Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

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

next year in music headlines: Kanye West announces "life trade" with Sufjan Stevens; preps California Dreamin' for August release

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Kanye West on American history, space travel, the pressures of fame, and what it's like to record Katy Perry playing a trumpet

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: John Mayer on American history, space travel, the pressures of fame, and what it's like to play Katy Perry like a trumpet

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

― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 11:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

^^this killed me

i'm sympathetic to al's argument about how this will be seen in 20 years or w/e but unfortunately i can't really buy it -- i feel like critics have set up the narrative where, like, this right now is seen as the pinnacle of kanye's career artistically (ridiculous notion, but w/e)

honestly i think the arguments that al is making about this record will apply to late registration

like in terms of a glossed over album i think the legacies of the albums will be (not that i think this is right but):

- college dropout: made a name for himself
- late registration: solidified himself as a pop star with his biggest single ever
- graduation: beefed with 50, won the sales battle
(now we get into the 'now he became a force as a capital a Artist' period)
- 808s: a divisive "artistic" record, i think what will be the legacy of this one is already pretty clear
- twisted fantasy: the magnum opus, art-rap spectacular, talents fully realized as he makes a great capital a Album

again, i think most of that is largely BS, but i think that's how it will play out

yeah maybe you're right. to me croup's Imperial Bedroom/Little Creatures parallel just makes more sense to me but who knows really.

yeah -- i don't know enough about costello to analyze that comparison

my beautiful dark twisted future fantasy, re: MBDTF's critical reappraisal, involves people changing their tune to "oh, it wasn't that bad after all, was it? in fact, it was pretty darn good.", or some such, actually. but that's just me. \m/ ^_^ \m/

all you need to know if that Costello's first 2-3 albums are total classics and his undeniable career peak and it's been diminishing returns since then but there were a few years that critics were in denial and sent lesser albums to the top of P&J

first paragraph of imperial bedroom review in RS: After years of furious parrying with his obsessions in a long ride that's taken him from arsenic tinged punk psychodramas to gin-mill country & western weepers, Elvis Costello has made his masterpiece.

Pretty sure every RS record guide since has given its highest ratings to his first two albums.

lol, i mean first sentence. and here's the last bit: In every aspect of this masterfully wrought, conceptually audacious project, he's managed to bulwark his emotional directness with vision and clarity — and to make an album that lingers and haunts long after the last note has died out. Like a long, episodic novel — or a long, episodic relationship — you can look back when it's over and measure how far you've traveled.

if only there was a 'mountain' reference to tie it into deej's topographical crit obsession too haha

there's really no "critical narrative" that can't be re-written

diff being that IB was a bore then and remains a bore now.

if only there was a 'mountain' reference to tie it into deej's topographical crit obsession too haha

― some dude, Wednesday, December 15, 2010 1:30 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha ok dude -- when this is seen as kanye's imperial bedroom you can claim your $5 *rmde*

It kind of has that early-part-of-the-decade masterwork vibe like London Calling or Kid A where it's gonna sit around for 9 years and fester until crits just sort of agree its the best of the decade.

Crazy talk. Sandinista comparison much closer to the mark.

(I like Imperial Bedroom)

that wasn't a boast or a wager about how right i am, i jut like making fun of your mountain analogy

why

i mean as in, 'lol sparring' or 'how wrongheaded'?

^progress

lol sparring feels like it has meme potential

i am a meme machine

i am a me me machine

― *plop*ism rules (deej), Wednesday, December 15, 2010 2:51 PM (53 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

speaking of me-me machines, something that just occurred to me: in light of discussions about egotism/solipsism/etc, what's the significance of kanye literally not getting the 'last word' on his own album?