Kanye West

The first Kanye album I ever heard was Graduation. I mooched it off my brother and gave it a listen about five years ago for the first time, it sounds and feels like my high school graduation in the sense that I did my HSC for longer than everybody else, but I still graduated dammit.

It also reminds me of this period because now, for the life of me, I cannot NOT associate Kanye West with Takashi Murakami because of THAT BIG DAMN ALBUM COVER. I mean, I can't even tell if Kanye and Takashi Murakami are a match made in heaven or an ego-pair made in hell anymore. It worries me that Takashi Murakami, though I'm pretty sure is not the case, might actually be the Art World's Kanye, at least in Japan.

Also, Kanye West singing Big Brother is so damn funny to me now because it's essentially a track where Kanye fanboys over Jay Z for a good long track.

But yeah, I've never been down on him for the Taylor Swift incident, and will always remember him for his classically underrated in pop culture track, "Can't Tell Me Nothing". Mainly in the context of quoting it when government censorship comes up.

But after I've heard so much of Graduation, one of my fave albums, I'm worried the other ones he did won't live up to the bombastic, blatant Glam Rap of this release.

Yes. Yes they will.

In fact, go listen to Late Registration now.

I never got Kanye until 808s & Heartbreak. Before then, I had only known three of his songs: "Slow Jamz", "Gold Digger" and "Stronger". I really liked the latter, but that didn't keep me from thinking his voice was annoying and the beat was lackluster. Then I heard the first few singles from 808s and I still wasn't impressed. A few months later, I downloaded the full album on a whim and was blown away by the instrumentation and the humanity imbued in his performance despite the robotic nature. I saw him as the tortured genius I guess he kept trying to pass himself off as. After that, I picked up My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and now I can't stand to listen to it anymore because I had it on repeat the month it came out.

Also, I was completely on his side with the Taylor Swift incident, except for the part where he thinks "Single Ladies" was in any way a listenable song. I just like the image of a starlet who's had everything handed to her utterly humiliated, if only for a minute.

edited 25th Jun '11 11:51:00 AM by KitsuneInferno

Here's the basic facts: he's a total jackwad. But he makes some fan-tucking-fastic music. MBDTW is the second-best album of last year.

However, if you want to get into more of his catalogue, take note that much of it sounds different. The College Dropout is mostly straightforward rapping, with much of the music coming from chipmunked R&B 70s and 80s hits. It's him at his lyrical best, IMO. Late Registration has better instrumentation, because it goes for an odd, pseudo-baroque pop feel that's rather hard to pin down. Lyrically, it's mostly the same territory as The College Dropout. Graduation is maximalist synth-rap, with bombass and bragaddosio strewn all about the place. It's also less about the world and more about himself. 808s & Heartbreak is his out-of-place album, and while I personally think it falls flat, I can respect its imbuing of humanity into stale and cold roboticized textures. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy largely takes up where Graduation left off in its introspective maximalism, except it very greatly works as a concept album about the darker sides of decadence and excess, how it leads to dehumanization, and the deconstruction of party anthems and two-thirds of what's on the radio at the moment. It is good.

No mention of Jesus Walks?

It's not that great.

"All Falls Down" is way better.

"The New Workout Plan" is better than both.

Actually, no, Jesus Walks is a pretty good song.

Except for the line about Regis. Otherwise it's a good song.

Kanye West? Was he that one guy who went on some stage or other when he shouldn't have and talked about a music video or something? :/

Inane, your attempt at trolling is more transparent than air.

That really is all I know. Apart from the fact that he apparently uses autotune quit a bit. Or is that someone else...

The one who uses Auto-Tune a lot is T-Pain. The only album Kanye's really used excessive Auto-Tune on is 808s & Heartbreak, to compensate for his limited singing abilities.

Ok, that makes more sense.

So, Watch The Throne drops in approximately 5 days, anyone else looking forward to it?

I'm trying to be optimistic about it (if only to see what the fuck "couture hip-hop" is supposed to mean), but after "H.A.M."...

Not really.

I'm still riding off of Are You Gonna Eat That?

I'll probably look into it in a month or so.

The hell? I haven't heard a damn thing about Watch the Throne ever since "H.A.M." came out. Does it even have a Wikipedia page?

A tracklist was released and confirmed a while ago, and several news outlets give July 4th as a release date.

Wait, what? This is the absolute first time I've heard of this.

I also though the Beyonce/Bruno Mars song was going to be on a separate album.

I heard Watch The Throne was going to be released August 2nd, with a single coming this month.

Should've known they weren't going to keep that release date. >_<;

Sorry for bumping this, but did anyone see the clip of his outburst to TMZ and the spinoff rap song made of it?

In Kanye's defense, he repeatedly told the guy not to talk to him, which he completely ignored. Also, when you're a big a star as him, you're probably followed around by cameras everyday. I can blame him for getting a little bit upset.

You have a point. Personally, I thought Kanye was hilarious in that clip because of how he kept on saying "don't talk to me," and the paparazzi didn't even listen, I get annoyed when people constantly follow me and are in my face, so I understand Kanye's frustration. Some of Kanye's outbursts are hilarious.

Kanye has officially released the music video for "Black Skinhead" on his website.

Thoughts?