Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

sh@kedown good point but i think you're overstating Dre's production skills/interests a bit. a better example of 'expensive-sounding but still accessible' hip-hop might be 'Stankonia' rather than 'Chronic 2001'. 'Stankonia' probably also more ambitious generally, for that matter.

srs this record would be dope as fuck if it could have just been made without kanye and friends

yeah stankonia sounds great...aquemini even better.

yeah i don't know a ton about dre, though i recall reading that he was one of the first in hip hop to start demanding really good mastering (like basically he wanted the mastering budget they would've given like bruce springsteen -- in the days when mastering wasn't often the enemy of sound)

he could've just asked for his own orchestra idk

Stankonia - now there's a hip hop record which sounds immense and ambitious but not oppressive.

just listened to it again. i don't get the complaints about the sound of the record. coming through my speakers, anyway, it sounds great. rich and deep in some places, tinny and sharp in others, all with seeming intentionality. "gorgeous" is a good example of this, with the vocals scraped down and pushed forward on the verses, like the guitar, seeming to come at you from cheap speakers, a way of evoking the past (motown soul and psychedelic rock), desperation and cheapness/poverty. on the other hand, the beats, chorus vocals and keys/strings are super thick and lush, floating darkly behind kanye's voice and that weedy guitar. and it's not like my system is high end or anything.

i wouldn't say the album isn't ambitious at all, just that that shouldn't be considered the album's defining characteristic since Kanye's albums have been ambitious since day 1

― Prince SBanBan (some dude), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 8:43 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'd agree, but the ambition here becomes overwhelming, corrupted, a dizzying hall of mirrors. it's like kanye has turned into a tiny little device whose only function is the transportation of an ego. the album both embodies and represents this, ambition metastasizing out of control like tetsuo at the end of akira. in that, i'm okay with considering it the album's defining characteristic.

obviously they're all tied up together but i'd sum this album up in a word like "hubris" or "ego" more than "ambition"

'2001' was one of the first rap records to sound compressed -- dre wanted it to be louder than any other record when it came up on radio

sh@kedown good point but i think you're overstating Dre's production skills/interests a bit. a better example of 'expensive-sounding but still accessible' hip-hop might be 'Stankonia' rather than 'Chronic 2001'. 'Stankonia' probably also more ambitious generally, for that matter.

― modrić in paradise (blueski), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 10:52 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont see how he's overstating dre's production skills at all tho! the 2001 era, despite the self-sabotage compression, shows he's kind of a master of this stuff

dj quik is probably the first one i think of as far as A++++ engineering, though

yeah i admit i was probably conflating bigness and purity with musical ambition too much there, which is a different argument really. not suggesting Dre's stuff doesn't "sound" better but it tended to be more simplistic than much Kanye stuff at the same time.

yeah, for a successful producer, i don't think kanye's much of an engineer, he relies on others for that stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRnXeDzaZqk

dj quik is probably the first one i think of as far as A++++ engineering, though

― lotta diamonds ... but prolly more display names (deej), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

super otm

"gorgeous" is a good example of this, with the vocals scraped down and pushed forward on the verses, like the guitar, seeming to come at you from cheap speakers, a way of evoking the past (motown soul and psychedelic rock), desperation and cheapness/poverty.

"gorgeous"? motown? wha? motown records sound beautiful, warm, loving...most psych records sound great too....to use a technical term, gorgeous sounds like ass

is this an ambitious (or more ambitious for kanye) record musically?

Are we still conflating "ambitious" with "groundbreaking"?

the "Gorgeous" convo is getting dangerously close to evoking the "weak like clock radio speakers" debate

i liked the way gorgeous sounds, and ass is subjective

what i meant is that it's a period guitar tone processed to sound timeworn

Timb using that synth the way we all do at Best Buy when the person we're with is at the service desk.

yeah i like how kanye is coming to him for specific engineering advice and he's just fucking around with all his sample banks

This sounds and feels to me like an ambitious record because of the breadth of emotion. Kanye on this album is a bipolar megalomaniac who spends most of the album swinging from snarling about how great he is and how much everyone around him sucks to how hopeless and unlikable he is. When you look at the actual themes and the way the songs are constructed, it isn't anything you wouldn't expect from a Kanye West album, but I take exception to the idea that things can only be ambitious if they are unexpected. In all of the ways this doesn't move out of a comfort zone musically, it certainly does in subject matter, playing to greater extremes of narcissism and self-loathing than any one of his previous efforts. (I don't think it's a particularly fair or interesting comparison to glom all of Kanye's previous releases into one amorphous blob and say "See this enormous body of work? This all as an aggregate displays more range than this one album; what a boring retread!")

otm

(except 808s at least comes close to these extremes of narcissism and self loathing)

I wouldn't say ambition = unexpected, but I feel like Late Registration, for instance, really deliberately upped the ante of "this is how big and eventful a rap album can be" whereas this, 3 albums later, feels like Late Registration 2k10 with slightly updated sounds and perspectives, which doesn't feel that ambitious to me, just sounds like just about the only kind of album Kanye can make or wants to make.

yeah, i'd agree that he only wants to make ambitious albums.

to me what's novel is the fractured quality of the persona. there's no clear distinction between the boasting and the self loathing, the confessional scab picking and the angry jabs at haters, the grotesque sleaze and the appeals to uplift. a song like "power" mashes these all together without barriers, kanye's train of though jumping from track to track almost incoherently. it seems like it should be awful, and maybe it is, but it's also fascinating and kind of thrilling.

not that he's never done this before, but sometimes just upping the ante is enough to make a real difference in the vibe

"If Caligula had a reality show..."

there's no clear distinction between the boasting and the self loathing, the confessional scab picking and the angry jabs at haters, the grotesque sleaze and the appeals to uplift

but this is what graduation and 808s were as well...?

i don't really get a sense of upping the ante. songs like "flashing lights" and "welcome to heartbreak" dealt with these themes in a much more arresting, striking way, both sonically and lyrically

judgment call. won't say you're wrong.

I would argue that Graduation as a package was way less confessional and more roleplaying (and also a good bit more weighted towards the upbeat and/or nonserious) and 808s was way more emotionally monochromatic. You could put both of those albums together and cover MBDTF, but neither of them individually covers the same spectrum.

yeah i mean, he already made me love a song where he compares the paparazzi to nazis, if the toxic sentiment is overpowering the music more now than it was then, maybe that just means the beats ain't that hot anymore (xpost)

... or maybe there's way more toxic sentiment? There's no corresponding "Good life" or "Drunk and Hot Girls" on the new album to offset the bitterness of "Flashing Lights".

Finally, an album that contains all of Kanye's worst qualities.

I wouldn't say ambition = unexpected, but I feel like Late Registration, for instance, really deliberately upped the ante of "this is how big and eventful a rap album can be" whereas this, 3 albums later, feels like Late Registration 2k10 with slightly updated sounds and perspectives, which doesn't feel that ambitious to me, just sounds like just about the only kind of album Kanye can make or wants to make.

― Prince SBanBan (some dude), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:16 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

late registration 2k10?? where is the 'gold digger'? where's the 'drive slow'? i dunno, they feel like extremely different records to me. "We Major" comes closest, but late reg felt like way less of an event rap album

eh, that wasn't my recollection at the time, or rather it might be more accurate to say that Late Registration was the event rap album for pop fans since I'd kind of divorced myself from hip-hop fandom almost completely by that point

I would argue that Graduation as a package was way less confessional and more roleplaying

yeah graduation was def a more varied album - not so overwhelmingly self-absorbed - but i think "homecoming", "can't tell me nothing" and "everything i am" are all pretty confessional; and i don't think anything on MBDTF pushes the confessional form that much further than those songs and 808s. kanye's confessing stuff he's already told us, basically.

also, the beats on graduation really add to the confessional feel of it - my fav section of it is the middle, "can't tell me nothing" through to "flashing lights", and there's this real lurching sense of slightly cokey wrongness about the beats, these dark shimmering things, and you actually do feel like you're getting sucked into the weird bubble kanye the celebrity lives in.

if the argument is that MBDTF is completely different to its predecessors because it LACKS the upbeat pop songs that previously leavened kanye's self-absorption, i guess i agree, but that's kind of...regression. or just disappearing down a not very interesting rabbithole, as i think a hoy hoy said way earlier.

i think "homecoming", "can't tell me nothing" and "everything i am" are all pretty confessional; and i don't think anything on MBDTF pushes the confessional form that much further than those songs and 808s. kanye's confessing stuff he's already told us, basically.

Yep. I don't mind retreads but with MBDTF I feel like Kanye has even lost the knack for articulating what he's already told us. He's like a drunk friend telling a long-told joke in a rambling, incoherent manner.

*told = oft

but i think "homecoming", "can't tell me nothing" and "everything i am" are all pretty confessional

man all three of these crush anything on this record

songs on Late Registration that i feel set some kind of precedent for MBDTF by being dark or esoteric or ornate or 'weird' in some way or another: Crack Music, My Way Home, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction, We Major, Celebration

ffs, no one is saying "this album is COMPLETELY different", or at least I'm not

In fact, I am pretty explicitly bending over backwards pointing out all of the things that are the same along with all of the things that are different

perhaps maybe come out of your preconceived notion of what you imagine everyone is saying about this album and read what I'm ACTUALLY saying?

Crack Music, My Way Home, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction, We Major, Celebration

― Prince SBanBan (some dude), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

half of these are the worst songs on the album

eh, that wasn't my recollection at the time, or rather it might be more accurate to say that Late Registration was the event rap album for pop fans since I'd kind of divorced myself from hip-hop fandom almost completely by that point

― Yeezy reupholstered my pussy (DJP), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:45 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

wasnt it more the breakthrough for pop fans?

and much worse than anything on dark twisted fantasy

i can't tell who you're talking to now. me? deej? (xpost to DJP)

Crack Music, My Way Home, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction, We Major, Celebration

― Prince SBanBan (some dude), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

yah these are good forerunners for this new, very different record

al hes talking to you

MBDTF isn't more confessional than kanye's been in the past, if anything slightly less, in that he's talking more in generalities, less about anything identifiably specific. but it nonetheless communicates a great deal about his/"the narrator's" psychology and lifestyle. i'd argue that it's more fractured and emotionally transparent than anything he's done in the past (808's comes close), but also less direct, less relatable.

and the music here, again, adds to that. it's often garish, bloated and overlayered in ways that should be off-putting but somehow (mostly) work, at least manage to entertain and to hold my attention. the music tells the story as much as the words, of this profoundly unhappy superman locked away in a hideous gilded dungeon of his own making.

Crack Music, My Way Home, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction, We Major, Celebration

― Prince SBanBan (some dude), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 1:52 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

half of these are the worst songs on the album

haha i think most of these are the best on the album! (not "addiction", "my way home" or "celebration" really, but i love the others.)

well, my list of LR songs was in response to deej asking where the "Gold Digger" or "Drive Slow" is on the new album (to the latter i might say "Devil" since it has a soul beat, brooding atmosphere, and southern guest rapper, but that feels like a stretch). i guess i should've quoted deej but i wasn't responding to anything DJP had said at all.

if the argument is that MBDTF is completely different to its predecessors because it LACKS the upbeat pop songs that previously leavened kanye's self-absorption, i guess i agree, but that's kind of...regression.

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:50 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

I don't mind retreads but with MBDTF I feel like Kanye has even lost the knack for articulating what he's already told us. He's like a drunk friend telling a long-told joke in a rambling, incoherent manner.

― look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:50 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

much as a i like the record, both lex and alfred at least partially OTM here (though lex characteristically overstates things by at least 200% - no one's pinning this album's importance on the lack of upbeat pop songs).