Kanye West's new 2018 album

Disagree with you here. Firstly, I don't think that all artists aim for that "here's where my mind and life is" thing in their art, so they don't even try to work in that mode. And secondly, I do feel like a lot of modern music is still hyper-calculated in trying to shape an artists' public image while trying to pass itself off as an honest portrayal of the artist. Taylor Swift is the classic example, and I feel like it isn't too difficult to recognise these kinds of albums when they come out. Not saying that calculated always equals bad (I like Taylor), but it's often the least interesting music to me.

I don't think many artists are willing to portray themselves as mentally ill and flawed and human as Kanye makes himself look here. The first track is about suicidal thoughts, there's references everywhere to his bipolar disorder, he worries about the impact of his actions on his wife and child. Despite what you think of Kanye the person and his politics (for the record: his politics are idiotic), there's a level of honesty and introspection here that I think is laudable in an era where brand/image maintenance is one of the most important things a pop star can do to to keep their career going.

― triggercut, Frida

uh Kanye's brand/image "maintenance" is to create music that adduces his support for an authoritarian president. And so what? Why should he get credit for shitty beats and rhymes that adduce that support?

like I wrote today on an erstwhile ILMer's wall: "It's not a matter of "divorcing" or "separating art from artist." Kanye has made shit art -- cluttered, nattering, megalomaniacal in a rote manner -- since 2010. I'm quite happy he's released something with which I can find some consensus with colleagues."

uh Kanye's brand/image "maintenance" is to create music that adduces his support for an authoritarian president. And so what? Why should he get credit for shitty beats and rhymes that adduce that support?

I might agree with you if he even mentioned Trump/supporting Trump once on this album, but he doesn't. This record isn't about that at all.

Also, I like that this album has the second instance of Kanye lyrically referencing the 'medulla oblongata' after his feature on Cudi's Make Her Say back in 09. You just know he discovered that word from watching Adam Sandler's The Waterboy (a movie he also referenced on New Slaves) and I like that it still circulates in his mind to this day.

referencing it isn't coming up with a good rhyme about it or finding a beat to complement it.

triggercut makes a compelling case for the record, which is still pretty lousy imo (except the first track). there's no trump stuff on here. i understand if events outside the text make it hard to appreciate or engage with but this album does exist on its own personal terms, it's not a political album.

Kanye would have to be interested in something besides sniffing his own b hole too make a political record

a lot of great art has come from the b hole

Kanye doesn’t need to include Trump to further his cringe habits, ie. any reference to women, or the Russell Simmons line, the mental health stuff, etc. How many records about Kim’s body parts are you willing to listen to?

this album isn't the trainwreck I could have expected, or an unfinished mess like Pablo, it's just dull instead. that alone feels like enough to make it solidly his worst - Pablo was not good but it did have a few gems at the very least and it certainly wasn't dull.

agreed

a 7 song TLOP would be great:

Ultralight Beam
FML
Real Friends
Wolves
30 Hours
No More Parties in LA
Fade

better than the og tlopper

https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2018/06/02/616402658/two-sided-trying-to-hear-kanye-wests-new-album-ye-through-all-the-noise

ugh

like myopic parents desperate for validation

There’s some good commentary on bipolar in there though (take your meds)

didn't dislike this as much as I expected to

I like the NPR article. How can you ignore the mental health issues when it seems relevant to the music? Doesn’t make it good, but it’s not exactly idle speculation.

this has no joints
no one will care about any of these songs a year from now possibly even a month from now

He sounds bored & tired & uninspired

"a lot of great art has come from the b hole"

yeah, like Bobbi starr/ Sasha Grey/ Dana Dearmond/ Mike adriano kinds of art!

yeah i know, they're great

haha this album is such trash

good mourning!

My friend kelly enthused about how amazing this record was which felt weird after reading the mixed reviews here. She said it has some deep mental health reflection but I couldn’t help but think I have Kendrick or angel haze records that nail that anyway.

I wonder if it’s possible both to 1) hold that Kanye’s politics suck and 2) not 100% dismiss his mental health stuff ...

and 3) think this album fails on a musical level and also to interestingly engage in either of those things

Oh yeah lol I’m not even talking about the album thereby ceding your point, more just reacting to the idea that the only explanation for his behavior is narcissism and drugs - which obv may play a role too

This album is such a nullity.

i've got kanye muted everywhere but apparently there's an unapproved sample from "Mono No Aware" on the first track

snoop otm re kanye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H08xgoXkpa8

shit J Prince shut the Pusha beef down

it's crazy the dude I know from talking on Geto Boys records forever ago still runs shit

The rating is decent but the words are just brutal

But I can admit that after ye ended unceremoniously the third or fourth time, I put on “Family Business,” and I thought about the kid from Chicago who wanted to be the biggest rapper in the world, who now lives in an empty-looking concrete mansion in Calabasas, who has stopped trying.

haha wow that's something, good writing

Artist over the hill makes lame record

That's a fantastic, damning review. The author - one of my favorites - likely had little control over the score, which should've dipped below 7.0 to match the review.

That ended graph should be a formal epitaph but it won't be, sadly.

the bits about kanye always racing against the clock made me think that his next album should be called THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD

Since 1985, he’s the #1 writer and producer by songs that charted in the top 5

yes, who can forget those indelible Top 5 hits by It's Alive. six years before they even had an album, too!

wrong thread, shit

the bits about kanye always racing against the clock made me think that his next album should be called THE DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD

― maura, 4. juni 2018 13:55 (twenty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not because he is a 'gifted child', that kinda of workaholic mania is textbook bi-polar. That part of the review kinda filled me with anger, it's not important to anything having to do with the quality of the album, it's just shitting on a bi-polar guy for being manic.

I feel like I want to write a longer thing about this, but as I've mentioned bi-polarity runs in my family, I've been to the doctor to see if I'm bi-polar (I'm not) and there's still a danger that my own issues with hypo-mania might someday develop into being bi-polar if I don't take care of myself. And I'm stunned of the lack of insight into and care to learn more about the bi-polar issues that this album is portraying. It's a mental illness, I don't get why non-bi-polar people feel it's okay to make fun of, to attack Kanye for not thinking about his illness the way they want to (thinking it's a superpower is something I've heard over and over and over from manic people (and it freaking IS a superpower, I wrote 31 film reviews in 9 days from the Berlin film festival, and I'm just hypo-manic!)) attacking him personally for all these things that relate to bi-polarity.

Hey I’m not sure it’s just the bipolar. If Kanye still does coke that would explain his work ethic as well.

Tho Fred is right in a way. I just finished a record in 4 weeks 8 hours a day, I’m bipolar as well

Kanye’s new album is a soundtrack to the viscerally agitated atmosphere in America right now. It captures the desperate, unnerved flailing of a nation thrown into a conversation on masculinity it doesnt know how to have.

None of what Ive just written is a compliment.

A thread:

— Chimene Suleyman (@chimenesuleyman) June 3, 2018

imagine all the superpower-produced lyrics Kanye must have had to leave off of this record. You can only fit the gems!

engaging with a person's mental illness often means disregarding or dismissing the content of their words. when i go off on one of my paranoid fantasies people who know me are hurt by it, but also know (hopefully) not to take it seriously because it's my illness talking. pitchfork aren't in a position to do that with kanye. their job is to judge his work, not to diagnose or treat his mental illness.

Garvey's review is dead-on, but that's a way weirder editorial score call than the Monae record was

Making a crap piece of creative work and pissing everybody off during an extremely abbreviated time period during the spring is a classic off-meds move imo

The month of May is infamous among doctors & social workers who deal with bipolar disorder, as it happens

He should have named this album Late Diagnosis.

The month of May is infamous among doctors & social workers who deal with bipolar disorder, as it happens