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

i was being generous pretending the question had meaning. it's so easy to be a musician/star without precedent these days, dozens of people are doing it right now.

released a terrible video starring his fiancée,

who will remind him that Bret Michaels got here first

how hard is it to see what every other rapper is doing and do something else?

Pretty hard!

I mean "unique" as a music crit buzzword is pretty meaningless but being genuinely unique is not easy.

i dunno maybe i'm not making my point well, but i think Kanye has been sui generis for so long that praising him on those terms is boring and almost looks past the quality or content of the work itself.

"is there anybody like Kanye? has there ever been?" -- no and no, duh, let's move on and discuss something else as quickly as possible

It’s also easy to mock this show if you don’t like West. He spent the night wearing a series of masks, designed by Margiela, that made him look like the Batman villain Bane had run into a chandelier and hopped on the Q train to Barclays. There were dancers in bodysuits who resembled David Bowie’s alien family in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” At one point, West was stalked for over ten minutes by a crouching dancer dressed up as something like a black spider crossed with a yak, fitted with red L.E.D.s for eyes.

In Dc tonight, as wacky as that sounds, wish I had tix (Kendrick Lamar opening, right?)

wacky = referring to the masks and such

i feel bad for Kendrick, haven't heard a word about his sets. is he boring live or does he just not wear Slipknot masks when he performs?

Jeff Weiss liked Lamar's opening set out in LA

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/concert-review-kanye-west-kendrick-651143

Backed by a searing four-piece band and mini-movies that illustrated the plot of last year's good kid, m.A.A.d city, Lamar delivered arguably the most impressive opening set Staples Center has seen.

He's become as vivid and expressive of a live performer as West, waving his arms to convey a point, arching his spine, tilting his head back, rolling his eyes, and bounding across the floor like a puma. He's sublimated and synthesized the eccentricity of Lil Wayne, the technical mastery of Eminem, and the musicality of Outkast. His band delivered bruising Black Sabbath licks, instead of the normal gorgonzola arena-rock that usually comprises most bands attempting to do live replays of rap.

sounds cool. hopefully he'll do his own big headlining tour for the next album.

Kendrick is amazing live

and when i saw him he just had a DJ

shipz otm, sui generis and unique are not automatic signifiers of quality or even interest

Just heard part of Kanye interview this morning on Russ Parr's syndicated radio show (on r'n'b/rap stations). Kanye said that he only realized recently that his interest in minor chords and moody music makes him "new wave."

I see SFJ mentioned His best ranting moment was tying his own work to that of the inventor Nikola Tesla and the Chilean filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky while other NY outlets were quoting his rant about the MTV Music Awards and Bruno Mars winning many awards

i would watch Holy Mountain w/ DVD commentary by Kanye

Kanye connecting himself to tesla is more batshit than to bruno mars imo
jodorowsky i can see a little maybe but i got to squint hard

My wife's reaction to the "Bound 2" video: "Did he do this whole thing so he could secretly laugh at Kim K?"

Bound 2 was the #2 song on Hot 97's hot five the other night. It's interesting to me how this album (and others like it) goes from seeming "out there" to sounding totally mainstream just through repeated exposure. There's also a couple ads running using Yeezus tracks.

(Bound 2 is the most conventional sounding song on the record to be fair)

^the way of the world

I really like the bound 2 video

It worked on the album as a "concession" but I've no interest in hearing it.

who is Jerome anyway

burning lyrical questions

like kanye's use of hyper-real landscapes of the west kind of reminds me of peter saville's record sleeves during the republic era

http://i.imgur.com/vIPHZ9u.png

this sort of very exacting and technically accurate style of photography where the things photographed become realer-than-real

http://i.imgur.com/bpd2Z2R.jpg

hahaha I need to double check my copy / paste

holy shit dayo

epic

lolllll

who is Jerome anyway

― dmr, Friday, November 22, 2013 8:52 AM Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbOn1KM6LnA

https://twitter.com/Lar206/status/402911593840668672

loool thanks. never watched Martin much

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/kanye-west-at-verizon-center-it-was-an-experience-unlike-any-other/2013/11/22/5a960344-52d6-11e3-9e2c-e1d01116fd98_story.html

Chris Richards, whose dismissal of Arcade Fire got a lot of attention, posts a glowing, favorable rave review of Kanye's DC show last night

sorry if this is mentioned upthread but i wanted to marvel at how hilarious and smart it is for kanye to sample ponderosa twins plus one on "bound 2" and pitch them downward when his early career was kind of about sped up soul samples

http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/133827/Kanye-West-Urges-Fans-To-Boycott-Louis-Vuitton-After-President-Snubs-Meeting

Still not happy about the leather jogging pants knockback.

I was thinking I couldn't be the only person who thinks that "Black Skinhead" sounds *a lot* like "Doctorin' the Tardis'": https://soundcloud.com/djcull/doctorin-the-skinhead-kanye

yes, i wonder what the connection could be

Coupla of Kanye-going-crazy radio rants making the rounds, but I've got to say, I was impressed he made the claim that "Yeezus" was his "Nebraska" and that his next album will be his "Born in the USA." That's a relatively left-field reference for a rapper to make. I get the feeling Kanye has been actually studying the careers of various superstars and trying to almost scientifically emulate them, though the "often caught acting or talking like an asshole" part I admit does not seem to be the safest trajectory.

yeah i mean...aside from the "I got a plan how to sell more records, it's called make better music" declaration just before Yeezus was released, it seems the album was kind of planned out to not be a blockbuster (like 808s was, except that turned out to be a huge seller anyway, more than even Dark Twisted Fantasy or Watch The Throne was). so i'm not surprised that a new album is due a year later that's, presumably, chock full of singles.

still, i wonder if Kanye's idea of what is/isn't accessible about Yeezus isn't a little tonedeaf. he keeps saying that he could've made "Blood On The Leaves" the first track to make the album more popular, and that that's the next single, but even if that's one of the most popular tracks on the album, i dunno, it's 6 minutes and incredibly divisive and not exactly radio-friendly.

yeah i mean nothing off MBDTF was really a smash... "all of the lights" was a pretty big hit i guess but that was about it.

i wonder if he sees this divide between songs that are commercial and songs that are artistic enough for Kanye West's New Album

like, "niggas in paris" & "mercy" & "clique" were all pretty massive hits with long tails but i couldn't image kanye throwing a song like that on one of his solo albums

hold my liquor seems like the most relatable song, lyrically. a lot of people have probably tried to rekindle old romances and instead ignited a powderkeg of old resentments. if i was kanye i would release this as a single, maybe edit out some of the instrumental stuff if it's too long.

i can't tell if you're kidding or not, cheers

i think it's a great song.

x2

The Seth Rogen and James Franco remake is so good that it's actually made me change my mind about Bound 2. Suddenly, it's the best thing ever.

BAOOOW

i'll be impressed when kanye calls his next album "my new jersey"