Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

"conditions of production must be re-produced"

"let's have a toast to the douchebags" seems pretty celebratory to me?

(i actually really like that idea for a chorus and also the melody - i just don't like the way he semi-sings it/the arrangement/the verses/so many underwritten lines/the length on the album)

^^yeah, and it's a bit of a cliché w/r/t artists generally too. which isn't to say it can't lead to good art but as sam says, telling isn't sufficient for this, you have to show.

so what's to tell? (old WB cartoon j/k)

honestly, tho, i can't think of any other major musical figure on the horizon that's more "show" than Ye. some of you guys really need to get that rockist, lyrics-prioritizing monkey off yr backs, methinks.

yeah but so does kanye

(I get what yr saying tho, and as a half-defender of this album I half-agree)

what's "rockist" (another word that we need a moratorium on) about thinking lyrics are important?

it does explain a lot when defenders of this album are all "oh i don't care about lyrics" though

lex...

"let's have a toast to the douchebags" seems pretty celebratory to me?

(i actually really like that idea for a chorus and also the melody - i just don't like the way he semi-sings it/the arrangement/the verses/so many underwritten lines/the length on the album)

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:33 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ditto both parts of this post

"let's have a toast to the douchebags" seems pretty celebratory to me?

Try listening to the entire chorus sometime; it ends with "Baby I got a plan/Run away fast as you can", which casts the entire rest of the chorus in a much more sarcastic light.

Seriously, it's a little difficult to take the hatred seriously if you don't actually understand what the not-very-complex song is saying.

Ioannis, we're not talking about some album with long guitar jams and like 20 words per song, rap albums and particularly this one basically have the word count of a short novel

everything Kanye's said about "Runaway" makes me feel like the celebratory aspect is at least as much sincere as it is ironic and self-deprecating

what's "rockist" (another word that we need a moratorium on) about thinking lyrics are important?

lady, if you have to ask...

"to get that rockist, lyrics-prioritizing monkey off yr backs, methinks."

this is fucking hip-hop.

hip-hopist ^^^

i never received that particular memo, Al. must put a call in to hip-hop HQ, quick like.

what's "rockist" (another word that we need a moratorium on) about thinking lyrics are important?

it's not just "thinking lyrics are important", it's the things ppl are saying about the lyrics ("show don't tell!" "he's saying the same things he's said before!") — what's "rockist" about all this is that it repeats a common gesture — which goes beyond rock/pop, following the high culture/mass culture distinction wherever it rears its head, re: genre fiction or metal or whatever — that sets (a very narrowly-conceived notion of) artistic 'originality' over and against conventionality/craft, with the latter not seen as basically empty, neutral, and valueless

"if I wanted to hear about (corpses/dancing/kanye) and whatever I could listen to a thousand other (metal bands/pop songs/kanye albums) instead of this one"

tbf that is not Lex's argument, and I don't think it's the one some dude is really standing behind even if his rhetoric veers in that direction occasionally

it may not be Lex's argument but I don't think it's asking too much of him to figure out what "rockist, lyrics-prioritizing monkey" refers to

oh wow that looks pretty bad out of context

xpost But the point is that his craft isn't very good this time either - the rhymes themselves are sloppy. It's not like he's a consistently solid MC who doesn't get his due - quite the opposite. Isn't artistic 'originality' Kanye's whole goal here? If anyone's encouraging a rockist reading of this record it's him.

lol snowy

I can't tell if the "jerkoffs/work off" part is just there to rhyme, if he genuinely believes he needs to cut down on his perfectionism (which could explain the amateurish vocal) or if he's passive-aggresively suggesting he's one of those oliver stone heroes who treats his wife badly because he's too busy doing his goddamn, world-important job.

oh, he totally is. and he's likewise totally full of shit in that respect.

xps

haha--fast thread moving to fastly.

i can't work out what ioannis and snowy think lyrics exist for

also, it's obvious that i'm not insisting that lyrics have to be full of ~meaning~ or that generic and good are mutually exclusive (one of my favourite hip-hop tracks of 2010 is diamond's "lotta money" for heaven's sake, but they have to work on some level, and imo kanye's don't for the majority of MBDTF.

music comes first, lyrics second (and sometimes not at all).

I wonder what the rock/pop division even looks like from where Kanye's standing — I mean he has to know that this album is "not pop" in the sense that, y'know, the singles don't sound like other singles that ppl are listening to — which is no biggie, he's already gone there and then some with 808s, 'heartfelt' 'personal' 'artistic' choices trumping audience sensibilities — but it's weird because here, again, private and public get all jumbled up, so that in the end it's hard to know who Kanye sees as "putting up with my shit for way too long" vs. calling him a motherfucking monster

like he's addressing the 'pop music audience' to tell them how frustrated he is by their codependent relationship. but it never quite boils over into a full-blown argument, so maybe that's where some of y'all feel let down.

which leads me to something else I'm getting from the album that I wonder if other people maybe aren't: it doesn't sound lazy or phoned-in, it sounds angry. maybe just straight-up hurtful. I mean, the hook on "Gorgeous" ("I can feel it slowly slipping away from me / I'm on the edge so why you playin'? [...] I will never ever let you live this down") seems to more-or-less explicitly tell the haters in the media 'If I kill myself, it'll be your fault!' — the question being, I guess, whether Kanye does it with more or less self-awareness than a teenager yelling at his parents

music comes first, lyrics second (and sometimes not at all).

i can't conceive of separating them like this. when i hear the music i also hear lyrics, i can't tune one or the other out (unless they're actually, like, unintelligible, which sadly isn't the case here).

Admittedly I am always way more into the sounds than I am the words (deeply ironic for a semi-professional chorister). I have said in the past that I don't care about lyrics but that isn't really the case; it's more that I have to really, REALLY dislike the lyrics in order for them to negatively impact my enjoyment of a song. Most times, they are value-neutral. When I really dig them, they elevate the song to another plane.

but yeah he was going "i can use my arrogance as a STEAM to power my DREAMS" on his first album and "why you think me and Dame cool? we assholes!" even before that, don't know why people are treating "Runaway" as this brash zeitgeist grabbing statement and not just the same thing he's been saying for almost a decade.

― some dude, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:22 PM (44 minutes ago) Bookmark

this nails it tbh, none of this is new, it's just bigger and uglier; 'runaway' is practically unlistenable unless you listen to stuff in order to unpick it on the internet

lex: I guess I think lyrics — at least the kind that I like — are primarily performative, and can therefore easily 'misfire' based on the listener's perception of the character/performer pronouncing them. so, for example, Lil B's lyrics actually ~do~ seem like the grossest most misogynistic shit ever if somebody totally misses the satirical intent of a line like "I fuck her face like her husband" or "Bitches suck my dick cuz my chain look like lightning" or whatever

this is going to blow your mind HM, but not everyone dislikes ugly music

like, no one ever sat around going "I am in the mood for the dulcet tones of Nitzer Ebb"

sure, im just saying

fwiw among the autogoon people i'm one of the least lyric-focused and more into drums/production/hooks/overall sound. but i mean, i'm not just saying "Kanye's a bad rapper thus this album is bad," i don't really love the sound of the album either.

metal machine music to thread.

lol let's not go crazy and overstate the ugliness of this album

and i'm saying his rapping is pretty much irrelevant. it's the tone of voice i'm interested in, not the nitty-gritty specifics that voice is mewling over.

xp

j/k

yeah i just don't know how you can really ONLY listen to the tone of his voice and not process the words that are being said. that's just weird.

i mean i can see listening to a Twista or Nelly or ODB album and going "i have no idea what he just said but the way he said it is a blast!" but Kanye, especially on this album, is so emphatic and deliberate about hammering home every punchline and 'profound' observation, it's built into his deliery.

it's the tone of voice i'm interested in, not the nitty-gritty specifics that voice is mewling over.

― You're Twistin' My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Man! (Ioannis), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 3:19 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

someone's been reading their mallarme

and i'm saying his rapping is pretty much irrelevant.

you can think that if you like, but it's hardly "rockist" or odd in any way to care about rapping on a rap album

it's the tone of voice i'm interested in

this is an even worse look than his words tbh - relentless and increasingly nasal whine that's way too high in the mix. the sound of his voice is what i disliked most about the album, by three-quarters of the way through i wanted nothing more than for kanye to just STFU

palm meet head. hi-de-do.

xp

well, tov is not the only thing that matters to me here, just sayin' it's what i'm prioritizing.

also, i'm a KISS fan. simple really.

I dunno, sometimes the lyrics don't actually matter that much and the pleasure in listening is just being able to ride an MC's flow*. If lyrics were really the be all and end all then no one would ever listen to an rap in languages other than your own.

*Once again this doesn't really work as defence of Kanye.

what's interesting about Ye here--as opposed to Lohan, Britney et al--are the aesthetic choices he consciously makes time and again: Crimson sample on one track, say; "Echoes" derived piano tinkling on another; guests galore stinking up the joint just so; you name it. as i see it, he's the ringmaster, the album is his big top, and the guests his freaks/performers. of course, he's also the star attraction, which is where things get kinda weird. and for me that's where all the talk re: persona an' shit comes in. but, yeah, if you want, there's nothing inherently more daring this or cutting edge that going on on any specific piece of music here either. it's the whole shebang in toto, rather, that's really captivating (hey, just like in an good prog-rock record. well, waddya know?). and i loved Britney's Blackout-era weirdness, too, btw.

― You're Twistin' My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Man! (Ioannis), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 10:02 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

good post but doesn't this seem like, appreciation-by-checklist - like, got the weird prog sample, check, got the massive posse cut, check, got the homage-paying track, check...

I still don't know how these all add up to 'greatest album of the year'

Well... it doesn't! I like the album and I wouldn't even rank it as a top 10 album of the year.

hey, you're not loannis!