Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

agree it makes no sense but it's pretty standard critical privileging of "art that DARES to DELVE into the DARKEST RECESSES of the SOUL" coupled with - also standard - critical self-loathing

you see guys, in the end, kanye was just one of us

dunno, his peen is way bigger than mine

maybe he just forgot to look up what "venerates" means

A pox on whoever posted orange beef or whatever that is six posts up. I'm starving.

it's seitan...seitan...seitan...

....

ha as someone who likes this album a hell of a lot more than most of the loudest people on this thread, even I think that Pitchfork sentence makes zero (0) fucking sense

^^^what he sed.

i listened to the back half of this on the train today--it's really not as bad as i remembered. i might upgrade the whole thing from like a 3/10 to a 5/10.

we haven't talked enough about the "fuck with the lights on" breakdown! wish there was more stuff like that on this album.

more seitan on this thread plz

I guess the idea is maybe that Kanye somehow 'venerates' his loathsome qualities by discussing or airing them in the context of celebratory pop songs or something (ignoring for the moment the fact that that music has gotten less fun as he's gotten more 'introspective') — like, if you're gonna talk about something in a rap song that gets played on the radio, you must ascribe a certain importance to it, even if it's only "something that a bunch of ppl can relate to" ("Now I ain't sayin' she a gold-digger, but... fellas, you know what I'm talkin' about!" — the rapper as stand-up comic, which is a sort of suggestive idea that I've been into lately) — but anyway then the importance/'veneration' he attaches to his own flaws makes him a more sympathetic character (important word!) because, like many of us, he knows what those flaws are, but doesn't/can't change them — just talks a lot instead.

this is of course a fairly bleak aesthetic that reduces music to existential comfort-food, but don't shoot the messenger okay?

Kanye on record is a myriad of different things.

None of those things are "humble" or "sympathetic".

Some of these writers need to learn the language they are writing in.

kinda feel that most of these arguments for this record boil down to "ooh, contradictions! interesting! because these contradictions actually lead to a conclusion opposite to the one we all assumed!"

very amateur-hour

i mean, if lex thinks this sounds like a retread to him, then i think he's out of his fucking mind; but that doesn't exactly mean he's writing it to be intentionally misleading

― TamTam Club (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, December 13, 2010 12:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i wrote a lengthy post upthread explaining song-by-song why this album pretty much sounds like L808 Gradustration to me, i'd be happy to hear a counterpoint

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i mean i actually think it's totally fine that Kanye has a core signature sound that he never quite escapes no matter how daring or creative he tries to be, i just think people should engage with the sound they're hearing more than the one he was trying to make (xpost)

i don't know how many times you can post in one thread before it comes off a little weird to make "smh @ how long this thread is" jokes but i think you passed it a while ago DJP fwiw fyi imo

haha i think you could as easily say about your review 'i wish he would engage with the sound hes hearing more than the album he wishes kanye made'

i don't know how many times you can post in one thread before it comes off a little weird to make "smh @ how long this thread is" jokes but i think you passed it a while ago DJP fwiw fyi imo

um, I was pointing out a likely reason why people hadn't responded to your lengthy post but, you know, continue being hyper-defensive, it's an awesome look on you

i think ppl did respond to his post actually

Apparently he didn't read it!

i don't know how many times you can post in one thread before it comes off a little weird to make "smh @ how long this thread is" jokes but i think you passed it a while ago DJP fwiw fyi imo

um, I was pointing out a likely reason why people hadn't responded to your lengthy post but, you know, continue being hyper-defensive, it's an awesome look on you

― "Kiss Players♥" (DJP), Tuesday, December 14, 2010 11:54 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it was a silly zing! i would've said it to any of the 10 most frequent posters in this thread if they'd said what you said. if i can't just randomly say things to you that i would say to anyone without it being taken super personal, that's not ME being hyper defensive.

also i wasn't crying about my post not being responded to the first time, i was inviting Whiney to say something more nuanced in defense of this record than his tweets about it or his tweet-length posts ITT.

lol @ me

haha i think you could as easily say about your review 'i wish he would engage with the sound hes hearing more than the album he wishes kanye made'

― lotta diamonds ... but prolly more display names (deej), Tuesday, December 14, 2010 11:53 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i did a podcast/internet radio 'debate' kinda thing last week with another critic who liked the album, and it was a really interesting and friendly convo and at one point he straight up asked me "what album do you wish Kanye made/hope he makes next?" and i didn't really have an answer. i don't really object to the 'direction' he's going in (and if anything kind of consider it an absence of real direction, just kind of coasting in the direction he was already headed in), i just want the beats and the rhymes to hit me harder really.

i mean in a lot of ways i'm pretty primal and direct about how i respond to records -- if it's a rock record i'm like yo these riffs are nice/lame/etc. if it's a rap record i'm like yo these beats and rhymes are slammin/wack/etc.

"what album do you wish Kanye made/hope he makes next?

This album - less of a stupid title, having someone around to tell him to drop the inane shit like he has had on other albums (lol jon brion but if ever there was a dude who needs someone around to keep him focussed it is kanye).

Next album, I'd like to see him try and calm down on the generic celeb tip with his rhymes and be kanye again. also this is the first kanye record where he hasn't really tried to do anything absolutely new and different over the whole albums production set-up; i'd like to see him try and have more focus on the sonics of it all.

"what album do you wish Kanye made/hope he makes next?

this album! nothing wrong with what he was going for and what it COULD have been is pretty great, the execution's just so poor. luckily diddy actually made that album for us.

!!!!

This album - less of a stupid title, having someone around to tell him to drop the inane shit like he has had on other albums (lol jon brion but if ever there was a dude who needs someone around to keep him focussed it is kanye).

actually, all that "inane shit" happens to be the most attractive stuff on this record; without it, it likely really would be fucking unbearable. but maybe you'd prefer he just hacked-out some fairly standard "ringtone crew approved" type of crap, tho? i mean, god forbid dude actually display any personality on record, right? just give us the skills, man. nothing but the skills. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

uhhh as one of the lone voices for boring skill based rappers in the entire ringtone crew, i think you vastly misread the general consensus of personality vs. skills in the cru.

i think you'll find most ringtone cru favourites this year display tons of personality on their records! just not in such a tedious way as kanye does here.

and i encourage you to check out skyzoo's new record :)

...cue fifteen-minute guitar solo and light/lazer show--to be followed up by lengthy but tasteful drum solo, only to climax with burly display of GONG technique, like, man.

(joeks dudes!)

xps

btw, i certainly didn't mean u, Matt.

no worries at all, just saying my stodgy viewpoints are generally not the norm

rakim 4 lyfe!

^see, i can get behind that. but then, i'm olde. ;_;

tbh if he dropped the codas off of most of the songs, there would be fewer reservations about it; I think the album's biggest problem its inability to figure out when songs wear out their welcome

i dunno, that never bothered me--luv the coda to "Runaway," for example.

yeah...other than thinking that "Runaway"'s extended album mix was unnecessary and thinking "Dark Fantasy" has too many choruses, song length isn't necessarily my biggest complaint here (i actually think the length of "Blame Game" is one of its strengths!). i'm not crazy about how long the songs are, but if each had a minute or two chopped off i'm not sure my opinion of them would change that much. that's just me, though.

ha "Blame Game" is why I said "most" and not "all"

I have played the extended coda to "Runaway" by choice twice; if I am paying attention, I will skip it.

Ionnais - Inane shit = how he lacks personality on the record, how there is no detail, no life. I went into this way back up thread but all his other records are about Kanye whereas this is about 'Kanye'

I'm coming around on this album, mostly b/c I'm traveling & being lazy about what I'm listening to & the "eventness" of it compels me to pick it, and they're digging in therefore; kinda love the coda of "Runaway" actually.

can't read the 1000000 posts but I'd say this album is less "about" ego & more about self-absorption, and is sorta self-aware about this and sorta not

mostly wish it was nastier than it is, so that it could be my imaginary soundtrack to Miles Davis' lost years in the 1970s.

xp

yeah, but "Kanye" happens to be his life/core subject these days, no? so it would be dishonest of him to be writing about 2003-05 Kanye-type shit these days, actually imo. i mean, part of the reason i dig this album so much is cause i literally cannot see where he could go next--it's a horrible cliche, sure, but he does seem to be teetering on some kind of psycho-emotional/aesthetic precipice at the moment. and i honestly don't see how much more "drama" dude can withstand in both his life and career. but that's just me being me, so grain meet salt, etc.

i literally cannot see where he could go next

COVERS ALBUM

haaaaaaa OTM

Kanye Presents The Great American Songbook. First single: "Feels So Good"

I would think he'd go more the "classics of hip-hop" route, wouldn't he?

I mean, just ponder Kanye getting his hands on "It's Like That" or "The Message"

hey some dude, go actually link me to your post and i'll comment on it. i'm not gonna go crate-digging for your opinions

also, maybe i would have responded to it if someone hadn't banned me for a month. so your real beef is with dan in all honesty

oh dip kanye's spaghetti incident would be off the meatrack

I would think he'd go more the "classics of hip-hop" route, wouldn't he?

dude put ma$e in his top 5 rappers of all time, didn't he?