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

"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."

I just don't see the point in continuing to have a conversation about the morality of Kanye West. Seems like well-trodden ground.

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.

I don't know if you're talking about me, but I didn't say anything like this...? So far, I don't enjoy the album that much, but that has nothing to do with the media coverage. It does have a lot to do with personal aesthetics -- which also explains why I love Random Access Memories! But I suspect that a lot of the critics that have proclaimed Yeezus a masterpiece don't necessarily have a greater appreciation for its specific musical aesthetic than I do, it's just that Kanye's persona (expressed through his lyrics, his stylistic choices, etc.) gives them a whole lot more to be interested in. And I rarely care about that, except in a broader cultural sense that doesn't really change how I hear the music.

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

I'm not sure I agree that that's true, but even if it were, it's not really why I like U.S. popular music.

Wanted to return to this idea of how "batshit" Kanye is: it's not that his tastes are strange, but the way he dramatizes them in song is pretty unique. Maybe most popstars compare Asian pussy to sweet and sour sauce in their spare time, or yell at waiters for not bringing them croissants, but I can't think of many others who dramatize those moments lyrically, alongside laments about being enslaved by capitalism/the world. There's something characteristic about that kind of juxtaposition that (I think) makes him relatable. Is he embarrassed? proud? repulsed? what is it?

Daft Punk's idea of batshit is commissioning Paul Williams to write a 10-minute song about the magical powers of "Touch." The lyrical content is utter banality treated as profundity, instead of banality and profundity locked in a mudwrestling match to the death, as with Kanye.

wow i took a nap for an hour and this thread blew up. drew in baltimore = the tune is space/pygmy squirrel etc?

Sorry, nope. I'm a longtime lurker. Lived in Baltimore for a few years and now I'm in DC.

oh ok, sup. i just did a double take because i hadn't seen the dn before (and i used to post as 'alex in baltimore').

Oh, ha, I totally thought it was DD, too.

DD loved Shaking The Habitual for similar reasons.

Wouldn't he have already known the due date a few months ago?

My guess is that it's both the due date and the album release date.

― MarkoP, Thursday, May 2, 2013 1:01 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Prescient.

Flattered to be compared to DD! Does he like Kanye?

https://twitter.com/feministkanye is kinda cracking me up

FEMINIST KANYE ‏@feministkanye 22h
PINK ASS POLOS AND A FUCKING BACKPACK / EVERYBODY KNOW YOU DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO GENDER-NORMATIVE COLOR SCHEMES

I'd like to say I like this album a lot not cause Kanye is oh so interesting and unique but more cause I like weird noisy beats especially when they have King Louie rapping on them, but then I imagine what if an uninspiring performer with a neutral persona like J. Cole or Wale made this album and it all falls apart. So yeah, it's undeniable Kanyeness is important and that's ok.

Then again, I like Shaking the Habitual too and I barely have any investment in the Knife.

if an uninspiring performer with a neutral persona made this album = El-P?