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

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.

Oh don't worry, it is!

30 seconds into the first track and OH MY GOD MY FUCKING EARS.

At least this isn't a skit on the CD:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gdKVgyUmt8

i think this album needs a "runaway" -- an almost pornographically confessional song, where the god kanye steps back for a second, and recognizes himself to be just an ordinary sinner. the coked-out, paranoid style is cool but it gets exhausting. which, i mean, might even be the point.

Particularly enjoying the conversation with Jesus, where Jesus calls Kanye 'Yeezus' and asks what he's up to. The response? he's "chilling" and "counting his millions", of course. Now hurry up with his damn croissants.

i think this album needs a "runaway"

Musically, this album has 3-4 "Runaways"; unfortunately they are all the coda

now if you will excuse me, I need to chant "thebeautifulPEOPLE, thebeautifulPEOPLE" over "Black Skinhead"

the coda on new slaves is one of my favorite parts of this album. i love frank ocean taking over the vocals from kanye. don't ask me why. i appreciate the starkness and abrasiveness of most of this album, but i guess listening to it i just keep hoping for some warm relief. maybe the album is purer because it withholds this for the most part.

quite honestly, this album needs more unhinged screaming

Over halfway through the album, and content of the album aside, this is quite possibly the worst mastered album I've heard in a fucking long time.

i think that is deliberate. it's supposed to sound sharp and bright and attack your ears like needles, i feel

As for the content of the album, I'm up to 'I'm In It' and finding it very difficult to listen to this with a straight face.

UH HUH HONEY.

why would you want to listen to music with a straight face

"this sure is good music" :| "I really like it" :|

http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pictures/s-z/todorov_a/neutral.jpg

*startled look*

Hark, I think I hear the sound of a pedantic bastard who knew exactly what I was getting at...

*listens harder*

...nah, must have been the wind or something.

Anyways, just finished my first listen... the overall loudness of this, whether by design or not, does make the album a bit of a slog to get through. Aside from that, it certainly was an amusing listen.

Listening to noise music on the regular does one a world of good when it comes to grappling with albums like this one.

I put 'Shaking The Habitual' on directly after it finished... I'm in just the right mood for it.

When we poll this album it's gonna be a showdown between "on sight" and "bound 2" for me

xp I have done that. Those two and the Clipping album are all in rotation together for me.

This album isn't extreme enough! It's way more normal than than everyone is making it sound.

Kanye can't really be weird, he's really sort of a boring person, despite all the theatrics he's really normal

How likely is it that Greg Tate is right, that another Ye album is just around the corner?

I mean, how many rappers were recording with West who didn't turn up on Yeezus?

Like Nas now there's a fucking weirdo

August Fourteen: Yudas

was nas recording with kanye recently?

or are you just saying nas is a fucked up weirdo? if post-it was written nas ever got this kind of finetooth comb lyrical reading....

i think this album needs a "runaway" -- an almost pornographically confessional song, where the god kanye steps back for a second, and recognizes himself to be just an ordinary sinner. the coked-out, paranoid style is cool but it gets exhausting. which, i mean, might even be the point.

― Treeship, Tuesday, June 18, 2013 9:17 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

please, kanye saying that he's an asshole to girls and telling one to leave him is not "pornographically confessional." the excess of that song tricks people into thinking there's any poignancy whatsoever. that shit blows.

i don't know about profound, but i think the incoherent autotune solo on runaway is an effective expression of the emotion of remorse, which is a very human emotion that seems alien to the persona kanye seems to have adopted throughout yeezus. the pornographically confessional thing is, idk, i guess that sort of self-pity is kind of embarrassing. i don't really know what it means that runaway is undercut immediately by hell of a life, though.