I was just wondering if we could get a opinions from the Key Play community about Kanye West's album, The Life of Pablo. This being one of the biggest releases in early 2016, discussion could be interesting. IMO, I think this album is excellent with a few weakpoints.
Ultralight Beam: Dope track: great Chance verse, loving the gospel tune, a great start to the album.
Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1: Let it be known, if Young Metro doesn't trust you, consider yourself formally deceased already. Amazing beat, Kid Cudi's vocals are heaven, worst part is the dumb bleached asshole in Kanye's verse
Pt. 2: Love, love, love; just like Pt. 1 with a similar beat but with the sample from Desiigner, my GOD, so good.
Famous: One of the best songs on the album, the Taylor Swift line is the best thing I've ever heard lmao
Feedback: Pretty good, nothing really stands out, would not skip
Low Lights: It's an interlude. Relaxing interlude, but an interlude.
Highlights: Okay track, nothing good, nothing bad, could be better
Freestyle 4: Banger. Nothing else can be said. Bump this in the ride.
I Love Kanye: No
Waves: One of the better tracks. The beat plus the Chris Brown vocals equals a dope ass song
FML: I really love this song. I feel it would be better if the Weeknd's hook was a little longer, but still really good.
Real Friends: Still enjoyable with the relaxing beat, plus the cousin line lmao
Wolves: Good song, I wish it was the version with Vic Mensa and Sia but hey what are ya gonna do
Silver Surfer Intermission: Again, it's an intermission
30 Hours: The verses and beat is enjoyable but the ending ad-lib with his friend calling him drags the song on too long and makes it not enjoyable. Plus whenever I set the album on shuffle, this song always shows up. Sick of it
No More Parties in LA: Kendrick Lamar, that is all
Facts (Charlie Heat version): Still the shitty Facts song, but with a better beat
Fade: Enjoyable outro track; good beat with Kanye and Post Malone.
OVERALL: 8.5/10
Comments
I was hoping there would be a discussion about this album. I wasn't sure if it was an interest for TKP, so I didn't start one, but here it is!
Full disclosure... I torrented TLOP because, well, Tidal. I love Kanye and all, but he shouldn't be making it Tidal exclusive.
I think this album could have been thinned out some. 18 tracks seems long to me. The Silver Surfer could have been cut, along with the waste of time that is "I Love Kanye". A couple of songs, like 30 Hours and Lowlights could be cut as well. Lowlights just doesn't do it for me, because Kanye doesn't even show up.
For me, Fade is one of my favorite tracks. It seems to be a bit underrated with the whole "Bleach my asshole" and Taylor lines. But the rhythm and lyrics of Fade work very well together. FML also falls into the category of songs that don't get talked about enough.
Facts is one of the bangers on this album as well. I know it's a pretty crap song, but man, it can get going.
Kanye was able to get some really good collabs on this album. Chance absolutely kills Ultralight Beams and with all the talk about him stalling the album to include Wave, he does a pretty good job with it.
I'd give this album about a 7.5. It doesn't seem to live up to the amount of hype that it went through. I'm excited to hear his new projects coming out soon, and his new album coming out this summer.
I don't like Kanye in the least, but he has a right to be paid for his work. You should really consider paying for the album.
Let me preface by saying if there was a hard copy of this album I'd scoop it up immediately. With that being said, there's a huge difference in paying for an album and paying at a minimum of $12/month to hear an album. I know you get a lot of other streaming music, but I use Spotify premium and get student pricing at $5/month so it just doesn't make sense for me to switch to Tidal just for this album.
This is what my thinking was. I also pay for Spotify, and was hoping it would be Tidal exclusive for only a week or so.
I understand why you feel that way.
At the end of the day though, whatever your rationalization, you are taking the product from someone without paying for it.
In this case, because you don't prefer the "store" it is available in.
Your ultimate conclusion "It just doesn't make sense for me to switch" evades the result that in order to get what you want (not something you even need), you are willing to simply take it.
It is a small thing, certainly.
But it is still not the right thing. Downthread mogwal takes it even further.
This is a curiously short-sighted approach. I could just as easily say, if Mogwal has a car for sale, but he isn't around when I want to buy it or I don't like the price he is selling it for, I am entitled to take his car and not pay him. After all, if he wanted to be paid for it, he would have been available at my convenience, or put it in my price range.
You could make a general sweeping statement like that, sure. I wanted to buy a movie last week so I went and bought it. I didn't "simply take it."
I didn't steal last week, so it's ok to steal this week?
I'm more calling out the fact that you accused me of simply stealing everything I want when it's simply not the case. But instead you made another generalization about my life choices. Thanks!
I don't believe that's what I said, but if that's how it came across I apologise. It certainly wasn't my intent.
I'm simply failing to see how stealing one thing is any less wrong than stealing many things.
It's not any less wrong, absolutely. I just don't have the money to pay for an additional monthly streaming service whereas if I could pay $10 - $12 for the album I absolutely would. I'm not saying that's an excuse, it's just how it is for me. I'm all about people getting paid for their work (my blu-ray collection is ridiculously large), but I just can't do tidal.
Some people don't pay taxes, and if you try to guilt them into not driving on the roads they just look at you with a funny expression and drive around. They could deprive themselves, but why?
If a person who makes music for a living gets overexposed to the point we're hearing it for free, then bless their little soul.
I spend a lot of money on music because I can. Some people don't.
But the only reason you should go out on the highway is if you're going somewhere.
Take me, for example. I don't like Kanye, either, and about the time I realized this wasn't a thread about Radiohead, I thought to myself "man, I sure have no business posting here"...
I'm fairly certain a person driving on the roads has paid taxes, fairly hefty taxes are added to the purchase price of fuel
It's actually in sales tax now in VA.
Before spotify was available, I would torrent albums, give it a listen, then decide if I wanted to buy the album. IMO, not much different than going to borders back in the day and listening to an entire album before buying. Now if you choose not to buy the album, but you continue to listen to the music, well, that's stealing.
So much to touch on here, I don't know how closely you follow the music industry, but I'm speaking from a macro perspective, not on a personal level*.
That's really not a fair analogy at all, and I think misses the broader point. I think a closer analogy would be me wanting to sell a car, so I go and park it in a bad neighborhood with the keys in the ignition and doors unlocked. Next day I go to sell it to someone and it's gone. Is it wrong to steal my car? Of course. But are you really going to feel sorry for someone who leaves themselves open like this?
I don't want to go into too much detail, but essentially the music business has gotten crushed because it's refused to adapt to changing technology and refused to allow people to listen to music the way they want. In the last 4 or 5 years things have gotten better because they've realized in the current age ACCESS is everything. If you restrict access, people will download illegally. You can point out all you want that this is unethical and wrong, and maybe it is (I'm not really interested in that argument), but it's a well established reality. Because of that I don't feel bad for Kanye if people are torrenting the record, it's the expected outcome when you make poor business decisions.
*I didn't torrent the album myself, and I've illegally downloaded less than 5 albums in my lifetime, all of which I bought on vinyl first (they didn't come with a download)
If he wants people to pay for it he should make it available to purchase. Right now you have to sign up for Tidal to hear it which is just a cheap marketing ploy to help out his buddy JayZ
First of all, Kanye does have stake in Tidal. A handful of artist (Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, DeadMau5, Jack White and others) all do. So it's not just a cheap marketing ploy, it's supporting a business he has stake in. Secondly, Tidal pays the artist about 6 times as much as spotify, and 5 times as much as apple music per listen.
Now, obviously Kanye/Record Label failed to correctly project the torrenting and stealing that would result from release an album only on Tidal, but this isn't Kanye doing something just to 'help his buddy.'
I guess that was a little facetious, he's doing it to help himself as well. It's unclear what his actual stake in the company is, but you can assume either he's going to make money from Tidal or Tidal paid him a large sum to make it exclusive. JayZ absolutely needs this though, he's the one who has put up the money to make Tidal work and the business is failing. Jay has a TON of money on the line, and is currently shopping around to larger companies to buy out Tidal (Samsung's been a big one). Kanye doubling subscription numbers helps Jay's bargaining. In all likelihood this was a backdoor deal to make selling the company more appealing.
But it is absolutely a marketing ploy. He's preventing people from listening to his work without signing on to a company that he has partial ownership of. I would call it tacky (cheap) but I'll admit there's some of my own bias in that.
As for Tidal payout being more than spotify, this is just continued awful reporting by people who don't seem interested in understanding basic math. Not one of these streaming companies pay per stream. They have a total amount of revenue then send some percentage of that (usually ~70%) back to rights holders. This is then distributed such that if 5% of all streamed songs were by Kanye West, he would get 5% of the money returned. This means the pay per stream is dependent on (a) the amount of revenue, (b) your proportion of the total streams. Spotify has repeated this fact over and over again, but it makes for a poor headline (and I suspect music journalists are bad at math), so it's rarely reported
The only way that Tidal pays more per stream is by either having a larger amount of revenue or by you having a larger proportion of total streams. Tidal doesn't make anywhere near as much as Spotify, so what that higher per-stream number means is that a small number of artists DOMINATE all streamed music on Tidal. This is confirmed on your chart where it says that in order to make minimum wage, you need 18% of ALL streaming activity on a platform. That's insane! As a steaming company gains more traction and brings in more money, that number will go down. You can see that reflected in Spotify's 2% of total streams needed to make minimum wage, a much more manageable (though large) number. As the shift towards streaming continues (and it's only now beginning I think), that number will continue to shrink.
For all it's talk about putting artist first, Tidal works exactly the same way as every other streaming outlet. If any of these people actually gave a damn about getting artists paid, they would shut out YouTube, the worlds largest streamer by a large margin who often doesn't pay artists at all.
As someone from a different era, I still shake my head at the fact that people can steal an artist's music with no repercussion. I have no dog in the hunt, but I have made my share of music, and I can tell you that any serious musician works their tail off to create and perfect their craft. From the solo artist plucking his guitar and singing originals at the coffehouse to the megastars selling out arenas, they deserve to be paid.
This is what my head and heart tell me now. However, when I was a younger man, we would routinely share albums (yeah, real vinyl) and occasionally tape someone's copy for our own use, thereby effectively "stealing" from the artist. While we rationalized it by thinking that at least someone had actually bought the album in the first place and never even thought of it as stealing, looking back on it, well, it probably was. A cassette tape could be played in the car or on a boom box, but seldom was as satisfying as owning the vinyl, and if it was a really good album, we'd save up and buy it. I knew people who'd spend money at the Band Box or Books, Strings and Things instead of buying food, so it wasn't like we had money to burn or anything. Being a technophobe of sorts, I guess I'm just trying to understand the changes in the music industry, and as you can see from my post, I'm not doing a very good job of it. So thanks to all who have participated in this discussion, I have learned some things from it.
No doubt that Ultralight Beam is one of Kanye's best songs since MBDTF. Between the gospel choir, the vocals from The Dream, Donnie Trumpet, and Chance's verse, this is one of Kanye's most well rounded and most uplifting songs. Same with Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 and 2. The transition from the Metro Boomin tag to Cudi is heavenly. The transition from part 1 to 2 is seamless. However, I do think Pt. 1 is the better half, mostly due to the hook, although Kanye's verse on Pt. 2 is also a highlight of the album.
I enjoyed famous, however, the original version supposedly had the Nina Simone sample, that is heard at the end, instead of Rihanna on the hook. Apparently there was a version with Young Thug too. Luckily, for once, Swizz Beatz didn't ruin the song with his dumb adlibs or a verse.
I enjoyed the production on Feedback, but otherwise there's nothing there that exactly draws me back to the song.
The energy and production on Highlights is infectious and it's hard not to feel good after listening to it, although I'm not a huge fan of the Ray J line. The only thing that hurts my opinion of this song is the usage of a certain sound effect in the middle of the song that sounds like my alarm clock. I hear that enough trying to get up for my 8 AMs.
Like you said, Freestyle 4 is a banger. I Love Kanye, while not something I'm going to listen to on shuffle, I think it's fine in the context of the album. It's just Kanye being Kanye and I'm fine with that.
Waves is another track that I can't help but to feel happy after listening to. Glad Chance convinced Kanye to include it. I definitely think Chance gets writing credits for Kanye's second verse.
The mood of the next 3 tracks are a perfect closer to the album. FML is great and The Weeknd's hook is solid, as always. Real Friends probably Kanye's best lyrically on the album. Wolves, for the most part, lived up to my expectations, after waiting for a year for a CDQ version. Also, it originally had Vic Mensa, not Vince Staples. I agree that the Vic and Sia version was more enjoyable. Ideally, we will get a version with Vic, Sia, Frank Ocean, and Kanye's verse. After Kanye's tweet saying he was going to fix Wolves, I'm not sure what to expect. A full rearrangement with Vic and Sia? Or is he just fixing the weird moment around 1:25 where random drums come in and then fade out? Either way, it's a good track.
I think that starting at the Silver Surfer Intermission, it seems like Kanye tacked on bonus tracks, even though they aren't listed in that manner. Anyway, 30 Hours, I completely get the annoyance with the Last Call-esque outro to the song, but I like listening to it just for Andre 3000's tiny bit. Really wish we could have gotten a complete verse though. No More Parties in LA is comparable to Real Friends as far as lyricism, but again, I kind of consider it a bonus track, though a great bonus track. My one complaint would be that the beat gets stale by the end. Facts is a fun song, though not necessarily a good one. The new beat helps, but it feels like Kanye jumped in the studio and was having fun, again, it feels like a bonus. Agree about Fade, good beat, great for head-bobbing.
I'm not going to give it a score because it's so hard to rate Kanye's projects without comparing them to one another and my ranking changes daily. I can say that it's not as good as MBDTF, but better than 808s and probably Graduation. Overall, it's a great album in my opinion. Judging by Kanye's twitter, we might be getting another project this summer, though I have my doubts.
Holy moly, I botched with the Vince Staples/Vic Mensa. Thanks for pointing that out!
It's all good. Us Yeezy fans have to stick together out here, we're surrounded by the Wolves.
I don't listen to Kanye because he cannot work and play well with others.
I don't have time to tolerate that stuff and won't support it. There is too much other talent out there that I want to support.
Yeah, definitely agree he can't play well, but working with others is another story. He's collaborated with a ridiculous amount of people throughout his career, especially on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Shamelessly pulled from Wikipedia: "Artists who were reported to have participated in the sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy included Raekwon, RZA, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Charlie Wilson, Big Sean, Cyhi the Prynce, Swizz Beatz, Dwele, Nicki Minaj, T.I., Drake, Teyana Taylor, Common, Jay-Z, Eminem, Lil Wayne, John Legend, Fergie, Rihanna, The-Dream, Ryan Leslie, Elton John, M.I.A., Justin Vernon, Seal, Beyonc Knowles, Kid Cudi, Mos Def, Santigold, Alicia Keys, Elly Jackson, and Tony Williams. Record producers who participated in the sessions with West included Q-Tip, RZA, DJ Premier, Madlib, and Pete Rock."
I will freely admit that I'm pretty biased though, considering that 23 of my 25 most listened to songs on iTunes are Kanye. I recognize that he's a pretty controversial figure and that his actions definitely turn people against him, especially those who are not hip hop fans. I'm just trying to provide a little insight into the artistic side of Kanye, rather than the well known public persona.
If you jump onto a stage at a national awards ceremony, take the microphone from the person speaking, denounce the awardee simply because you disagree, then that's a fine example of not working and playing well with others. I don't care who he has paid to be on his records.
Don't care if you are a hip hop or chap rock fan, that's not acceptable behavior.
Yeah, he tried pulling that shit at the Grammy's last year when Beck won over that Beyonce chick. It was hilarious. He was walking up to the stage as Beck was giving his acceptance speech, just as he got to the foot of the stage he turned around and walked back to his seat like a little punk-azz bitch that he is. It was PRICELESS. The best part was that Beck was motioning for him to join him on stage. Beck was all like "What? Come on! Come on up." That was absolutely priceless.
Yeah, his behavior is completely inappropriate at times. There's other things to be said about Kanye and who works on his projects, but no reason to really go into it because we aren't going to see eye to eye on it anyway. Nothing against you, I just know that he polarizing enough that it's basically the same as trying to change someone's opinion on politics, things rarely remain civil so there is no reason to really go down that path. I'll just end things by saying that I understand where you're coming from in your distaste for him. It's something that doesn't bother me because I've contextualized a lot of his actions in my mind and since I am a pretty passionate Kanye and hip hop fan. That passion allows me to ignore some of his shortcomings.
Watching a Kanye performance is like watching someone overcook a decent-quality steak. It might have been tolerable, or maybe even good, if he hadn't over-seasoned and burnt it. Oddly enough, though, there's a pretty big market for over-seasoned and burnt steak.
I couldn't agree more with this statement, and quite frankly, it made me laugh out loud. Kanye West has slowly declined in the past couple of years. His cocky attitude and his "I don't care about anything but Kim Kardashian" personality really annoys me. Don't get me wrong, his old stuff is pretty good, but his new stuff is just absolutely awful, and the only reason I listen to it is because of the people featured in some of the songs.
For the record: I cannot stand Kanye West (the personality).
This album was Kanye's best in quite a while, he did what he wanted to do, and although the album was heavily over-hyped, I can still go back and listen to it and see that it's really good. Kanye does different things as an artist now, and making the album TIDAL exclusive was a cop out for himself. He shouldn't be mad that his album is exclusively on an overpriced, lesser quality music medium where Apple Music and Spotify are much cheaper/better options. I'm not condoning the torrents, but I am content with the streaming medium I use and do not want to drop it/pay additional fees just to listen to Kanye's album. Him putting his album exclusively on TIDAL is basically the equivalent of his arrogant self, also marred by nonsensical Twitter rants. But if he can put out good music, people will listen.
So far I've enjoyed the album although MBDTF in my opinion is his best complete work.
I'm tempted to jump straight from Ultralight Beam to Waves but when I dont I really enjoy everything up until Lowlights and then its just 4 garbage tracks before Waves.
Alot of the album seems just thrown together and doesn't match. Ultralight and Waves are so positive and uplifting and then we have FML, Wolves, and Real Friends that have a much darker tone.
Facts is a serious bumper and I love the sample on 30 Hours, i get how the song drags on and people hate it but his line about driving 90 miles like Matt Barnes makes up for it.
Waves through 30 Hours is the meat of this album I just wish I could listen to it start to finish.
I pretty much agree with all of your points except 30 Hours and Facts. That is one of my favorite songs on the album. I also thought Chance's verse on Ultralight beam was the best on the album. I pretty much laughed out loud when I heard the Bill Cosby line in Facts honestly. Highlights and Feedback were a bit underwhelming for me.
Generally, I agree with Michigander that Waves through the end is the best part of the album hands down. I'm glad they held it off to put Waves in.
Meh...the guy makes a living by starting controversy and talking about how great he is. I'm not spending a penny on anything with this guys name on it. Squandering $35 mil and then begging others for help? Going into debt to start a clothing line so he can (try) and sell $500 jeans? Please. Do something constructive. Build others up and don't promote hate.
lmao the guy makes a living by having one of the most celebrated critically and commercially music catalogs of all time. i guess he should have been like john lennon who sung about peace and love but beat his wife, almost assaulted a man to death and neglected his son. people are pretty fond of him
The only stuff I've heard off the album were the two songs he did on SNL, Ultralight Beam and Highlight. The amount of autotune just made both unbearable. Hope the rest of the album isn't like that, though unless it actually becomes available, I guess I won't find out.
Did I nail it???
It cannot be unseen.
I just clicked on this topic to see what the hell "Life of Pablo" was, and I find a conversation about Kanye... Well that just about ruined my day. Don't like the guy, don't like his music (what little I've heard of it), just my $0.02. Anyway, where's the next football post....?
Oh damn, it's about Kam getting the cops called on him...
So you decided to take even more time to comment on it. Ok.
Eh, why not? Work's slow today...
Maybe because some of us wanted to discuss the album without being flooded by "Kanye is an Ass" posts? Everyone knows he is, some of us can get past it to enjoy his music.
I didn't say he was an ass, I just said that I didn't like him, or his music.
Which would be fine if the thread title was "Kanye West Ethical Discussoin." But its not and we don't need a thread of everyone saying what they don't like about Kanye because it would crash the site.
"Maybe some of us wanted to discuss the album without being flooded by 'Kanye is an Ass' posts?"
While open to OTs, I suggest that TKP is the wrong venue for a Kanye love fest. The audience is too varied and you are going to get all kinds of responses.
What your comment suggests is analogous to me starting a political thread and hoping that only people who agree with me respond.
I think you've gravely mischaracterized OP's intent. The thread was specifically created for discussion of this one album, that much is very clear from the title, the original post, and the line you quoted where he explicitly states his intent. This was not intended to just be an "I love Kanye" circlejerk, but a discussion of his latest product. That said, the only people who really have a stake in such a conversation are people who actually listen to Kanye's music. Everyone else is trolling, which is what OP was trying to redirect away from. He's not soliciting an echo chamber, as you suggest, but he is trying to have a very specific discussion. And there are multiple differing opinions on that front. I, and others, have criticized what we heard off the album, even though OP seems to love it. We don't need to trash talk the artist in order to critique what they put out. If people don't like or listen to Kanye at all, then they really have no reason to be in this thread.
I upvoted this but the score is still at 0. Wow. Regardless, HightyTighty put this far more eloquently than I could but I will add that a discussion about Kanye's album simply doesn't warrant a barrage of Get off my lawn-esque posts about how much you hate Kanye. Just because you dislike him doesn't mean we can't. Anyone that listens to Kanye knows who he is and what he's done. We don't need to be reminded of it. It might sound conceited but it's just annoying have to filter through what sounds like my grandparents bitching about music posts to read what people think about an album.
Ok. Last one. I promise. Then I'm done.
Man, grow up or go to Reddit or something. It's obvious you don't like Kanye or even rap but you're acting like a middle schooler who just learned what a meme was.
It takes one to one, I guess. But any rate it may surprise you to learn that I in fact do have a (small) selection kanye's tracts in my musical catalogue. While rap/hip hop is not my absolute fave genre, I still possess a substantial amount in my catalogue. Here's a hint, if kimye and his fans wouldn't make it so easy, I'd warrant there'd be much less wisecracks.
I agree they're easy to mock. But you're not mocking them. You're posting useless memes that add nothing to the discussion but instead indirectly down us for appreciating Kanye's music, all while we try to discuss this album.
I think one of the cooler things about the TKP community is the discourse in the off topic threads. It's interesting to hear different points of view on a subject from folks who outside of Virginia Tech athletics may not have all that much in common.
PVI-Hokie dropped a solid thread focused on the discussion of TLOP and its merits / criticisms; the artist's work, not the artist himself.
You added nothing to the dialog, except for being a dick to those who wanted to discuss TLOP. At the end of the day, that might make TKPers more reluctant to go off topic, which would be a damn shame.
Pro-tip: If you don't have anything to add to the specific conversation in a thread, then don't. It's really quite simple, and respectful.
Like I said: last one.
Kanye doing Kanye stuff... Better when his mouth was wired shut! Seriously I still listen to that shit
via GIPHY
His first three albums are one of the best, most cohesive, and (IMO) most all-around relatable 'trilogies' in hip-hop history. Since then, he's put out a good album, an ok album, and one really bad album.
Hip hop artist and rappers trend in similar patterns. When they first come on to the scene they have nothing but their lyrics which are usually easy to relate to but then as time goes on and they make more money their connection with what worked originally seems to fade since they aren't "being held down" or trying to make it. In Kayne's case you can say the same. Tons to talk about early on but as fame and money got to his head, it became about the brand and he lost touch of what made him special.
Their are always the exceptions to it though and if they are really talented they will be lifers.
Let's see how Kendrick pans out...he sends to be getting better with every album going back to K Dot.
Another trend I've noticed is that after some commercial success the artist gets way too abstract and fans shy away from it.
Blu after Below the Heavens and Lupe Fiasco...to name a few.
I think Kendrick and J. Cole would be major exceptions to the concept mentioned in the comment above yours, and, to some extent, your response. The approach they take to rap music just seems to be different. Kendrick is far more poetic in his lyrics than the norm, and his songs have a philosophical quality to them. That seems to have stayed consistent throughout his catalogue, with the major shifts being experimentation with different sounds. A major theme in much of his music is self-criticism rather than the self-glorification present in damn near all other rap music. For that to change, he'd have to make a total 180 on his whole worldview.
I also mentioned J. Cole. His whole shtick is simplified messages and a rather laid back presentation. He reminds me a lot of old Grandmaster Flash stuff. He doesn't seem likely to branch out towards the eccentric because it wouldn't click with what he raps about or how he raps about it, though I will admit, I'm far less sure about him than I am about Kendrick.
Who's kimye worst? Is that the little kid running for prez in 2020? Not really ringing a bell.
I didn't realize kimye was a member of TKP!
I'm interested in listening to this, but there's no way I'm joining Tidal and I've got no interest in torrenting it. I'm not too optimistic about it though. I should preface though that as annoying as his public persona is, his first three albums are incredible as is MBDTF and I think that at one time at least he was one of the top producers around.
No More Fake Parties in LA was good, but it had Kendrick, so that's kind of cheating. Kanye's flow was at least kind of back though. Not up to his early days standards, but not as god-awful embarrassing as it was on Yeezus.
The SNL performances were just plain bad though (Chance's verse aside). I couldn't stop cringing. Lyrics were non-sensical (and I LOVE weird, cryptic metaphors), the bombast laughable, he was straining so hard for an emotional payoff, I couldn't tell if it was more desperate or delusional.
On Yeezus you could tell he had stopped practicing his craft, his flow was clunky and awkward and his lyrics lazy. If a high schooler released that as a mixtape I'd tell him to keep going but maybe hope it's not to late to register for college. The production was great in spurts, but as it's slowly come out, he's not doing his own production anymore. He's got "proteges" and associates and such. Judging from those 3 songs, it seems he's got further to slide, but I'll give it a listen at some point.
I'm waiting for the album to be released on Spotify (kanye pls)
The tracks that I have heard so far have been dope though:
No more parties in LA - Kendrick Lamar, by far, is my favorite artist and he absolutely killed it. Kanye channeled his inner Late Registration/Graduation flow and I love it.
Real friends - love the production on this one. This track would've fit perfectly on MBDTF.
Not sure of the name of the track but it features Young Thug. ...I'm not a fan of YT in the slightest, but the track is still enjoyable
I hope he knocks it out the park with this album
Meanwhile....
New Kendrick just dropped, fam
You, sir, have made my fucking week.
What
!!!!!!oooohhh shhiiiittttt!!!!
RIP my data plan.
Wish I would've known before I left for work.
Early 2016 on fire god damn
So I know SNL is not the best place to 'preview' and 'review' music, but Kanye's music that he performed on SNL (I think it was Highlights and Famous?) was absolutely awful. I've never heard such garbage from someone referring to themselves as an 'artist.' I understand that people appreciate the uniqueness, and that this is my own opinion of what I heard, but good lawd: it was bad.
I'll stick to my Lumineers, Railroad Earth, and Greensky Bluegrass - Kanye can keep lovin Kanye cuz I ain't lovin Kanye.
Yes, that was a train wreck, but we can always pretend that "live" is the same as "good", I suppose.
I think this was one of those "I can do anything on live TV, and people will pretend it's cool and they like it because of the artists involved" moments.
Good point. They had other "Kayne's album is dope" plugs through the show too.
Unless you're Kendrick at the Grammys where it was actually cool. Or Gaga at the Oscars.
Kendrick's Grammy performance deserves a Grammy for Best Rap Performance.
Or maybe not.
Finally listened to the album start to finish, and was very disappointed. My hot takes:
Kanye used to be an actual lyricist - not the case anymore. This album felt rushed/lazy/incomplete. The album lacks a central message/concept. Now he's just a poor mans Ja Rule, just putting out whiny, auto-tuned tracks that are half-sung/half-rapped instead of taking the time and effort to write a verse with witty wordplay.
I don't hate the lyrics but I also don't think they're great. We've been spoiled lately with guys like Kendrick and even Vince Staples (lyrically I think Vince is better than Kendrick /ducks).
Too bad you ducked cause I think that chair I just threw in your direction would have knocked some sense into you. (if there was a /s equivalent to "tongue in cheek" it'd go here)
I've been comparing TLOP to Dre's Compton, another recent album that is highlighted by it's production first and foremost, and I don't think TLOP is nearly as complete or anywhere as good. I still think it's severely lacking lyrical content.
I remember years ago, before Eminem's Relapse was released, a rough version of 'Crack a Bottle' leaked. The beat was the same, but Eminem was doing part of Dre's verse, 50 cent was humming the chorus. It was clearly an incomplete demo, maybe used for artists, maybe producers, record execs, I don't know... The point being - this how TLOP feels to me: incomplete and unfinished.
Maybe as it continues to grow it will improve, but old Kanye would have never released an incomplete album. Nor would Dre, Eminem, Outkast, Jay-Z, Nas, Kendrick*, or any other artist who I really respect.
*NOTE: I realized Kendrick just dropped an unmastered 8 track EP - but it was leftover tracks that didn't make an album cut, and he announced it as such upon its release.
"Now he's just a poor mans Ja Rule"
As most of us new, TLOP would be way different than any album due to it's streaming nature. Very much a living breathing "thing." So no surprise here.
Part of me likes the idea of this. Part of me also thinks that it's just Kanye listening to his fans but still finding a way to make it about him/his art.
I refuse to sign up for tidal... guess I won't be listening to this one.