Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

i wouldnt read the prog rap thing as anything more than a gen rockisty framework rather than an exact parallel for prog. freestyle fellowship: prog rap??

it was that it was playing at empiricism that wasn't there

all of the reviews i've read are doing this! since half these songs were months ago and the hype has been building longer than that, i'm pretty sure most critics had made up their mind about this album (and probably written half their respective reviews) waaaaaaay before they heard the album proper

xpost can't believe you fuckers are still talking about this "prog rap" red herring

all of the reviews i've read are doing this!

see, this makes me glad that I'm avoiding reviews

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.

― some dude, Monday, November 29, 2010 4:57 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this isnt logical. prog rap doesnt have to be about the rhythmic/song structure -- it could easily be about a more abstract approach to the music

NO ONE REALLY THINKS THIS IS "PROG"

its obv just a shortcut for saying long songs + self-indulgence

duh

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:32 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

+ "there's a King Crimson sample on one song"

― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 10:32 AM (6 days ago) Bookmark

my brother did a prog-rap track that sampled a section of a Rush song in 13/8; his group used to do it with a live funk band and it was pretty tite

i wouldnt read the prog rap thing as anything more than a gen rockisty framework rather than an exact parallel for prog. freestyle fellowship: prog rap??

― lotta diamonds ... but prolly more display names (deej), Monday, November 29, 2010 5:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

see all you're saying, over and over, is "I think this term is meaningless so I don't think you can question the way anyone uses it, that is my rule"

i.e. freestyle fellowship's approach to rap acrobatics or kanye's approach to creating extended rap songs w/ instrumental weirdo outros -- but again yr reading wayy too much into the 'prog' comparisons, imo it was used as an example of a loose rockist framework for pretentious album creations

i mean we can all agree that "emo" is a horrible cringe-inducing term but it wouldn't be wrong to raise an eyebrow if someone called the Waka Flocka album "emo rap" or something

does nickalicious still post here? dude was prog rap to the bone.

see all you're saying, over and over, is "I think this term is meaningless so I don't think you can question the way anyone uses it, that is my rule"

― some dude, Monday, November 29, 2010 5:03 PM (48 seconds ago) Bookmark

no, youre saying "definitions are inflexible & prog only means exactly one thing"

so...i say the "prog rap" thing is just a label people use to describe the way the album is packaged/marketed in the broadest terms, and you agree but take 20 posts of disagreeing to come around to saying so?

it could easily be about a more abstract approach to the music

such as what, precisely, on this album?

so...i say the "prog rap" thing is just a label people use to describe the way the album is packaged/marketed in the broadest terms, and you agree but take 20 posts of disagreeing to come around to saying so?

― some dude, Monday, November 29, 2010 5:05 PM (35 seconds ago) Bookmark

hey man whatever backflips you have to do so you still come out 'right' in this argument

not everything grandiose was prog. sergeant pepper's, derek and the dominos weren't prog, just "big". meatloaf had long songs and a story and the whole bit, i don't think ppl called him prog back then either.

i still haven't heard this record, i dunno, this argument is doing my head in already

lol xps n/a

fwiw this argument is completely unrelated to the actual album and is just personalities deciding not to get along

the prog rap tag is garbage no matter how you slice it. there's no shortage of rap albums that work with loosely defined concepts, that display musical/artistic ambition, that reach much farther beyond the conventional bounds of the genre than MBDTF. and "prog rap" hasn't been glued to them, so why stick it on this?

well, the original cover art depicted Kanye fucking a phoenix, ergo it's prog

Latyrx is prog rap.

if roger dean drew kanye fucking a phoenix we'd be in business

ok goole and contenderizer said it better than i could have

a week in, i'm surprised to find myself enjoying this record more and more with each listen. figured it'd be something i'd enjoy intensely but very briefly, a bright blip. its rewards are proving a little deeper than that. after about 20 listens, the songs between the middle and the final stretch that seemed dull to me on the first few passes have opened up, to the point where i genuinely like every song on here. and i'm not yet tired of the front-end tracks i loved so much on the first pass. this despite the frequently atrocious lyrics and generally repellent "narrative persona" throughout. only thing i routinely skip is the chris rock bit.

n/a said it better than i could have \oO/

captain save-a-progs itt

fwiw this record strikes me in a singularly pretentious way as fitting the epic-ness crossed with arty pretention of a 'prog rap album' the way diddy's epic-ness or mf doom's art-y pretention never could

in conclusion no this doesnt have the exact DNA of prog but it totally makes sense as a tossed off summary of this record's epic scope / pretentiousness

I dunno much about prog but I don't see how this is prog specifically aside from the cover art -- deej I feel like you're constructing an incredibly amorphous definition of the term and the qualities of this album that are 'different' could be described more accurately tho maybe less sensationally

the reason its 'amorphous' is bcuz its a tossed off generalization

but still feels close enough to the sort of laboriousness of the project. i think its weird that the haters are the ones arguing against the term frankly

Like I think you could just say that it's epic in scale and pretentious and save the whole discussion about the other parts of prog and it would only take three more words

& 'i'm' not constructing this, lots of ppl itt were saying this was kanye's prog record so....

Like I think you could just say that it's epic in scale and pretentious and save the whole discussion about the other parts of prog and it would only take three more words

― jagger reupholstered my pussy (J0rdan S.), Monday, November 29, 2010 6:37 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think al was the one who brought this up & started making little pedantic contradictions

see this is where a mod with a good sense of humor would have autoreplaced "prog" with something obnoxious by this point

But why do we need tossed off generalities?

i dunno i think ive been repeatedly calling ppl on denying what seems obvious to me?

new board descrip

anyway, as far as lex's review:

This album offers beats that retread past glories.

is one example of something i think is a pretty inaccurate description of what is actually going on w/ this album. love it or hate it. it feels disingenuous, like lex is looking for justifications for his hate, as if by aggregating enough 'minuses' ppl will realize emperor kanye has no clothes. it just feels like an unnecessary & inaccurate point.

another example is his characterization of kanye's career discography as being a steady nosedive but obv thats one for the x > y > z > a threads.

whoever it was who suggested upthread that this album gives some of the same vibes as gloomy grandiose album rock (eg radiohead, wilco, etc) was otm. it's so self-consciously weighty.

most of the classic prog albums avoided this vibe though so 'prog-rap' is a bit off the mark to me

lol deej you are calling it inaccurate & unnecessary but not at all explaining why you think so

I agree that that's a pretty inaccurate description but idk reading motives into it is swampy water

most of the classic prog albums avoided this vibe though so 'prog-rap' is a bit off the mark to me

― ciderpress, Monday, November 29, 2010 6:40 PM (21 seconds ago) Bookmark

see ive heard ppl refer to kid a as 'prog rock' in a shorthand -- not as a whole summation of the record, but as a jumping off pt for people who dont know what to expect. and that sounds right to me too

lol deej you are calling it inaccurate & unnecessary but not at all explaining why you think so

― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, November 29, 2010 6:41 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

because it really doesnt sound much like any other kanye record, for better or worse.

sometimes a generalization can actually kinda shed light by being reductive? i think its useful for ppl expecting an album full of 'golddiggers' to recognize that they're going to have to hear instrumental fills in between verses, shit like that

idk how you are trying to frame subjective reactions as objectively wrong

idk how you are trying to frame subjective reactions as objectively wrong

― .\ /. (dayo), Monday, November 29, 2010 6:44 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

we can stand on two sides of a mountain, describe it from different perspectives, but it doesnt mean there isnt a mountain in front of us

if you want to make an argument that this record rehashes kanye's past glories be my guest

Even "devil in a new dress" is being mischarcterized as a retread -- for one kanye never employed soul samples in that fashion on his album -- and even the soul sample is used as a launching point for something more grandiose & elaborate

lol at everyone shaking their fingers at deej for questioning lex's motives after lex posted this upthread:

kanye review FILED.

i'm not letting people get away with calling this good-but-flawed, this is a HORRIBLE album that i hated more with each listen

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Monday, November 22, 2010 4:31 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark

jeeezus your mountain analogy was stupid the first time around, no need to remind us of it again

Albums**

Deej I'm gonna hold you to this "sometimes generalizations can be positive in their reductiveness" thing cuz it's retarded

man maybe this is the nantucket sleighride of hip hop