Sure. I’m up for that.
None whatsoever! That’s precisely my point. People love to condemn trash like them (and all they stand for), but problematically, they tend to champion really repressed square crap as an alternative.
That’s the one I would recommend as well. Maybe The College Dropout, too, but he hits his peak here, IMHO. Just a gorgeous albium through and through. Jeezus is pretty brilliant, as well, but quite different for Kanye.
Pretty much anyone who has actual music talent agrees that Kanye West is a tremendous musical talent.
As I said before, he doesn’t make my kind of music, but that’s a different issue. Kanye is the real deal.
OK, just listened to “Through the Wire” and “Stronger”. I need to sit with it. Neither are objectionable in the same way “Bound 2” is. The rapping keeps me at arm’s length in the same way death metal vocals keep me from enjoying Opeth–I just can’t connect with it and the best I’d expect is to be able to tune it out eventually.
But that’s all personal preference. Leave it all with me and I’ll give it a fair chance. Anything that results in an appreciation of more music is a good thing. Or I may decide it’s still shit, but at least I’ll have an informed opinion. Right now I’m undecided.
As for “Bound 2” getting a nomination, it doesn’t change my opinion. My own take on this larger discussion is not that Beck deserved the Grammy ahead of Beyonce but that West is most likely a bona fide narcissist in a clinical sense who sees an award being handed to the “wrong” nominee as an personal attack. It’s as if he thinks the Recording Academy are basing their votes on “How best to piss off Kanye West”.
No matter how talented Kanye may be, it’s clear that Beck could do everything that he could do, and much much more. At least musically speaking, I’ve no idea if he’s capable of being as much of a publicity hound.
Kanye may well be this generation’s Phil Spector, but best musician of this generation? Not a chance. No idea who actually is, but I’d be surprised if they’re not playing jazz or bluegrass.
But maybe I’m wrong. If someone wants to link me to him playing live and improvising - and I have a fairly wide tolerance for “playing live”, mixing would count - then go for it. But someone who takes 5000 hours to make a 4 minute song is not a better musician that someone who takes 4 minutes to do so.
Well duh. I don’t think anyone would disagree with Kanye West is a narcissist (though it probably elevates his work). He’s also (seemingly) incredibly paranoid and lacks a lot of social skills. That doesn’t diminish his work in anyway.
Anyways, beware, Kanye was my gateway drug into Hip Hop and R&B ;). I was a rock person almost exclusively (some EDM snuck in). My favorite bands were Led Zeppelin, White Stripes, and Arcade Fire. Then I decided why not and listened to Yeezus and loved it! Then My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and it blew down all my anti-rap doors and forever changed in my approach to Rap and Hip Hop in general (I still count Arcade Fire and White Stripes as my favorite groups, but Kanye West is my favorite solo artist).
(FTR, I LOVE Odelay - but its no MBDTF)
Sure, make me defend this narcissistic knucklehead. Sounds pretty damn ordinary to me.
The final product is all that counts, in my opinion.
I think you’re right if the question is which is the best song, or best recording. But people are claiming he’s the best musician, which is a different thing. Best producer, or even best composer? I could understand arguments for that, but not best musician.
Sure, I wouldn’t go that far. I think he is a fantastic producer that produces evocative records. He’s not the best rapper technically, nor the best lyricist. He’s competent enough at both (though I enjoy his lyrics more than than his rapping personally.) But sum of the parts, he’s one of my favorite hip-hop artists, as a relatively casual hip-hop listener. As a tangent, I really don’t understand how somebody who enjoys music could listen to something like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and not find it an incredible album, whether they enjoy hip hop or not. But different strokes, and all that, I guess.
So I agree with you. Best musician? No. Extremely talented pop artist, one of the best of his generation? Yes.
I’ll listen to it and see what I think.
And I care what Pitchfork Media thinks for what reason? Critical praise, quite frankly, doesn’t mean much to me, even if it comes from the highly esteemed and totally not commercial Entertainment Weekly. Why? I am a musician and I form my own judgements.
The musicians* I am referring to do write their own music. Amazingly they write all of their own music unless they do a specific cover. They don’t sample. They don’t ‘make beats’ using software which requires clicking a mouse on little boxes. No auto tune. They don’t have 49 writers on one album.
To enter ‘The Greatest Musician of ALL TIME’ territory requires a bit more than a simple intro harmony** then breaking into a standard beat with rap on top with a three note loop running in the back ground.
Kanye writes pop that sells. It isn’t musically anything special. But then again, the vast majority of music that sells lots of copies isn’t anything special.
And there is nothing wrong with that. However, labeling Kanye as the most talented musician of any generation is just silly.
Slee
- Link. Second Link.Third link. Note, you may not particularly like any of those musicians. However, they all are light years ahead of Kanye as musicians and song writers.
** I went and listened to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. eh. Nothing particularly special. Well done, but just another pop song.
I assume you listened to “Dark Fantasy.” My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the whole album.
Anyway, I love the Miles Davis album (probably top 10 all time for me), the Rodrigo & Garbriella stuff is also quite good. Not sure what to make of Liquid Tension Experiment, but I’ll believe you if you say they’re good and highly regarded within their genre–it’s not what I personally like as far as songwriting goes. That said, it sounds like you’re not much for pop music, which is fine, but pop songwriting is its own craft and I think Kanye is incredibly skilled at it and writes/puts together incredibly tight and evocative and sonically interesting (in my opinion) songs.
FWIW, Liquid Tension Experiment is a Dream Theater/Tony Levin collaboration. Levin is a former King Crimson member and one of the best session musicians around.
I guess I just don’t understand how production work (ie, composing music) isn’t something that a musician undertakes (or may undertake). Sampling, using electronic instruments, etc., are all aspects of composing a song. It’s all aspects of being a musician. Technical skill isn’t the only measure of a musician and being a musician isn’t so narrowly defined to exclude all composers of electronic or hip-hop music, IMO.
If he can’t behave himself then ban him from the ceremony.
Production work isn’t composition, and composition isn’t performing music. They’re three seperate - although related - skills. Sampling, for example, is neither performing nor composing. Just as editing a film isn’t acting or directing. Someone who hypothetically created a work based entirely from samples wouldn’t be displaying any skill as a musician.
As for electronic instruments, it doesn’t really matter what form the instrument takes, what matters is whether we’re talking about a performance or a compilation of many performances. Of course, the majority of recordings from the last 60 or so years combine both. Miles Davis, mentioned upthread, was one of the great geniuses at doing both, as can be heard on Bitches Brew or Live Evil.
[quote=“Drunky_Smurf, post:130, topic:712209”]
Kanye sounds like a retard in his songs. Race has nothing to do with it.
[/QUOTE]Is that real??? That’s a musical genius?
And ‘best album of the first half of the 2000’s’ seems like a fairly low bar.
Is This autotuned piece of shit supposed to be genius?
I do like “Gold digger” I guess that’s something.
I’m about halfway through listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. First though, this is the most vanilla “dark twisted fantasy” I’ve ever encountered. Second though, far too many stereotypical “look at my money” rap lyrics, and too much boasting about being a rather unpleasant person. And he’s a mediocre rapper at best, even with my rather limited knowledge I can tell that.
As for his production skills, there’s good and bad. He’s certainly extremely good at picking samples and arranging them into a whole, mixing multiple styles into a coherent and sometimes unexpected whole. However, for something supposedly dark and twisted, I was expecting a lot more edginess. So far, only “Monster” and the weird, but rather brilliant, instrumental ending to “Runaway” come close.
The biggest problem as a producer, though, is the complete lack of dynamic range on the album. Not unexpected, it being something from the last 15 years, but rather sad that even the supposedly best producer out there won’t use one of the most important tools he has available.
Overall, a slick, well made, not overly interesting pop album, with enough hip-hop attitude to give it some superficial edge, for want of a better term, but not enough to keep it from the mainstream. I can’t help but wonder how much better his music would be if he didn’t so obviously crave fame, money and attention.
All that said, I’ve listened to nearly an hour of it without wanting to turn it off, which is a lot longer than the majority of modern pop artists would get.