, for the record, I'm pretty much okay with).

Any critic who can't explain how his feelings about a terrible record are commensurate with his conclusions about the record's flaws is a hack.

i get the stupid way they stay "re-dick-uh-less" in my head

― kl0pper city in the ghetto (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, November 29, 2010 2:07 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

this always just reminds me of the "i'm so pimped it's ridiculous" line off big boi's "last call", and then i get that stuck in my head instead. there's nothing on this record half so catchy.

Like I've written elsewhere, this album boasts "Power," Cudi and Raekwon in "Gorgeous," "Monster," and a couple of ear-pricking arrangements. In my judgment it's a C+ record, which means I likely won't play anything again besides the aforementioned songs.

What I feel is that anyone who is stepping up to say, "Hey there are some serious flaws here," is having that argument conflated with "THIS ALBUM IS ENTIRELY IRREEDEMABLE AND HAS NOTHING WORTHWHILE ON IT," when I don't think ANYONE is claiming that. I mean I think Lex's review is the harshest I've seen, and even he still admits there's good moments on it.

i dont think lex is a hack. i do think that there are parts of his descriptions of the record that i think are inaccurate & unnecessarily critical, unneeded to make his point & in fact undercutting it because they seem flatly rong.

when im not at work ill show which parts i mean in partic.

"THIS ALBUM IS ENTIRELY IRREEDEMABLE AND HAS NOTHING WORTHWHILE ON IT,"

yes, he thinks this but thinks nicki minaj is pretty good

although iirc he thought it was an overrated minaj moment as well

well, basically if you already hated "Power" and "Runaway" there is little to nothing on this album that will change your mind

i gave "power" a generous 6/10 on the jukebox - http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=2407 - "runaway" i can't remember, wrote it ages ago and it hasn't gone up yet but it was 5/10 iirc. i agree that they're probably the next best tier after "monster" and "hell of a life" though. and they're not very good.

i think power is a 3/10 fwiw lol

I like "Power" a lot except for the "THIS COULD BE A BEAUTIFUL DEATH" closing movement. I guess Kanye couldn't make Dwele sound good twice.

although iirc he thought it was an overrated minaj moment as well

nah "monster" is an incredible verse - iirc i took issue with the way a lot of the reaction was "HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS CAPABLE OF THIS", because she doesn't do anything substantively different on "monster" that she hadn't done before, so it wasn't really a surprise in any way

I could care less about "Power" when I reviewed it for TSJ months ago but loved it on the album.

yeah as i said at the time my 6/10 for "power" was pretty tentative, i'd give it 4 or 5 now

i get the stupid way they stay "re-dick-uh-less" in my head

this always reminds me of 30 Rock: http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0067464/

Cudi and Raekwon in "Gorgeous,"

dude are you sticking up for cudi? kanye's the best part of that song i think, from what i remember his tightest rapping on the record

it can be great fun to read a wound-up critic angrily tearing some offending object to shreds, evenhanded evaluation be damned. every once in a while, at least. fair, rational and high minded analysis is all well and good, but is hardly the only valid or useful critical approach. problem, i suppose, is that many critics don't wear apoplexy well, and/or run to it far too frequently (not pointing that at anyone itt).

idk how others were using it but i imagine 'prog' being a stand-in for this kind of framing, the 'album-as-art' feel, the suites, the songs being two mins too long. not lots of instrumental solos or something. its prog rap not prog rock

― lotta diamonds ... but prolly more display names (deej), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:12 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

but the songs are just regular songs (mostly) that kind of drone on, i don't even hear that much "mini-suite" or multipart stuff...like i guess there are some bridges which (no hongro) are kind of a standard old school pop writing format thing, but these mostly just seem like beats that overstay their welcome...

i mean the end of runaway going for "Top Gun Anthem" by harold faltermeyer and steve stevens as told by autotune doesn't seem really prog to me.

deej, I understand your position less than I understand some dude/Lex/Alfred, since it seems that you are arguing strenuously for favorable reviews for an album you don't seem to like all that much...?

I like parts of this record but the overall disappointment on many levels gets in the way of any praise when discussing it.

It's like he wants us to acknowledge some intrinsic qualities that the favorable reviews noted but we're somehow missing.

deej, I understand your position less than I understand some dude/Lex/Alfred, since it seems that you are arguing strenuously for favorable reviews for an album you don't seem to like all that much...?

― Yeezy reupholstered my pussy (DJP), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:42 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how am i arguing for favorable reviews??? what??

It's like he wants us to acknowledge some intrinsic qualities that the favorable reviews noted but we're somehow missing.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, November 29, 2010 4:46 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

no, like i said, im not here to argue w/ ryan dombal because hes not here to argue with, you guys are.

"power" is wonderful, always happy to hear it. one of the album's best pop moments, at least from over here. a couple funny lyrics (and a TON of shitty ones), committed delivery, great beat, weird production, awesome sample. plus it runs under five minutes, a model of restraint by this album's standards. only about half a minute too long.

i can disagree with a review's conclusions about overall quality & like the review (nitsuhs) or agree w/ the overall evaluation but think its dishonestly written (lex's) or disagree with both (ryan's)

"dishonest" seems... strong

lol "dishonest", that's what i expect from the commenters beneath my reviews

link me to your post in this enormous thread. i seem to recall you conflating it w/ being ground-breaking or equating it w/ prog's GOALS rather than prog's CHARACTERISTICS but that might be a faulty memory

― lotta diamonds ... but prolly more display names (deej), Monday, November 29, 2010 5:25 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i was taking it in the broadest most abstract sense because if you compare it to what prog rock acts tend to do on a technical level with song structure, time signatures, harmony, etc. the "prog rap" comparison makes even less sense.

but these mostly just seem like beats that overstay their welcome...

ha! how many post-Bangs rock writers might have said this about prog?

name a prog rock song that works the same basic melody/tempo/drums for 9 minutes straight like "Runaway"

I haven't read Lex's review so I'm not going to specifically talk about it, but the problem I had with the Pitchfork view wasn't that it was positive, it was that it was playing at empiricism that wasn't there. Nitsuh's works better because there is a concrete subjective argument about why he found the album appealing that works well as value-neutral description of the album.

lol for "positive" substitute "nauseatingly effusive"

i was taking it in the broadest most abstract sense because if you compare it to what prog rock acts tend to do on a technical level with song structure, time signatures, harmony, etc. the "prog rap" comparison makes even less sense.

― some dude, Monday, November 29, 2010 4:51 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

like i said this was more about the rockist framing in a hongro style than anything else -- the entire album-as-album-art part of prog, not the "hmm they did this one in 6/8 time" (although the **slow burner** kanye / minaj hawaii discussion about taking their rapping to the *next level* could easily qualify)

name a prog rock song that works the same basic melody/tempo/drums for 9 minutes straight like "Runaway"

― some dude, Monday, November 29, 2010 4:53 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rap beats are based around repetition. this would make sense.

the only thing I would even consider putting a half-hearted "prog" label on is "Hell of a Life" strictly for the polyrhythms

so now you're arguing approvingly for a rockist/hongro mindset you don't share, much in the same way you won't bear to let people talk down on the album you don't like that much

yeah rap beats are based on repetition...which is why a "prog rap" record would have a completely different rhythmic/song structure than a traditional rap record, which this doesn't, hence it's a traditional rap record with a fancy bow on top.

I haven't read Lex's review so I'm not going to specifically talk about it, but the problem I had with the Pitchfork view wasn't that it was positive, it was that it was playing at empiricism that wasn't there. Nitsuh's works better because there is a concrete subjective argument about why he found the album appealing that works well as value-neutral description of the album.

I'm just going to repost this and ask deej if this is what he is reacting to in these reviews and why he's bringing in terms like "dishonest".