Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

haha he namedrops austin powers in "power"

is austin powers ready for a critical reevaluation?

at what point in the last ten years have rappers not been referencing austin powers?

austin powers thing was totally rolling my damn eyes

lol

king crimson, austin powers what a crazy post-modern musical landscape we have here

this is totally boring

First Austin Powers movie is a classic.

yeah this isn't good

btw this thread may become my rolling 'pictures of kanye looking sad in brightly colored clothing' blog

Here's my contribution:

http://www.hecklerspray.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/kanye-297x300.jpg

nah the color really needs to pop

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/10/17/alg_singer_kanye-west.jpg

??

lol

HOLY HELL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFU9nOD7NQc

HOLY zzzzzzzz

http://www.layoutlocator.com/graphics/dldimg/53daf210b9eb64b7e5f2ceafe05f8499_haters_keep_on_hatin-6777.jpg

Great reply! xp

This feels like a step backwards after 808s and Heartbreak. If the drums had been a straight-up D&B beat rather than a watered-down homage, it would have been a stronger song IMO.

oof so if, say, like me, you were a person that thought 808s sucked and was a huge step back already, you should steer clear of this i guess

I don't feel like its a step back, just sort of a lateral move really. It isn't better than 85% of 808s but tbh, so much better than I was anticipating this single to be. I'm really thankful that its NOT straight up D&B, that would be horrible. I do have to admit that I really love the sample, which may be coloring my opinion of the rest of the song.

<3 kanye <3

It's a bunch of bombast with no real anchor, basically. I might grow to like it but there's nothing about the song that makes it stand out or tries to earworm you, completely unlike the stronger 808s songs ("Love Lockdown", "Paranoid", "Welcome To Heartbreak")

I don't think "Power" is amazing but I like the chanting and the King Crimson sample and I thought 808s was kind of a snooze so I'm glad it doesn't sound like that

808s was super navel-gazing; if you're not predisposed towards that, it's a much harder sell.

Fortunately I'm a big dopey goth so it was kind of like Kanye was pandering to me with that album.

If he continues with the prog samples, he'll certainly be pandering to me!

If I had a problem with navel-gazing, I would not post "<3 kanye <3"

My problem with 808s was more the boring autotune singing and the lack of rapping and fun. I did like "Love Lockdown" and maybe one or two other tunes, and I appreciated that he was trying something a little different/unexpected.

IMO there's a difference between being all into yourself (aka Kanye throughout the entirety of his career) and being a big navel-gazer (aka 808s; super insular, not very expressive or expansive, way more interested in entertaining yourself than other people). I thought that Kanye's self-obsession and the really unflattering picture it painted of him was a really involving listen, one that was much deeper than probably even he realized; like, I think he knew he was walking an unpleasant road but I don't think he intended the process of exorcising his relationship demons to be that harsh on the listener's image of him.

I don't know, I just really, really loved that album. Except for "Pinocchio Story", that was some bullshit.

wait, what does this song have to do with drum'n'bass (and/or Dave & Buster's)?

i'm really just tired of dude doing clunky 'aggressive' songs that sound like "2 Words"

It doesn't; it just has a busy, active drumbeat and I would have liked it more if it was full-on sped-up Amen breaks.

oh ok. they will bang this shit out at Dave & Buster's though i bet

i thought that was a pretty great performance, at least for a few minutes -- i don't have massive hopes for this album or anything, considering how kanye has rapped in the past year or year and a half and considering some of the clunkers on "power" itself == but i am glad that he's back

idk he was like, hopping around a mic stand on top of a paper mache volcano in front of an Imax movie about the Himalayas, what's so great about it?

you pretty much just answered your own question there

it was very Kanye, altho he should've come off the mountain after like minute 2

dude it's a family show

ew >:o

i'm sure it looked pretty hokey in person, but the fact that they managed to get some of those snow globe shots on the BET awards' shoestring budget (how many rappers mics worked properly? half?) has got to be some sort of success.

also i like to imagine that after the song ended and they wheeled his paper maiche volcano backstage he just stayed up there for the remainder of the show.

i get that everything Kanye does is really about being 'grandiose' or 'forward-thinking' or whatever, but when he uses the same kinds of gestures over and over to that end, it really just comes off kind of anti-climactic and bereft of ideas. i mean, i know Kanye wants people to go HOLY SHIT after a performance like that, i just can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would.

it was very Kanye, altho he should've come off the mountain after like minute 2

― incredible length (J0rdan S.), Monday, June 28, 2010 1:11 PM (1 hour ago)

dude it's a family show

― Opinions are a lot like assholes. You've got LOTS of BOTH of them. (HI DERE)

Actual LOL, thanks to you both.

haha totally

this sounds like crack music. i mean, one of the reasons i was a big 808s defender is because i took it as a momentary diversion, not a future direction, but it still sounded hella fresher than this. and damn dude just can't stay away from austin powers.

haha i thought that perf was kinda endearingly cheapo compared to his usual big deals, i dunno

dude couldve saved a couple extra bucks and seen if the temple from lost was still in storage somewhere imo

xp yeah i imagine this will be a back-to-kanye-basics comfort album, maybe with some gil scott heron type agitatory b.s thrown in

i don't really mind personally - at very least i think it's a well-judged move and exactly what ppl want from him again whether they enjoy that fact or not

what's up with his voice on this rap today, it's kinda drake-y

― J0rdan S., Friday, May 28, 2010 3:17 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

every time I hear that song, I just want to listen to King Crimson

here's a totally awesome version of Norwegian deathjazz crew Shining doing "21st Century Schizoid Man" that ALSO CAME OUT THIS YEAR which is better than the Kanye version any day of the week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eXUjfVPkGk

"Is that apple not up to your usual standards, well then here's an ORANGE!"

shut the fuck up, he's always been a bit of an anti-climb Max (jon /via/ chi 2.0)

Seriously dude? Fuck off right back at you then. I take back any nice things I said about you.

shining are boring

"Is that apple not up to your usual standards, well then here's an ORANGE!"

big lol from over here

damn, i was only kidding dude :(

oh yeah this album

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, April 22, 2018

I mean it did just come in at third or something in that list from the guardian for the best records of the 21st century. It's very canonized, if not on ILX

gonna go out on a limb here and guess that yeezus will do somewhat well in any decade poll that ILX holds though.

Sometimes I think about listening to this but it feels exhausting

It's not even a top 3 Kanye album

it's a really frustrating listens because there are moments of brilliance but half the tracks drag on way longer than there's any reason for them to because no one was around to tell kanye "no". like off the top of my head, cut a verses from "gorgeous", "so appalled" and "hell of a life", edit down "runaway" significantly, and cut the chris rock sketch on "blame game" and then maybe there's a pretty good album?

there's also it having the worst mastering job of any album ever

Yes! For the ridiculous amount of people that worked on this record the mastering is pretty shoddy. It also most definitely mistakes ambition and progressive art with 5+ minute songs and crammed features. I don't care how many people praise it as a genius song, Runaway is just an ok song in heavy need of an edit, those last two minutes are honestly so fucking stupid, the ideas and hook in there are worth 4 minutes at most. The only track that deserves its length and excessive features is Monster.

The more I think about it the more this record feels like it only felt important in context and that context makes the whole thing feel way more important than what it really is, it's a self-mythifying record where the process of getting there seems more interesting than what we actually got. I like reading about this album more than the album itself. Good thing Kendrick took its crown since he actually has the ambitious albums to earn the GOAT accolades that GKMC and TPAB get.

That self-myth does seem to fool a great deal of people though. Take a walk to the garbage dump that are the music or hiphopheads subreddits and they're particularly defensive with this album, downvotes are had to anyone who dares say a negative thing about it.

It would have been a pretty shit decade if this was truly the best hip hop album in it.

the "runaway" outro is cool at first but then quickly overstays its welcome and it's just not that great of a song

i agree that "monster" is the only track that really justifies its length, and even then jay-z's verse isn't that good but it's at least endearingly goofy so it's a keeper

So appalled
Spaulding
Ball

Head of the class and she just want a swallowship

RIP kl0pper

I like this album tho

when you guys gang up on me i'm always right though

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Thursday, May 23, 2013 2:05 AM bookmarkflaglink

amateur hour. someone hit the fucking gong already on this clown.