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

i think the critics did that with MBDTF too (10.0!), but there were probably enough pop-tracks for fans to latch onto xp

I think there is much hyperbole about the hyperbole on this board.

this sounds like the last xiu xiu record

lol otm

i mean i checked out at fabulous muscles but otm in that this is a xiu xiu record

Production-wise, has anyone brought up El-P yet? Because that's what this electro hip-hop dystopia reminds me of.

el-p, death grips, MIA's maya, human after all. weirdly im also thinking of that second cadence weapon album on big dada too, specifically this song - http://bigdada.com/release/cadence-weapon/house-music. the album keeps making me think of a lot of indie rap-electronica things.

Saul Williams

re: xiu xiu - not that far off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kju7qyQVWdI

The buzz around this record is really not that positive at all among rap fans whose view of the genre doesn't revolve around Kanye

Sounds like we've come full circle on Anticon stuff huh.

Maybe I've missed (difficult keeping up with this thread) but I haven't read much discussion about the sound quality on this, I haven't seen any reviews mention it either. I know Kanye is gaining a reputation for brickwalling and the harshness of the EQ on MBDTW offended a lot of people. This new one is just terrible in that respect. Mad clipping all over the place, anything resembling a beat anywhere throughout is harsh to listen to. I managed to listen to the album for the first time on headphones whilst out and about today and it was a lot more bearable. I'm not sure I can listen to it on the stereo, if I push the volume up to a reasonable level things get messy and headache inducing. A shame because I think there's some great material on the album and some really inventive and layered production which deserves better.

I mean this is pretty shocking stuff http://www.dr.loudness-war.info/details.php?id=41051

― Internet Alan, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 11:06 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This was the first thing I checked for when I played this album and of course was immediately turned off. I think it sounds worse than MBTF. I really want to listen to it loud but just flat-out cannot stand it above 4/10 on the volume. I really just don't get it! Why?!

somebody needs to stage an intervention

I dunno, if any record was gonna be almost served better by that kind of thing wouldn't be this one?

even if you grant that it would only be unintentionally. but idk if going for the death grips aesthetic would serve his message better

like these productions aren't intentionally meant to be noisy and distorted?

this is a lazy comparison but you could point to shaking the habitual as a record where you know, noise and atonality and w/e is used as an artistic tool but one that just also sounds really nice and that you can turn the volume up on without fear.

Oh c'mon "On Sight" is so clearly noisy and distorted on purpose

yeah but it really works against a track like 'black skinhead' where you want the drums to sound utterly massive but instead they just sound hollowed out

The sound is a little more fitting on parts of this album. But his sound issues go way back in his catalog. If you are gonna go the noisy crunchy death grips route then own it! This just seems like a mistake.

otm xp

man listening to this feels like W O R K

:/

^ (to spottie)

there's a difference between intentionally recording distorted sounds that hit a limiter, and doing so by mistake. you can do the former and still have a record that sounds great turned up, whereas nobody's happy with the latter unless idk you just don't care. even psychocandy sounded awesome all the way turned up

do you guys really think Kanye is making "mistakes"? the mind boggles

for sure xp

I forget which critic said this was Kanye's "first" intentionally "imperfect" album

of course he makes mistakes but someone who was/is known as a producer first should be able to make a record sound alright in his sleep

he may make shitty aesthetic choices but we are talking about a legendarily self-conscious dude with an essentially unlimited budget, I don't think he ever looks back on his stuff and thinks "hmm that didn't come out how I meant it to sound"

xp

yeah i mean you can probably trace it back to his narcissism. i have no doubt that this album probably sounds great on whatever equipment he used to master it with, but it's probably a very specific studio setup and he probably wasn't thinking like, how might this album sound on other people's systems

I don't think Kanye is even aware of the existence of other people

i mean, he signed off on cruel summer, and the singles i've heard off of WTT sounded pretty good (although there is literally no bass at all in n-i-p), so i really don't know what's going on

i don't think the compression/loudness war debates have even remotely reached the sphere of music Kanye is operating in, Daft Punk aside (although it'd be interesting to hear what they think of how their productions sound on the final product).

I was actually kinda excited to see what Rubins involvement in this would be. Aimlessly hoping that maybe he could plug in some those signature bone dry drums.

First four songs sound great on headphones

omg no dude, listen to the thud thud thud thud 808s on the buildup in Black Skinhead. So gross. The sound between :55 and 1:10 is the worst sounding part on the record!

This will age even worse than dark fantasy

My Beautiful Down To Fuck is like an inferior sequel to the early albums, this is at least pretty singular

this feels like MBTF+808s to me. I dont care for either of those so this is easily my least favorite Ye release.

weird the thud thud thud 808s on the buildup in black skinhead between :55 and 1:10 are my fav part of the album

i don't think the compression/loudness war debates have even remotely reached the sphere of music Kanye is operating in, Daft Punk aside (although it'd be interesting to hear what they think of how their productions sound on the final product).

― ramona & yeezus (some dude), Tuesday, June 18, 2013 7:25 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's the thing, most songs on rap and r&b radio right now sound great - mike will made it is a great producer, so many lush jams. that's why kanye's stuff sounds so out of place, especially where he's going for the same sort of lush / velvet enveloping aesthetic that he went for on a few songs off of MBDTF like all of the lights (which should have sounded anthemic but just sounded...again, hollow is the word i would use). like i said i don't think it's a conscious decision like it is with a lot of the loudness war stuff - i just don't think anybody's sat him down and been like, here's this one weird trick to make all your shit sound better.

musically I think this is an interesting album, lyrically, where with MBDFLKJIE I felt like there was a self conscious meta narrative going on about fame and it's affect on the soul, here I think he believes it when he says I Am A God and it's just getting annoying and dumb.

This is definitely MORE reminiscent of his last couple albums than i'd really prefer but I think it'll retain a lot of appeal for some people as an extreme outlier in his catalog

At least the bigness of mbdtf was sort of superficially impressive, this doesn't do anything for me as a hip hop or pop record & it's "challenging" aspects are p lol if you've engaged in any underground or electronic music of the last 20 years

Or like bomb squad

Surely you don't need it explained to you that loud nasty aggressive music doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to work

weird the thud thud thud 808s on the buildup in black skinhead between :55 and 1:10 are my fav part of the album

― Jacques_Lamure, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 4:44 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gtfo how do you live with yourself

Surely you don't need it explained to you that this lumpy poorly executed mess doesn't work at all

Of course he does. And don't call him Shirley.

eh it's not amazing but i think it has some panache from a production standpoint. some of the left field ideas like all the dancehall vocalists is really cool.

It doesn't work very well after the first four songs, at least.

I haven't heard this yet and was originally going to skip over this entirely, but I've just had a friend of mine on Facebook foaming at the mouth telling me this is a record that has to be heard to be believed for many reasons (and not all of them great) and that he "can't believe this record actually exists". So yeah, will get around to hearing this, but I'll be sorely disappointed if it isn't the ego-packed LOL-fest he was describing.