Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

yup. even if it gets considered as one of his best records, i think a lot of ppl that lost their shit for it are going to feel sheepish about the perfect ratings in time.

― kanellos (gbx), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:12 AM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i could see it becoming a 'flawed classic' but i think the classic-ness is kinda written in stone now

With the caveat that I don't think this is as good an album, how is this furor dissimilar from what happened with Kid A, which ppl still rate highly 10 years later?

(even though Hail To The Thief was way better)

yeah, everyone should get their personal opinions out the discussion, ffs. The critics at large have set up a narrative that this is nu-Kanye, bigger bolder concept-rap, Sgt Peppers Lonely 808s and Heart Club Brand ish. RS, P4k, Vibe, Spin are united like never before. Whether you like Late Registration more is so, so, so, so, beyond the fucking point regarding whether this album is going to be regarded as a "classic" or not

how is that different to the narrative critics set up around be here now at the time?

I think the critics who gave it perfect ratings are going to eventually feel silly about it and admit they overrated it, then later realize they were right initially, then hedge their bets a little and say it's "pretty good but not his best," then you'll see the backlash against the backlash and they'll call it an "unsung masterpiece," and then it'll be Friday.

because RS and Spin and Vibe and Pfork never called it album of the year?

how is that different to the narrative critics set up around be here now at the time?

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:16 AM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark S

for real???

With the caveat that I don't think this is as good an album, how is this furor dissimilar from what happened with Kid A, which ppl still rate highly 10 years later?

But Kid A got a lot of mediocre reviews and left more reviewers nonplussed. It certainly didn't the sort of blanket praise this album is getting, Pitchfork 10 notwithstanding. I think Kid A's rep has actually improved over a decade.

holy shit i just realized that kanye needs an Interior Life of thread

i hereby bet that like 75% of the critics who gave this thing top marks will either be feeling silly or "remembering it differently" 5 years from now.
nah. you can predict that sort of reevaluation with certain kinds of albums, but this one -- self-important, bloated, driven by huge ego -- is less susceptible to that. not to say that critics won't backlash against it 5 years from now, but not because the critics who praise it now feel "silly" about it 5 years from now.

― Daniel, Esq., Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:13 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark

The Interior Life of Noel Gallagher: A Speculative History

and then it'll be Friday.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:16 AM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark

lololol

lol xp

Interior Life of Kanye would just be jacking his own Twitter feed surely?

because RS and Spin and Vibe and Pfork never called it album of the year?

― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:17 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Be Here Now didn't come out a week before lists were made, people had time to get all rmde what was i thinking

Man, I remember in 1997 when Oasis was in the Macy's parade and was flying the Crystal Method to Hawaii and stealing awards from the New Radicals

I mean, I do live in America, where we don't put up with shit like the Darkness and Sugababes

funny that Kanye wanted to be MJ for this age but instead he's getting lumped with an 'Oasis of hip-hop' tag

I mean, I do live in America, where we don't put up with shit like the Darkness and Sugababes

i like the way this post has nothing to do with anything, so typically whiney

Man, I remember in 1997 when Oasis was in the Macy's parade and was flying the Crystal Method to Hawaii and stealing awards from the New Radicals

― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:21 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

man that record COULDA been classic after all

I mean, I do live in America, where we don't put up with shit like the Darkness and Sugababes

You also have bands called things like "Hoobastank" though.

funny that Kanye wanted to be MJ for this age but instead he's getting lumped with an 'Oasis of hip-hop' tag

― modrić in paradise (blueski), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:22 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i'm ok with this

I mean, I do live in America, where we don't put up with shit like the Darkness and Sugababes

― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:22 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

Yes because America doesn't have anything more shameful than a half decent girl group to put up with.

how is that different to the narrative critics set up around be here now at the time?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_Here_Now_%28album%29#Reception

Contemporaneous reviews of Be Here Now were, in John Harris's words, unanimous with "truly amazing praise." According to Harris, "To find an album that had attracted gushing notices in such profusion, one had to go back thirty years, to the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."[31] While Q magazine described the album as "cocaine set to music", most early reviews praised the record's length, volume and ambition. Reviews in the British music press for Oasis' previous album (What's the Story) Morning Glory? had been generally negative. When it went on to become, in the words of Select editor Alexis Petridis, "this huge kind of Zeitgeist defining record" the music press was "baffled".[32] Realising they had gotten it wrong the last time, Petridis believes the initial glowing reviews were a concession to public opinion.[32]

Are you arguing that everyone is hyping this album up because everyone gave mediocre reviews to 808s and Heartbreak? (note: not everyone gave mediocre reviews to 808s.)

The critics at large have set up a narrative that this is nu-Kanye, bigger bolder concept-rap, Sgt Peppers Lonely 808s and Heart Club Brand ish. RS, P4k, Vibe, Spin are united like never before. Whether you like Late Registration more is so, so, so, so, beyond the fucking point regarding whether this album is going to be regarded as a "classic" or not

― patti ayonnaise (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:15 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol, but i can't think of any critics-united, "instant classic" albums that haven't held up over time, at least critically. still, this one strikes me as more shaky than most. bet stands, but make it 10 years. i'm one of the album's biggest defenders ITT, but i have a hard time believing that the praise will outlast the moment.

Hoobastank could just as easily have been an OutKast mixtape

Interior Life of Kanye would just be jacking ^off to his own Twitter feed surely?

― Matt DC, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 9:18 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

but i can't think of any critics-united, "instant classic" albums that haven't held up over time

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aNBTXUJotvs/S7WRqSIj3LI/AAAAAAAAANE/oBqYumy7iCA/s1600/clapping-hands-lg1.jpg

...

http://www.buhardilla.net/works/rgb/Yeah.jpg

?

lol really

initially just going for a clapping gis, threw in the clap yr hands say lolpfork reference because y not at this point

oh ok i thought you were seriously suggesting that

is that supposed to mean clap yr hands say yeah? a band that no one has ever heard of?

zp ha ok

then how do you know they're a band gbx?

he's psychic

wasn't that just pitchfork, though? i mean, i don't remember the whole world lining up to kiss its whole ass.

a psychic with all their albums

Unless I'm misreading history, Kid A was released just before the concept of the album as Unit of Aesthetic Integrity began to disintegrate (same year SPIN placed Napster at the top of its year-end list). It's totally conceivable that MBDTF will consist only as two or three mp3's in someone's iPod (or whatever we'll use in 2018), the existence of which will prove that, yes, it was a shitty record with a couple of excellent tracks.

(same year SPIN placed Napster at the top of its year-end list)

lol what were they thinking nobody uses that shit anymore

man, I was in London the month Be Here Now dropped. For two weeks everyone I bumped into looked like Liam Gallagher.

wasn't that just pitchfork, though? i mean, i don't remember the whole world lining up to kiss its whole ass.

― Today, if he makes a grunge (contenderizer), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:33 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

that was my point.

actually, they put "your hard drive" at the top xpost

i don't think rock critics break up their albums like 12 year olds do

you wanna bet?

Hoobastank could just as easily have been an OutKast mixtape

― modrić in paradise (blueski), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 5:26 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

i can't think of any critics-united, "instant classic" albums that haven't held up over time, at least critically.

there are definitely late-in-the-game albums from critical megastars that drop in estimation in favor of earlier works. Imperial Bedroom, Sandinista! and Little Creatures all topped the pazz'n'jop poll, but wouldn't get across-the-board classic reviews today

Not late in the game but:

http://gearpatrol.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/arrested-development-3-years-5-months-2-days-in-the-life-of-album-cover.jpg

though the reviews almost suggest MBDTF is a zeitgeist fart like AD, I really think the overrating of a known commodity has more to do with it - sure people trumpeted the clash's clashness in their Sandinista raves.

also, I think Kanye succeeds here insofar as he crafts an album and makes people pay attention to it as an album (via not having obvious singles + framing the whole thing as some sort of referendum on the state of music/culture/Kanye's mind 2k10) in a non-album age — I'm thinking here of Fred Jameson talking about how some historical moments are more conducive than others to the 'totalizing' gesture of the realistic novel, but replace 'realistic novel' with 'long-playing record' — obviously I'm not gonna claim that Kanye is "saving the album", or that he would really care whether he is or not; but he's trying to get people to pay attention to his album any way he can (Good Friday leaks, all-access Twitterrhea, expensively pretty 'high-art' music videos, etc), and it more or less worked.

(cf. the 4000-post thread I am posting in)

guess we should be glad it wasn't 3 CDs long