Getting past their public personas …
Kanye’s little tantrums don’t hurt anyone and everyone benefits from the attention.
I don’t personally like listening to their music, but if I can play the armchair prognosticator, Kanye West and Beyoncé Knowles will be remembered for their music far into the future. Beck, who has made a couple of records I do like, won’t have the same legacy.
Beyonce doesnt write her hits, she doesnt play her hits, she sings super produced cookie cutter songs with a level of talent several hundred youtubers could achieve with her team behind them. If she wasn’t stunningly beautiful she would be another nobody. Give it 20 years and she will be nobody.
Electronica is a great form of music but if you are nothing more than a talented mouth piece then why should anyone care?
Can’t fucking stand Kanye his so called music, and especially his sense of entitlement. West and his fat ass wife can be the fucktards they’ve always been but I’ll never buy anything that bitch sells.
He seems to have a habit of picking on skinny white women. P
Beck should have asked who the gay fish was.
Not sure which rapper said it but one of them tweeted that West called out a guy who plays 14 plus instruments for a women who needs four writers to help her write one song.
I quite enjoyed this take on the matter: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/grammys/grammys-2015-comment-beck-trumps-beyonce-for-artistry-20150210-13afqb.html
It’s not like her “team” is in bondage to her (I guess you have to define her “team” first - it isn’t like she’s been using the same producers from album to album). Why don’t the youtubers do so if they can? Though I’m guessing you likely having heard her songs, but I don’t really think anyone can really call the songs on the “Beyonce” album as ‘cookie cutter’.
It’s a lot more complex the that but the basic fact is that it is a business with a very high barrier to entry. Success breeds success so a studio will invest Time, effort and energy in a proven product (e.g.Beyonce). Said time and effort includes the very best in writers, producers and equipment. With enough money, and looks. A lot of Youtubers could give it a real go.
Yeah, for me artistry is when a musician can inspire a bit more than Beyonce ass shaking. pole dancing or simiulating riding Jay-Z’s penis.
Like this wonderful piece from Morning Phase : Wave
You’re about as objectively wrong about this as anyone could be about something subjective. All three of them are great artists, but Beyoncé and Kanye are trancedent in a way that Beck is not and probably never will be. In fact, Kanye is arguably the most artist working today. He is one of the only guys working today who can make great music with people as varied as Daft Punk, Paul McCartney, Jon Brion, Jay-Z, and Bon Iver. McCartney hadn’t had a top 40 hit in almost 30 years, and now he has two in a matter of months.
Yes, Kanye is a jackass. But there are few people as talented as he is making music. The guy is a true artist, student of music, and pretty humble artistically speaking despite his bravado. He is undeniably a genius. Even Beck admits as much. I get that he’s easy to hate, but please realize when you imply people like him and Beyoncé are marginal talents, you are just making yourself sound uninformed.
This. Stop him before he kidnaps he and locks her in a dungeon.
Yeah. I would say that Kanye has mastered the art of fame better than Lady Gaga. You can tell he’s a pretty sensitive, brilliant guy but pop music it seems like you need to be constantly creating controversy to stay relevant. Even more so in rap where mainstream fans want their favorite artists to be tough or aggressive.
Totally agree. Regardless of his reasoning Kanye is once again kind of ruining the moment for a fellow musician. Beck doesn’t have the current sales success of Kanye or Beyonce so it hurts when on top of that, a more popular artist comes in saying his award isn’t deserved.
But Kanye is probably doing it to keep his name in the headlines as free promotion for his upcoming album. This is the same guy that wore a Confederate flag on his jacket, which just so happen also made the news.
I think part of his rant is calculated for selfish reasons, but I think another part is what you said, which I agree with.
I always thought Rihanna was the better artist, or at least I enjoyed her music more than Beyonce’s. I’m checking out “Drunk In Love” and it’s not bad. Better than “Single Ladies.” I hated that song. I’ll check out her album so I can see why people call her Queen Bey.
Good point on 1. I probably wouldn’t have checked out Beck’s album (being more of a rap listener) had it not been for the controversy so maybe there’s that.
I like Kanye’s music. “Jesus Walks With Me,” and “Runaway” are some of my favorites but I don’t actually own any of his albums. And I agree with brickbacon on his assessment of Kanye as an artist.
That said, like you, I will not be buying any album by Kanye West anytime soon, assuming “that bitch” you refer to is Kanye. The reason I won’t support him is because he put fellow Chicago rapper Chief Keef on his last album. Chief Keef is a member of the Black Disciples gang, claimed his mixtape would increase the Chicago murder rate, and bragged on twitter about rival gang member and rapper Lil Jojo getting murder by the BDs. Considering the problem the US has with gun violence, drugs and gangs, and how greatly those things affect black and brown communities I can’t understand why Kanye would give more exposure to an asshole like Keef.
I wonder if he’s just a bit besotted by the wife of another - a bit Harrison/Clapton, if you will - , and it’s all become a bit clumsy.
We’ve all got a little messy over lust.
Marginal talents Kanye and Beyonce at best. They maybe “clever” in sampling others, but it takes true genius to be an original. They are why the music industry is shit these days.
Sorry, but transcendence is in the eye of the transcendee…Beyonce is a great singer (my wife has all of her albums), but she has stayed in a pretty narrow lane of slickly produced R&B/pop. Not saying she relies on autotune, but man, she is SO. FREAKING. PRODUCED. Even her latest, while enjoyable and super catchy, isn’t pushing any boundaries or establishing much new ground. I’d say Beck is also, undeniably, a genius. He has had a richer, more diverse discography, and I’d put his best songs/lyrics well ahead of hers.
It’s too bad that Kanye was so self-involved that he had to (once again!) make it all about himself (and his POV on the award), instead of letting the artist receiving the award enjoy their moment. And folks who are like “Hey, he’s just being entertaining!”, I’m guessing would justify almost any assholish behavior from an artist they like. “See? People are talking about Sam Smith booing Nickelback*! He’s an artist! And that’s what artists do!”
*yeah, I’m guessing Sam Smith is too sweet to do that, but still…
Sorry, what did his wife do, and why is her supposedly fat ass relevant? I have decided that hatred for the Kardashians is 9 times out of 10 more reflective of the person hurling insults than anything they do.
Sure, it’s fair to think they are overexposed, but they have literally done nothing that should command the scorn they receive. They are not beating one another up like the housewives of [insert city]. They are generally not vulgar or cruel to one another. They are mostly giving the public the amount of access they demand. It’s incredibly hard to stay famous and relevant, yet they have done it for a decade or so at this point. That fact alone demonstrates the unique talent they have.
Regardless of how you or I feel about them, they are making a lot of people happy. I don’t necessarily think they are people I would want to hang out with, but the undeniable fact that lots of people admire them, that they are generally good role models, and that they make a lot of people happy should mean something here. They’re not telling people to not get vaccinated, or getting strung out on drugs. Why can’t you be happy for her/them rather than tearing Kim down for things like having an ass too big for your liking?
Again, they are not marginal talents in the estimation of ANYONE who matters. There is not a serious music reviewer who agrees with that statement. Both have album(s) that consistently rank as the best of that year, and of the last 25 years or so. Marginal talents don’t have 20+ Grammys. What you are saying is just so nonsensical that it functions as a disqualifying statement regarding your ability to appraise musical talent.
I disagree as do most of the critics I have seen. Beyonce has a much greater impact on the culture, and will likely be relevant for longer than Beck. And I love Beck too. He is great, but they are not doing or trying to do the same thing. Beyonce is a musician and a superstar and Beck is a musician.
But it’s not just the opinion of yours or mine that matters here. And what exactly do you mean “PRODUCED”?
Sure, he is kinda dickish for doing that, but I think we all need to calm down here. We are talking about an etiquette breach at an awards show. This is not life or death.
Is there a Kanye song where he actually sings, and isn’t using auto-tune? I’d love to hear something that gives him some legitimacy in the discussion, but I couldn’t find anything that made him sound any better than a puberty-addled teen half-heartedly humming a tune in the shower.
Kanye is 1) a producer 2) a rapper 3) a singer. In that order. How good he is at 1) gives him a pass on 2) and a whole lot of leniency on 3).
You seem a little (or very) defensive. I see West is sometimes credited with playing keyboards, but does he really do much besides pushing buttons on a computer and talking over the resulting music?
I’d like to invoke Poe’s law here. Since I think you might be serious, let me start by saying that “guilt by association” is unfair. But since you went on at length defending the Kardashians, I have to say (though I thought it was obvious) that people who are wealthy and famous for no reason at all deserve our contempt and scorn, but moreso our ire should be aimed at all the idiots who pay attention to them. “Role models”?!? Seriously?
Do you understand that things like the Grammys are scams? They were designed as large-scale, yearly publicity stunts, and serve to move tacky product to the masses.
This is the most important part, and the bolding is mine. You seriously question the judgment of others, when you yourself don’t even seem to know what over-production is, and why it’s so bad? Really? You have no idea?