Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

i mean i'm not trying to sweep it under the rug and erase it from history, i just feel like it's worthwhile to put it in the context of his whole career and not just the context of a bunch of magazines hurdling towards the end of 2010 and latching onto the most obvious Black Friday blockbuster as their EOY savior.

(xp) this is, though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGn2V7mgnN4

the most obvious Black Friday blockbuster as their EOY savior

SPIN's #1 should have been "Your favorite Glee cover"

DJP u crazy, there's nothing really funky about this kanye album IMO

get up on sum nasty cowbell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFhM1XZsh6o

mountain song opening bassline is all time tho

actually this bass might be funkier than janes or mountain

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umeZtszNShk

[please forgive the talk of "a critic's job" and "obligation" in the following. it's not mine to say, but i don't know how else to say it...]

the "importance" talk is a red herring. way upthread, there were posters who at least seemed to argue that this album's importance was sufficient in itself to justify its extremely high ratings and unanimously positive critical response. as though you almost had to give kanye those points, whether or not you actually liked or respected the album yourself, simply because the indisputable significance of this dark twisted fantasy could not be denied. (and no, i'm not paraphrasing any specific poster's argument, and i'll be fucked if i'll go digging for source quotes in this monster thread. maybe i'm completely wrong here, but i seem to recall this being the gist of at least a few posts.)

thing is, it's not really critic's job to notice and laud mere importance, especially when the importance in question is of the sort conferred by anticipation, popularity and sales. those things announce and laud themselves. it's certainly a critic's job to point out that which seems important by virtue of its ambition, artistic courage, and consonance with or commentary on the culture at large, but none of these things are necessarily positive traits in isolation. when critics of popular commodities make buyer's-guide-style quality judgments, such as numerical ratings, a key component of their evaluations, they must speak plainly about how good they think the thing in question is: what it does, how it does it, and most crucially, what it does and doesn't get right along the way. the rating should reflect not only the supposed importance of the thing, but also the critic's own personal assessment of its quality, value and aesthetic appeal. that's how i see it, anyway.

i'd say that this critical obligation extends equally to all albums & songs, no matter how objectively important they might seem. if anything, supposedly moment-defining "event albums" deserve more honest and less generous criticism than marginal releases that few will ever hear in the first place. important albums don't automatically deserve glowing reviews and 10.0 ratings, especially if one doesn't actually like them or believe that they're entirely successful relative to their ambitions. it seems to me that those once-in-a-blue-moon superlatives should be reserved, yes, for seemingly important albums, but more specifically for those few important albums that also seem timeless, all but flawless and satisfactorily successful relative to everything they attempt. and even then, only when you really, honestly love the music to death, in every moment, and want to play it over and over and over again until the day you die, or until your spouse "accidentally" breaks/loses/deletes it, or at least for the next six months. otherwise, 9.3, 'A' for effort...

"the "importance" talk is a red herring. way upthread, there were posters who at least seemed to argue that this album's importance was sufficient in itself to justify its extremely high ratings and unanimously positive critical response. as though you almost had to give kanye those points, whether or not you actually liked or respected the album yourself, simply because the indisputable significance of this dark twisted fantasy could not be denied. (and no, i'm not paraphrasing any specific poster's argument, and i'll be fucked if i'll go digging for source quotes in this monster thread. maybe i'm completely wrong here, but i seem to recall this being the gist of at least a few posts.)"

no one was arguing this

i did argue that it made sense *for pitchfork* to vote that way bcuz of the way the album is sorta 'culturally placed' but thats a different issue; i didnt vote for it in y-e

looking back, j0rdan seems to have been the first to suggest that pitchfork's GOAT makes sense in light of kanye's importance and p4k's own cultural positioning. others quickly took up the chorus that the rating had to have been based more on these qualities than on musical merit and/or personal affection alone: dayo, dorianlynsky, etc. though it's just a throwaway comment, the [redacted] tumblr that dayo quoted articulates the critical stance i was reacting against above:

10. Do I enjoy the record? No, not especially, or at least not as a 70 minute experience. Parts of it. Songs on shuffle. But it’s exhausting! In the way Important Records usually are. I’ve played it three times through - hardly enough to have an opinion - but I’m not really reaching for it again.

that's the sort of thing i was responding to, and most of it was said three weeks ago. didn't have anything to do w/ you in particular, deej.

***RANKING KANYE***

I would like to point out that I have been OTM

i know people like to make fun of jay-z's verse on monster. generally i don't have a problem with it but there's something hilarious about having the line "all I see is these n-ggas I've made millionaires / milling about, spilling their feelings in the air" on a kanye west song

lol

(that's actually a pretty good line, too!)

well it's a direct diss at beanie sigel, but yeah

ha i didn't think it was actually directed at kanye but it's funny how you could say the same things about kanye and it's, you know, on a kanye song

yeah it's about beanie...actually it's not a bad line and it's one of jay's more tolerable recent verses - any time he can get to 6/10 it's an accomplishment

LOOOOOOOVE notwithstanding...god i wish jay from 10 years ago could see himself now

a ferrari, a jaguar, switching four lanes,
top down, screaming out LOOOOOOOOVE

o wait that was jermaine dupri's line forget it

it was actually still kinda funny

someone could do a jay-z/j. lo mash up called "LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE don't cost a thing"

LOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooool

guys there's no way a line about "millionaires" is directed at beanie sigel

a ferrari, a jaguar, switching four lanes,
top down, screaming out LOOOOOOOOVE

― markers, Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:39 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

o wait that was jermaine dupri's line forget it

― markers, Thursday, December 16, 2010 4:40 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jay wrote jd's lines and said that line on reasonable doubt first fwiw

ah! good to know

yah that line's off 'cant knock the hustle'!

i kinda hope beanie just shoots everybody

i think that is like...the opposite of your famous ma$e post

i was so happy to see beanie return on a murderous rampage, i welcomed him

hahahaha

a joke of course but i don't like ppl talking bad about beanie he is one of my favorite rappers.

beanie's the illest but the way he's handled the whole jay thing is pathetic and depressing

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE

occasional ilx poster otm re beanie & jay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqRniPQ5unc

i still have this funny picture of upper mississippi hearing a ma$e song and saying quietly "...welcome"

:-D

that video is awesome :)

^___^

who is that

jsmooth posts here? lol who he is - his vids are awesome

jsmooth75 or something pretty recognizable like that

same as his twitter

not luriqua, then

american drunkyard

btw did the "so much head i ended up in sleepy hollow" line ever get discussed??? wtf is that line supposed to mean?

headless horseman

maybe he literally cut the head off the girl who was blowing him

and then traveled to sleepy hollow in pennsylvania

and then tweeted about it

sleepy hollow is in ny *pedant*

pusha t with another headless horseman ref later in the album too