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

i don't think this is lyrically very coherent at all. i've listened to "New Slaves" and "Blood On The Leaves" many times and still only have the broadest idea of what Kanye is trying to say in those songs beyond raising the general subject matter.

― some dude, Thursday, June 20, 2013 5:41 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yr review i suspect is a completely apt takedown of the lyrics. for me, there's no reason i'd want to listen to anything kanye has to say in 2013 and this should purely be an album of aural/production pleasures. but his voice seems mixed so high that i kept getting distracted by it.

Not sure in what way "New Slaves" is incoherent.

i feel like this is nowhere near as 'you have to care about kanye' in a TMZ way as '808s' was.

like at this point it's more you can't separate kanye

Used to only be niggas now everybody playing
Spending everything on Alexander Wang
New Slaves

ok, like this part, is this a play on 'slave to fashion'? is he saying that all the luxury brand stuff he's been championing for years is a bad thing? is he saying fashion/trends make slaves of people besides blacks who are descended from slaves? or that people are jumping on a bandwagon that he started/has been on? the whole thing is, if not incoherent, then at least hard to parse for me.

ok, like this part, is this a play on 'slave to fashion'?

yes

is he saying that all the luxury brand stuff he's been championing for years is a bad thing?

yes

is he saying fashion/trends make slaves of people besides blacks who are descended from slaves?

yes

or that people are jumping on a bandwagon that he started/has been on?

maybe, but that's kind of an immaterial reference in the context of the rest of the verse so I'm inclined to say no

ok, like this part, is this a play on 'slave to fashion'?

Yeah. The song to me depicts how black Americans form part of a consumer industry that, according to Kanye, still exploits them yet they (the black American men) go along with it.

ok thx djp genius

i guess i have trouble reconciling that with kanye continuing to walk around in alexander wang and brag about other brands in an un-critical way but i guess that's why kanye is "interesting" or w/e

i feel like this is nowhere near as 'you have to care about kanye' in a TMZ way as '808s' was.

― rap steve gadd (D-40), Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:01 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hmm, i get this, i guess on first blush 808s was a little more universal (in that we've all experienced a bad breakup) whereas this.....is not

haha this is one of the few compelling tracks on the album

xpost

yeah a lot of 808s functions without any context. not much of this record does imo.

But that's chiefly because 808s had hooks.

obviously 808s was more pop/accessible, but i think we're talking more about subject matter or sentiment

there are hooks on this album, you just don't ever want to say any of them in public

nah i will be belting that Charlie Wilson shit

like, you can get away with muttering "so keep your love lockdown" or "how could you be so heartless" to yourself on the train without drawing too much attention; muttering "I'd rather be a dick than a swallower" or "hurry up with my damn croissants" is going to get you some serious side-eye

(btw CAD had this album come out in time I totally would have tried to put "I Am A God" on yr wedding playlist)

like, you can get away with muttering "so keep your love lockdown" or "how could you be so heartless" to yourself on the train without drawing too much attention; muttering "I'd rather be a dick than a swallower"

says the Bostonian

well the croissants line isnt a hook but i already hear people quoting it lol

i was, like, seeing kanye/croissant photoshops the first hour the album had leaked, before i even knew it had leaked

http://24.media.tumblr.com/1352090f28dd20b87cd00d7f57762e94/tumblr_mogtlgMTxn1sw13a0o1_500.jpg

Lol

well the croissants line isnt a hook but i already hear people quoting it lol

this is what i meant by its memeification

such a horrible line to quote

Not too far from an R. Kelly "lol he's talking about food" meme.

It's a funny line. It does not require photoshops.

"then she came like AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

There's rumours that apparently him and Kim Kardashian have named their kid 'North'... if so, I have no words.

I fux with that.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_fA_JNpEHMs/Tq3B4TTg-JI/AAAAAAAAAIY/sWIyBK0bhds/s1600/sdo00i.jpg?

i think the album is *about* its contradictions...

not saying this isn't right (and i think the incoherence/messiness of the whole thing is kinda what makes it compelling) but hasnt this been kanye's schtick, more or less, since day one?!

yeah, but metastasized this side of graduation

The "since day one" thing is my problem these days. I revisited All Falls Down and there's nothing Kanye's said since about conspicuous consumption, the perils of wealth and his inability to shed his own bad habits that he didn't say better in that song. I feel like we've been praising his contradictions for almost a decade without him either changing or discovering any new insights. So money doesn't make you happy - OK, got it, now what?

sort of trolling but: nobody ever complains that rothko kept saying the same thing over and over. maybe kanye found his great subject early on and just dug himself in. not changing or discovering so much as refining. or maybe he's lost his damn mind.

http://i.imgur.com/8ydh7oE.gif

Always thought of Rothko as being more of a Just Blaze man myself.

I'm riding dirty, tryna get filthy, Pablo Picasso, Rothkos, Rilkes
Graduated to the MoMA, and I did all of this without a diploma

Also, his sound has changed massively, and develops from record to record, which always means his subjects will be handled differently. All Falls Down and New Slaves can hardly be called the same song, once you take the productions into consideration.

this is an interesting take on what we've been talking about: http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/man-in-the-mirror-the-politics-of-yeezus/

(btw CAD had this album come out in time I totally would have tried to put "I Am A God" on yr wedding playlist)

― DJP, Thursday, June 20, 2013 8:47 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

would have slotted in nicely between "love shack" and the weezer song my mom made me play

That's terrific, ship. Thanks.

yeah really good piece

this in particular is excellent: Complaining that Kanye is self-obsessed is like wailing that Sir Mix-A-Lot likes big butts — that’s the schtick — but when that self-obsession thwarts or travesties the language of protest it’s a problem, not an achievement.

It's definitely not an achievement but I don't really see how it can unequivocally be called a problem.

he's an egotistical misogynist who's remarkably open about the totally valid contradictory emotions and stances he has towards the racist society and culture he was born into. the question is whether the latter is enough to make you accept the former, and then there's still the question of "do I wanna listen to his musical product over which he wrestles with this shit?" For the most part I'm in the "do your thing, hopefully having a daughter will make you think twice about what you say about women (like having a mom listening to your albums did), but I think this was all fresher several albums ago" dept.

this doesn't really sound like several albums ago at all, not just sonically but thematically

i agree with everything that piece says pretty much, but on the other hand, i try to compare this to recent albums ive heard of any genre and there's so much more there

maybe i'm just interested in it as intellectual exercise idk but i like thinking about this album. he's done a good job of, at the very least, creating a piece of art that looks different depending on which angle you look at it.

Everyone who complains about Blood on the Leaves, including that piece, misses the absurdism of it. He says alimony is like lynching, because he was supposed to use that money on cocaine. 'Now your driver say that new Benz you can't afford that / All that cocaine on the table you can't snort that / That going to that owing money that the court got'

i don't really know how the absurdism is supposed to make me feel tho

Upset. Like he is a paranoid idiot. That would be my guess. The hook is about taking molly for the first time. I think it quite clearly is about personal paranoia, there is really nothing in the lyrics about society. The sample is offensive, then, but you can't deny that it works to create a mood.