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I'm sure that in the coming month we'll all get in on the discussion of the new Kanye West album (which I am officially obsessed with, even if I have some mixed feelings about it). I just wanted to point everybody to Nathan Rabin's review over at the AV Club. It's the only review I've seen that spends some real time addressing what to me is the most remarkable aspect of the album: the debt it owes to rock songwriting, instrumentation, and production. This album is crawling with electric guitars, keyboards, and driving drums that often owe as much to indie-rock as they do to hip hop. There of course have been rock-rap crossover acts for decades, from Run-DMC and Aerosmith's famous collaboration, to Lil' Wayne's recent, less successful efforts. But I actually think that in the last few years there's been growing interest from the hip hop community in cross pollinating traditional hip hop sounds with electric guitars and rock sensibilities (perhaps on another day when I have more time I'll offer a few more specific examples), and it's been interesting to watch it happen, even if up to now there have been a lot of sonic missteps.
Whatever else you can say about My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, I think that Kanye has blown the door open on rock/hip-hop crossover, and has created something that could (and hopefully does) serve as the blueprint for a lot of new music going forward. He has successfully fused elements of both styles, and made something thoroughly rock-oriented, without losing the hip-hop underpinnings that made his music so great in the first place, resulting in a mind-bending sonic landscape that I can't stop playing over and over again.
Does he also share some archaic and/or stupid views about women and relationships in the process? You bet he does! But when the music is this good, and the self-examination this intense (there are moments that almost remind me of Blue era Joni Mitchell...maybe I've just been listening to a lot of Joni Mitchell, but I think there are actually similarities) it makes you want to overlook all that. Kind of like the way everybody overlooks the noxious antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice, because the author certainly has a way with words.
But I'm sure I'll post more on that when I've had time to wrap my head around this album a little bit more. In the meantime, I hope everybody is listening!
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11 comments:
Definitely listening. So far, so good! I'll give it a few more listens before weighing in.
Likewise. Ironically this comes at a bizarre point in my life where I'm listening to way more hip hop than rock (all old stuff though, esp. Wu Tang Clan, which I may post about at some point), so in some ways this Kanye album is a bridge BACK to rock feels and structures. I'm loving it so far, BTW.
(Also, incidentally, any misogyny on this album pales in comparison to a lot of the older stuff that I've been getting into for the first time, like Chronic/Doggystyle-era Dre and Snoop Dogg. Not that it excuses any of it, but I'm just saying.)
It's true that even the most noxious stuff on this album (or on the GOOD Fridays downloads, which are also very worth hearing, though one song in particular contains some really weird observations on the way poor women smell) can't come close to comparing to the kind of things you hear on Death Row Records albums. But conversely I think that actually makes it even more noticeable to me. I have to put up such a filter to listen to the cartoonish opinions on all sorts of subjects in The Chronic that it doesn't even seem worth complaining about...analyzing it just makes me feel foolish for even trying. With Kanye, it's much more complicated, and that fact alone makes it seem much more interesting and worth having a discussion about.
I am obsessed with the album as well, particularly Power, All Of The Lights and Monster, which are instant classics.
Is anyone else really unimpressed with the first track?
also, sadly, I think the emergence of this album renders the 'guess Pitchfork's number 1" competition moot, as it is the obvious choice.
I was looking forward to schooling Eric again.
I like the first track. I think it sounds the most like something from one of his previous albums, and serves as a good intro partly for that reason. The second after it ends we hear our first electric guitar, and start to enter into the new territory this album explores (perhaps thereby answering the question about whether we can get much higher?) Plus, it contains that hilarious "too many Urkels make your wins low" line.
The section I'm having the hardest time wrapping my head around is that Chris Rock monologue at the end of "Blame Game". What the hell is going on there? Why did Chris Rock even agree to do that weirdness? I picture Kanye explaining to him the deep meaning behind it in some coke fueled rant in his mansion, and Chris Rock, under some sort of chemical impairment himself, agreeing to stumble upstairs to the studio and knock it out on the spot.
Also, I'm really appreciating how intricately structured this is as a capital "A" Album. "Monster" was a killer track even totally on its own when he first released it as a single, but the context provided by the rest of the album adds a whole new dimension to it. There are a lot of great hip hop albums that are best listened to end to end, but it's rare for a hip hop artist to pull a full-on Roger Waters like Kanye has done here, in which it's impossible to grasp the full meaning of many of the songs without all of the others providing context.
I'm pretty obsessed with this record, but I gotta say - the mastering has brickwalled the shit out of it.
This album is LOUD. I can't place all the blame on the mastering engineer - the mixes are often pretty rushed-sounding... some mixes sound really unbalanced with certain elements almost absurdly louder than everything else. Also, is it just me or are a lot of Kanye's vocals poorly recorded? Like, on cheap mics with lots of pops on 'p' sounds and shit like that...
I have to think the semi-cheap sounding mic thing is on purpose. But I too have been totally obsessed with this album. On one hand, it's definitely overhyped / overpraised-- there's too much weird stuff that doesn't work for it to be a 10-star album. But on the other hand, the weaknesses all work in context, and make it that much more interesting than a theoretical flawless record would be. I love the first song, incidentally. I'm less convinced by Hell of a Life and Blame Game. Also Devil in a New Dress. But actually I've been finding different highlights each time I listen, so those songs may speak to me more on future listens.
Also, it took me a while to remember what did win when Tex correctly predicted P4K's number 1. Fucking Fleet Foxes, man. Perfectly pleasant album, but who the hell remembers them now?!
I also thought the cheap sounding vocals were a conscious decision. But I hear you on the loud blast mastering thing. Also, Q, the Roger Waters comparison is really apt.
As for Pitchfork's #1, let's not jump to conclusions yet. We've still got 4 more weeks for The Knife to release a new album.
You're right about Pitchfork. I've been reconsidering whether or not Vampire Weekend is going to highjack the top spot.
They love to defy expectations (in this case, NOT giving #1 to their only 10.0 of the year).
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