Kanye West, Yeezus, 6/18/13 (TBC because who knows anymore)

Yeah, not a fan of the egotistical echo chamber/hall of mirrors approach either. That it's all about him should be implicit, not explicit.

Yeezus

I Am A God

Implicit

Kanye West

Subtle

Kanye West

Subtle

"$2,000 bag / No cash in your purse" -- as a casual Kanye listener, seems like half his songs (Ns in Paris verse, Gold Digger et al) circle around this same kind of thing of bitch-who-do-you-think-you-are.

Not the thread for me, but I just wanted to say how much I agree with jaymc (agreeing with Popture) above. It's the Rolling-Stone-Lead-Review-in-1975 fallacy: that every new album by an important artist should be analyzed as a report on their emotional well-being as of today, and that this should automatically interest us. I haven't heard the album--I had a hard time getting through the last one for the very same reason.

Jaymc very otm.

I'm right there with jaymc, Popture and clemenza. Don't know why Kanye West is considered an Important Artist or a thinker whose thoughts must be wrestled with—he seems pretty dim to me. The music on this album is pretty good in parts—I would happily listen to the instrumental versions of the Daft Punk-produced tracks, at any rate. That's more than I've been able to say for his music before now—I've heard all the major singles without ever liking one, and have never heard an album all the way through until now (precisely because I don't like the singles, and he's a pop artist so presumably his best work is the stuff released as singles, yes?).

Not really!

he's a pop artist so presumably his best work is the stuff released as singles, yes?

not really

LOL xp

Well, clearly the stuff someone (him, his label's marketing department) thinks is the best is the stuff that gets released as singles. That's kinda how it works.

album starts & end strong but it kind of loses me in the middle. granted it's been <24 hours since my first listen-through. "New Slaves" is definitely the standout. strangely I thought the dick/swallower line worked better when it was censored to "prick" on SNL even though that doesn't really soften the offensiveness behind the imagery. "prick" seems to put more weight on the idea of being a deliberate irritant/a thorn in society's side. but I guess that's not really what he was going for w/that line.

almost every major pop star i can think of (and several minor ones too) are more interesting than just their singles

oh i have just heard this, have read no commentary and won't get a chance to hear again til tomorrow. much much better than MBDTF on one listen! "hold ya liquor" is easily the worst thing here though, such a tedious endless trudge

the daft punk songs are the best, prob

Why do debates about Kanye always devolve into the sympathetic and intentional fallacies? Why is criticism about him so insistently moralizing? I don't read the lyrical content as something that needs to be endorsed or condemned, and I think it's similarly beside the point to fret about the persona he puts across, as if we need to "approve" of the art and the artist that compels, moves, confuses us. Obviously it repels and attracts at the same time, and Kanye presents us not with a unified character but a series of fragmented selves. It's the very lack of platitudinous generalities, his willingness to go out on batshit and arguably offensive limbs, that make Kanye still fascinating, to me. And yeah, I think he is saying some pretty profound things about what it's like to be alive, right now, in a way that no other artist is brave enough to do right now. And I think everyone can agree that the sonics on this record are amazing. I didn't realize I wanted a version of Blood on the Tracks by the Knife, but it is scratching a really big itch for me. Can't stop listening.

Xpost responding to the popture, jaymc stuff above

if it's the "Important Artist" stuff that gets in the way of you enjoying an album, maybe you should read less criticism/reviews?

"ugh i can't enjoy this album because someone propped my eyes open and forced me to read 100 articles about it"

did you guys not enjoy the daft punk album either?

b/c the hype and self-aggrandizement were at least as pervasive for random access memories, so if you like one but not the other, maybe there's something else going on here

Idg why kanye is supposed to be "batshit" other than it suits (y)our romanticised image of ~the artist~. He's no odder than your average big pop star tbh.

kanye's an egotist but he didn't make kid cudi and bon iver record 10-minute-long videos about what a genius he is (tbh he's probably mad he didn't think of this first)

That's absurd and assumes crit only exists for consumer guide purposes. Albums are not enjoyed in a vacuum. I'm asking for a criticism that champions difficulty rather than falling back on puritanical platitudes. Do you not read reviews of albums you love?

not really

but people are specifically saying that the media coverage is keeping them from enjoying the album. so "read less media coverage" seems like a pretty easy solution to that.

To clarify (speaking for myself, not anyone else): it has nothing to do with reviews/critics--I should have said "received," not "analyzed." The fallacy is the artist's: I do believe that Kayne West (and U2, Madonna, and Lady Gaga, and lots of other artists of the type who get lead reviews in Rolling Stone) work from the assumption that we should care about how they're feeling at any given moment. (A running joke between a friend and I: "Perhaps R.E.M.'s most optimistic album yet," inspired by a review from a publication we used to write for.) If you do care, great.

Albums are not enjoyed in a vacuum.

Fitting, because many albums are best enjoyed while vacuuming.

why would anyone bother creating a piece of art if they didn't think people should care about what they're feeling?

??? not all art is about the artist's personal inner universe. it is about creating a universe for other people to experience within themselves.

Also, $$$.

Also, some artists like to tell stories or paint pictures.

xxxxpost (to Drew:)

My point is not that Kanye's persona is so unpleasant that I can't appreciate his music, but that I have trouble appreciating any music for which the presentation of the artist's persona is the primary point of interest. Critics are often drawn to that kind of thing, because it gives them plenty to chew on, but I need more than that to hold my interest. From my perspective, the production on Yeezus is solid, but the songs aren't particularly engaging (on a purely musical level). But I'm not really into Shaking the Habitual, either.

obv there are other kinds of music with other purposes but most u.s. popular music is about the artist's personal inner universe

The fallacy that what they're feeling is enough? That the album should be experienced as a lyric sheet? If you're making music, make sure those feelings are put to compelling (which can mean many different things) music. An old argument, and again, I haven't heard this particular album--just agreeing with jaymc as a general observation.

i mean really most u.s. popular music is about expressing some generic emotion in a relatable way but the expectation is still that it's "about the artist's personal inner universe"

well yeah that's part of the reason a lot of pop music sucks xxpost

My disappointment with Kanye, as such (haven't given it a lot of thought), is that I used to enjoy his lyrics and production, which superseded the persona. But now the rage persona is the focus, and the music and lyrics amplify that. But I still don't understand why Kanye is so mad.

Maybe I'm crazy but I enjoy reading criticism about things I love. I suspect you do too, since you're on a website called I Love Music.

I'm not saying the media coverage is ruining the album for me, just that it seems frustratingly redundant to why I like the album! And
I don't care at all how Kanye-the-person/celebrity thinks or feels about the world at a particular time. Kanye-the-musician/artist makes really interesting and bizarre records that make me think about the world differently.

What's wrong with romanticism, Lex? A lot of the arguments had about Kanye are repeats of similar arguments made about Wagner 150 years ago. Nietzsche wrote a lot of really good music criticism about it! You should check it out.

Wagner and Nietsche seem fitting links to Kanye.

I'm surprised Kanye hasn't released an eight hour album yet.

swagner

I really want to see Kanye do a blinged-out take on Das Rheingold.

i'm not saying you have to like the album. i haven't heard it yet. i expect i'll like it. but it sounds like it's intentionally abrasive and offputting so yeah if you don't like it, you don't like it. i just feel like a) people judge kanye differently from other pop artists and b) i have problems when people use outside elements that the artist has no control over (media representation, the audience, etc) against the artist

swagner

This is awesome and should be the name of his 8-hour album. Or maybe "The Bling Cycle."

I'm asking for a criticism that champions difficulty rather than falling back on puritanical platitudes.

A criticism that champions difficulty will not be wasting its time on a superficial schmuck like Kanye West.

why would anyone bother creating a piece of art if they didn't think people should care about what they're feeling?

Plenty of art—plenty of music, even—is decidedly not of the "here, read my diary" school. This reinforces a belief I already had, which is that people who really like Kanye West and think he's doing something big and important and new really need to hear a lot more music, the sooner the better. Also, the fact that a lot of music, particularly these days, is about the artist's inner universe, and that inner universe amounts to "look at my watch/I'm in the club and everyone's looking at me/fuck the haters," is really fucking depressing and not something that needs to be encouraged, by critics, fans, or anyone.

did you guys not enjoy the daft punk album either?

I did not. I thought it was frequently boring and way overlong. The one thing the Kanye album has over the Daft Punk album is efficiency—10 tracks in 40 minutes.

xpost to jaymc: understood and agreed. I don't particularly care about Kanye-the-person either. Sorry for conflating you with stuff I've read elsewhere.

to n/a: I don't think the album is actually that abrasive! Kanye splices a bunch of tinkly piano-keys and emo singing into the harsher-sounding club tunes. It's a bit over the top. Maybe I'm just interested in puritanism because Kanye is. A lot of the album seems like him wrestling with his atheism and residual guilt, and that's refracted on a musical level in the fight between the exhilarating minimalism and the moments of bathos and pseudo-religiosity.

i mean really most u.s. popular music is about expressing some generic emotion in a relatable way but the expectation is still that it's "about the artist's personal inner universe"

This helps to articulate why the pop music I like most is, like, Chris Isaak and Robin Thicke and the like, who are pretty opaque about their personal lives year-by-year but are consistent songwriters and performers.

Maybe you need to stop hanging out in the Kanye thread if you think he's a superficial schmuck and all his fans are ignoramuses.

Because single-artist threads are praise-only zones?

WTf is "criticism that champions difficulty" that's the dumbest shit I've heard

just seems like a waste of your time, to me

"I want music criticism that pats me on the back and says I'm smarter than everyone else."