the organ sounds on this are generally pretty good. that was true of jesus is king, too
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 1 September 2021 22:28 (two years ago) link
kinda just takes up space. like when you go in someone's unfurnished house but they have a huge tv
Brilliant analogy....like an NBA rookie's new McMansion
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 00:01 (two years ago) link
"junya" seems obviously good, a carti song with church organ
his carti imitation sucks though
― ufo, Thursday, 2 September 2021 00:37 (two years ago) link
life if Pablo > mbdtf imho
― flopson, Thursday, 2 September 2021 04:30 (two years ago) link
that is the most ridiculous opinion I've seen in a while and I don't even like MBDTF that much anymore
― a gentle push against my Wonder Bread face (DJP), Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:22 (two years ago) link
Life of Pablo is as close as you can get to a moron shitting directly into your ears and people are all "man this slaps, how groundbreaking"
the new one is closer & there's still a large fanboy contingent that's all "man this slaps, how groundbreaking"
― ufo, Thursday, 2 September 2021 14:41 (two years ago) link
― a gentle push against my Wonder Bread face (DJP), Thursday, September 2, 2021 10:22 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
lmao
― flopson, Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:02 (two years ago) link
the funny thing is he can still make cool beats, the Abstract Mindstate album is totally slept on this year, i guess a two middle aged backpack rappers isn't really going to get attention, but if you want the old kanye/chop up the soul kanye, these beats are so much liver than anything he's done in recent memory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfdV0cywXDk
like just classic backpacker shit he was so good at
even this song, which is a little closer to the darker, more pretentious recent kanye - it's so much more developed than anything on donda, like it feels like an actual completed song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_g3lhvdFYk
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:13 (two years ago) link
yea I mean half the tracks on this album you keep waiting for the song to start, only to look at the time and realize this is the actual song. whether this was intentional or just him dumping out everything he had because he didn't wanna put in the work to finish the album, who knows, but if you have to answer that question then it's not worth spending 2 hours on. like 23 minutes of this are "Part 2" tracks which are nearly indistinguishable from the "Part 1"s. the fact that so many people are taking this seriously is kind of a testament to how much of a curve this dude gets graded on
― frogbs, Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:31 (two years ago) link
yeah somehow still when he produces for others the results generally end up much more focused and polished than his recent solo material
idk maybe just having someone else he's working for who can reject anything particularly bizarre/unfinished makes a big difference. also i guess there's deliberate stylistic decisions that differ between his solo material where he's going wild experimenting with everything, and his production work where he's usually committing himself to a particular style
― ufo, Thursday, 2 September 2021 15:40 (two years ago) link
on his work for other artists, he likely doesn't put the pressure on himself to make the greatest beat of all time by the greatest genius to ever live
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:20 (two years ago) link
i would imagine it's a combo of both, but it's pretty glaring how much better he is for other people now
voodoo - that "greatest genius" kind of gets as what i think really rankles me about the whole cult of kanye. since forever the media and critical establishment always seems to think that hip hop is something that need to be "transcended" and kanye's sophomoric "art" antics have always played into that
like i love Public Enemy, but are they ultimately better than EPMD? Big Daddy Kane? I don't know but they certainly scanned closer to a rock music ideal of confrontational music than people who were just making classic hip hop tracks
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:28 (two years ago) link
Been listening to one of Mike Dean's two instrumental albums from last year, which (not surprisingly) has some of the Kanye textures without anything getting in their way.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:32 (two years ago) link
surprised at how good watch the throne sounds to me rn. production's awesome and nowhere near blown-out as mbdtf. kanye verses all rancid. jay pretty good
― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Thursday, 2 September 2021 16:33 (two years ago) link
The thing about talking Kanye now is being sufficiently scorched earth but also not tipping into total “fuck this guy” territory — not that there’s anything wrong with the latter, I just feel like as an intellectual exercise it’s fun to be precise. Anyway I like this: https://www.theringer.com/2021/9/2/22654013/kanye-west-donda-discography-revisionism-legacy
Though it doesn’t really dig into the music much
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:09 (two years ago) link
Was just coming to post that link. It's a very good piece.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:11 (two years ago) link
saw that when you tweeted it very good writing
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:14 (two years ago) link
His self-importance serves you, not him; his self-importance is killing him but letting you witness the glitziest self-immolation you’ll ever see.
This seems factually wrong. During the Yeezus era, when people loved his music, he was in a deep hole financially and psychologically. Lyrically and musically on that album, he comes across as bitter and aggrieved and the album features some of his most misogynistic moments.
Today he is worth over a billion dollars and says that Christianity has helped him overcome opioid addiction among other challenges. To be fair, he often still seems scattered and sometimes grandiose, but the bile that fueled him in the Yeezus era is mostly gone. He doesn’t seem to be in the worst place of his life psychologically.
Musically he is not on top of his game (what is he, 45?). Politically his instincts have been atrocious. But the spectacle of his unraveling was more of a thing in the days when he made good music. Honestly the media liked him better when he seemed to be on the very edge and that probably contributes to his sense that they are trying to “enslave” him, as he often says.
― treeship., Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:30 (two years ago) link
That post itself is Kanye level disingenuous. Congratulations
― xheugy eddy (D-40), Thursday, 2 September 2021 17:33 (two years ago) link
i agree that the new abstract mindstate beats aren't bad but the whole album feels so knowingly retro that it flirted with ersatz. my favorite kanye of the past decade is probably DAYTONA followed by his nas album.
― think “Gypsy-Pixie” and misspelled. (We are a white family.) (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 2 September 2021 19:06 (two years ago) link
that nas album was terrible
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Thursday, 2 September 2021 20:04 (two years ago) link
i think a lot of the beats on the abstract record are great. daytona obv is the best thing, i'm more in voodoo's camp on the nas
abstract isn't like a major record or anything but i found it charming, corny in places but i didn't find it ersatz, just two 49 year old rappers coming back and rapping like they used to 25 years ago because that's how they rap
for me it was just cool to hear kanye doing some more old kanye shit
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:24 (two years ago) link
oh KTSE by Teyana Taylor that was good too
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 2 September 2021 21:32 (two years ago) link
Pure Souls is good
― treeship., Sunday, 12 September 2021 23:40 (two years ago) link
Jail and Pure Souls are the best ones. Jesus Lord is almost good but Kanye's flow is garbage and ruins it.
― adam t. (abanana), Monday, 13 September 2021 06:23 (two years ago) link
😳😳😳😳😳😳 “DRAKE ATE HIS LUNCH ANYWAY” OUCH https://t.co/kRKgk7c3oW pic.twitter.com/1c6WjB9HaQ— THE KID MERO 🇩🇴 (@THEKIDMERO) September 14, 2021
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:24 (two years ago) link
okay that might be the very last person who I thought would enter into this
― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:26 (two years ago) link
"Nobody flies in the entire world of hip-hop just to croak one syllable, just so you can say that everybody was on it." so is this why he wanted TR-i on it?
― frogbs, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:30 (two years ago) link
lol nice
― a talented ‘Rebel’ with Balls (Spottie), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:37 (two years ago) link
Article says 88 Keys got Rundgren involved not Kanye
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:44 (two years ago) link
lol I love that Rundgren played a passive role in this. It reminds of the Paul McCartney Kanye story.
"I had no idea what was going to happen. I didn’t want it to be at his house or my house, because it could be awkward if one of us wanted to leave. So we met on neutral ground -- a cottage at the Beverly Hills Hotel -- and I showed up with a guitar and my roadie, and we had a keyboard and a bass," McCartney recalls, before revealing how West spent some of his time during that session. "I was sitting around, strumming the guitar -- that’s normally how I start a song -- and Kanye was looking at his iPad, basically scrolling through images of (his wife) Kim (Kardashian West)," McCartney says. "So we were telling stories, and at one point I told him how 'Let It Be' came from a dream about my mother, who had died years before, where she said, 'Don’t worry, just let it be.'""He said, 'I’m going to write a song about my mother,' so I sat down at this little Wurlitzer keyboard and started playing some chords, and he started singing," he continues. "I thought, 'Oh, are we going to finish this?' but that was that. And it became 'Only One.'"McCartney went on to collaborate with West -- and others including Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom -- on "All Day" in 2015. West and McCartney also teamed up with Rihanna for "FourFiveSeconds" the same year. The process of collaborating in that way was new for the former Beatles member, but something he was thrilled to participate in."It’s this modern process that I was happy to open myself up to -- you’ve got loads of stuff, and the skill is to distill it. I was sitting around, just strumming a little groove and nobody said, 'Let’s make a song of that,'" he says. "But months later I got a song with Rihanna on it and I said, 'Where am I?' I didn’t recognize it because they changed the key. I thought that record was great."
"I was sitting around, strumming the guitar -- that’s normally how I start a song -- and Kanye was looking at his iPad, basically scrolling through images of (his wife) Kim (Kardashian West)," McCartney says. "So we were telling stories, and at one point I told him how 'Let It Be' came from a dream about my mother, who had died years before, where she said, 'Don’t worry, just let it be.'"
"He said, 'I’m going to write a song about my mother,' so I sat down at this little Wurlitzer keyboard and started playing some chords, and he started singing," he continues. "I thought, 'Oh, are we going to finish this?' but that was that. And it became 'Only One.'"
McCartney went on to collaborate with West -- and others including Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom -- on "All Day" in 2015. West and McCartney also teamed up with Rihanna for "FourFiveSeconds" the same year. The process of collaborating in that way was new for the former Beatles member, but something he was thrilled to participate in.
"It’s this modern process that I was happy to open myself up to -- you’ve got loads of stuff, and the skill is to distill it. I was sitting around, just strumming a little groove and nobody said, 'Let’s make a song of that,'" he says. "But months later I got a song with Rihanna on it and I said, 'Where am I?' I didn’t recognize it because they changed the key. I thought that record was great."
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:51 (two years ago) link
“Tell Mr. Sinatra it was an honor working with him!”
“Yeah, for him, too. NEXT!”
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:59 (two years ago) link
drake's album was worse, though
― treeship., Thursday, 16 September 2021 18:41 (two years ago) link
it’s funny that the pitchfork score for this is lower than both ‘Jesus is kind’ and ‘ye’ which are both way worse
― flopson, Thursday, 16 September 2021 19:01 (two years ago) link
i guess it depends on what you look for in an album. this is overly long and feels unstructured. but the highs are much higher.
― treeship., Thursday, 16 September 2021 19:04 (two years ago) link
jesus lord would have been really powerful if he removed that self-serving section from larry hoover jr. from the end -- a voicemail of him thanking ye for advocating for his father in the oval office. it just feels like a cheap point -- see? that oval office visiti was good actually! -- and it mars the main subject of the song, which is about feeling lost and needing a source of hope
― treeship., Thursday, 16 September 2021 19:07 (two years ago) link
i feel like his need to publicly talk about his mother, still, is somewhat odd. especially because the way he brings her in is not really about her but about him. and it feels sort of sad, kind of -- like, he is talking about how his mom loved him unconditionally almost as a way of demanding that the american public do that too.
― treeship., Thursday, 16 September 2021 19:09 (two years ago) link
i think sometimes people feel embarrassed for kanye listening to stuff like that which is why they don't like the music.
― treeship., Thursday, 16 September 2021 19:10 (two years ago) link
jesus lord would have been really powerful if he removed that self-serving section from larry hoover jr. from the end
Funny, when I saw there was a “Jesus Lord 2,” I figured that would be a single version without the Hoover part, but nope, there it is again. Love the hook on that song, could listen to it for 10 minutes straight. It could be a new gospel standard if not for the rest. Less a fan of the verses.
― ... (Eazy), Thursday, 16 September 2021 20:32 (two years ago) link
Yeah, I know Drake is ridiculous but give me that LP over this one
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 16 September 2021 21:02 (two years ago) link
The best thing about Donda is probably guest verses. Maybe it’d feel different if the production was sharper? But also maybe not
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 16 September 2021 21:04 (two years ago) link
Love the hook on that song, could listen to it for 10 minutes straight.
seems like the direction he's headed
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 16 September 2021 21:33 (two years ago) link
I just had this bizarre vision of this song being performed live with Korn at the Grammies
― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 17 September 2021 22:19 (two years ago) link
Sorry: "Hurricane" specifically
ima fix donda:
keep my spirit aliveremote controlok ok pt2off the gridjunya pt2hurricanemoonpure soulslord i need youcome to lifejesus lord pt2
― maf you one two (maffew12), Sunday, 19 September 2021 13:39 (two years ago) link
“Ye is like this encompassing thing of fashion, bars, beats, production, videos and this.. & then u get Rocky dressing better than me Tyler better videos Drake more recordsJ Cole more backpackKendrick better bars.. So i literally had to go Thanos” - Kanye West pic.twitter.com/umktDgpD1P— Hero (@HopHeroes) November 5, 2021
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 8 November 2021 06:07 (two years ago) link
lol is anyone going to dare listen to the deluxe version he just put out which has 5 new tracks and a totally new sequence
― ufo, Monday, 15 November 2021 02:42 (two years ago) link
“life of the party” is a good song
― grove street (party) direction (voodoo chili), Monday, 15 November 2021 02:53 (two years ago) link
i dunno if i'm going to listen to the deluxe version of a very long album but i quite like donda.
― DT, Tuesday, 16 November 2021 09:25 (two years ago) link