Kanye West Primer for my Pops

Paranoid feat. Mr. Hudson - Kanye West

Here's the track list of a Kanye West primer I made my dad. I left out a lot of the hit singles because they're (a) overplayed and (b) not 'ye's best stuff, just his most head-bangable. I also stuck strictly to songs from his albums; I left out remixes or guest tracks he's appeared on.

Tell me what you think.

So:

Good Morning (intro)
Hey Mama
It All Falls Down
Street Lights
Homecoming (ft. Chris Martin)
Love Lockdown
Spaceship
Heard 'em Say
Drive Slow
Coldest Winter
We Major
Heartless
Paranoid (ft. Mr. Hudson)
Roses
Everything I Am
Robocop
Family Business

Kanye West: 808s and Heartbreaks

Ok, everybody. Go time. What are we to make of 808s and Heartbreaks? What are we to do with Kanye now?

Let's take stock.

What we have here is an album with a fundamental problem (Auto-Tune), a driving message (heartbreak + urban isolation), and a dubious purpose (fame? wealth? change the game?). Let's see if we can understand these characteristics of the album, and, eventually, render a judgment.

We have to begin with Auto-Tune. We have to. It's a dealbreaker for many music fans. Classic rock fans despise it. Old school hip-hop fans--Roots crew followers--have a similar aversion. But what is it exactly? Jhuff explains it as a studio gadget

Usually used to correct minor mistakes done by pop princess starlets in the studio...

Instead of fixing little flubs, rappers set the correction time in the autotune to 0 (minimum) and boost the frequencies in order to get that effect present in Cher's "Believe."

What is most offsetting about rappers' use of Auto-Tune is that it feels unhuman. It feels over-the-top electronic, and part of the appeal of hip-hop is its genuineness. To some, therefore, Auto-Tune feels like a betrayal of one of hip-hop's basic principles: In the same way that we expect lyricists to write their own lyrics, so do we expect to hear rappers' actual voices, without the help of electronica. Auto-Tune, meet lip-syncing.

But let's face it. The world has gotten over electronica's influence in hip-hop. The fact that we know who T-Pain is is evidence enough, but you have only to look at Kanye's hit Stronger to see that electronica is at home in hip-hop.

So, sorry everyone. It's time to embrace Auto-Tune.

But what about Kanye's use of Auto-Tune on this album? I think it's over the top. I think it's abusive, much in the way that architects and artists sometimes abuse a new medium when it's first discovered.

Still, we have to be realistic about how Kanye uses it. He makes beautiful harmonies (Street Lights), catchy riffs (Coldest Winter), and passionate exclamations (See You In My Nightmares). And those aren't even the best songs on the album! Honestly, who can say that Love Lockdown wasn't in their head at some point recently? You're lying. You're lying, and you liked it.

See, once you get over the Auto-Tune, everything else falls into place.

This is Kanye's best album as far as lyrics goes, and it's no suprise--considering he doesn't rap on it. Critics have always called Kanye's style more like spoken word than rapping, they've always said his rhymes were lacking. That's fine.

From the very first song, you know that Kanye is bringing it here. You hear, "When I grab your neck/ I touch your soul" on Say You Will, and you lean forward. He's got your attention. You hear "I know my destination/ but I'm just not there" on Streetlights, and you nod your head in understanding. You hear "I did some things/ but that's the old me" on Heartless, and you begin to appreciate what Kanye's getting after.

The lyrics are truly touching, and that's just weird to say about a rap album. Love Lockdown, for example, contains notions of love and relationships that EVERY SINGLE HUMAN in the world can relate to. "I'm not loving you/ the way I wanted to" is a stunning line whose power only increases with its repetition. It is worthy of any poetry anthology. Seriously.

And it's not only about love. It's about fame and Kanye's struggle to maintain himself within a blinding milieu of fandom, media, and all the responsibility fame holds: "It's amazing/ I'm the reason/ everybody fired up this evening/ I'm exhausted/ barely breathing/ holding on to what I believe in."

So once again, Kanye takes us into his personal thoughts. That's why I'm on a first name basis with the man. That's why you can be, too. He lets us in. He exposes himself with ballsy vulnerability. I don't know if it has to do with his mother's death or the break up with his long time beau, but Kanye pours out his emotions on this album. I don't care how much of a gangster or a baller you think you are, you react to that kind of outpouring. It's human, just like heartbreak is.

(What is most amazing is that Kanye tells us what it is on this album, and this time, he does so without chauvinism, cussing, or homophobia. You could play this entire album for your little cousins. They might ask questions, but at least they won't be going around repeating lines about smacking bi*ches and doing drugs.)

Good art comes down to two things: (1) A specific use of medium, technique, and style; and (2) the conveyance of a universal human sentiment. Kanye has both of these things on the album. So yes, this is legitimately good art.

But the biggest issue this album poses is simply, What the hell? What is going on? Why push it?

Theories:

1. Money. Kanye saw that Auto-Tune and the honest, anti-gangster shtick of Lupe Fiasco and Indie groups is what's hot right now, so he decided to capitalize on combining the two styles, much in the way he combined a number of styles on Graduation, or the way he brought old-school soul into hip-hop earlier in his career.
   
2. The self-driven desire to change the game. We have heard for years about Kanye's wish to be famous, to conquer the game, to dominate the world. What better way to do so than practically invent a new genre of music (he calls it "Heartbreak") and try to change pop culture forever?
   
3. Art. If you check out Kanye's blog, you'll notice that most of the posts are references to contemporary art and style. Kanye is obviously passionate about art in general, and he considers himself a part of it. By making this album, he is pushing the artform of hip-hop, okay, but he's also pushing the entire cultural notion of pop art. Please see Lichtenstein, Roy, and Warhol, Andy.
   
4. Bam. He's trying to change pop music. Not for money or fame or art, but to push the world forward.
   

I don't LOOOOOVE this album. It's not the best album I've ever heard. But the Mona Lisa isn't my favorite painting, either, and I certainly won't sit here and deny the impact it's had on art.

I don't know if this album is as big of a deal as myself and others are making it. Maybe it will go down in history as a big album, but no bigger than Illmatic or Blueprint or Ready to Die.

I do know, though, that if enough people get to hear this album, really hear it--I mean, listen to it enough to get over the Auto-Tune and dig the lyrics and have the melodies infect their daily routines--then we may very well see a gradual shift in pop culture towards the autobiographical, emotional, and personal.

November, 2008. The month that saw Obama win the presidency, the global financial system collapse, and Kanye West release an album that changed the way we listen to pop music forever.

OBIZZLE!!!!

Last one, I promise. Kanye's "Celebration."

(For now.)




UPDATE 6:44 PM: I just realized how inappropriate this song is, considering it's about celebrating a childbirth and we're talking about politics. Politics? Not, not a childbirth. Man, we're talking about politics. Politics.

Whatever. It's still a good song, and makes you feel nice inside.

Unless you hate babies.

Friday Video Premier

Every Friday, we're highlighting a specific video (or two, or three) for your end of week enjoyment.

Happy Friday everybody! Sun's out, semester's winding down, Cubbies are winning, and even though the Democratic party is exploding, Cambodia's botching their genocide trials, and the evil Spurs might go through, we just can't help but enjoy the day.

Check out the video below for the JJ Collective's first "Friday Video." It's "Us Placers," by Kanye, Lupe and Pharrell's group Child Rebel Soldiers. They're on the Glow in the Dark tour right now.



There's a couple things I like about the video, even besides the song. If you listen to the lyrics (especially the verses by Lupe and Kanye) you see that the song is mostly about the often pained life of a star.

Lupe's verse lists a star's accoutrement, but ends it with the loaded phrase, "All the money in the world don't make it painless." Kanye says, "I try to keep that balance/ After MTV that’s a Real World Challenge."

The video (which is not official, by the way, it was done by some YouTube director "Vashtie") is poignant because of the use of kids' innocence. The child actors who play CRS are not completely comfortable in front of the camera--you can see "Kanye" often looking away, like Snoop did in his earlier videos--and so they seem to be eschewing the spotlight, which fits the lyrics perfectly.

Plus, the kids in the video are not stars, they're (presumably) not yet corrupted by fame, and so the video is also a kind of wistful realization of CRS' dreams.

What do you think?

I like the song, too, although its sparseness was at first offsetting. There's nothing besides the piano, Thom's wailing, and that hazy electronic percussion that you can find all over Thom's solo album "The Eraser"--but in the end, I was won over by the piano taken straight from the first song on Eraser, "The Eraser," which is below.



I mean, you can see how much CRS leaned on that song.

By the way, The Eraser has some ridiculous album art. (Thank you, Stanley Donwood.)






Photos from amazon.com.

Lupe's New Vid, etc.

First off, I hope all you readers got a chance to see Lupe's new "Paris, Tokyo" video, which he released yesterday. Here's a link.

As I was watching it for the first time, I kept asking myself when it was going to cut to some bedroom scene with all those cute girl-thangs he was meeting in Egypt, Paris, etc.

And I waited, and I waited...and was amazed that though he's enticed by all the local honey he remains faithfully in touch with his main girl back home (sending her postcards and more postcards) and only gives those other girls a friendly hello--or allo.

Eventually there's that super sweet scene with Lupe returning home, and I'm like, "What a guy."

Nah Right also posted a link to this interview Lupe did with the Guardian.

It's a good piece with lots of focus on Lupe's nerdiness, which seems totally blown up to me. I mean I've heard people describe Pharrell, or Kanye, or now Lupe as nerds. This is totally ridiculous. Maybe it's just me, but don't people stop calling each other "cool" or "nerdy" after, I don't know, 8th grade?

The fact is, no one who makes as much money with as much fame or as much creative talent as those guys can ever be called nerdy. Reading comic books makes you nerdy? Caring about shoes makes you nerdy? Hardly.

When I was in high school and there were kids winning all this money for their national science competitions, I was never like, "That kid's a big nerd." I was like, "Man, I wish I got $500 for setting things on fire."

_____________

In other music news, Building JJ co-founder and Music Chair Jhuff alerted me to Pitchfork media's new video site the other day, and it's distracted me from school work ever since.

One warning: their videos are by default on the highest volume level, so if you're wearing headphones (like I was), make sure and turn that volume down lest your brain gets scattered all over the room.

Jhuff said he loved these videos quality--especially the one of Radiohead playing "Bangers and Mash," which is my favorite from CD2 and had me wowing over Thom's drumming--but I'm loving how many different kinds of music are represented.

There's also a video of an interview with Vampire Weekend (another current Jhuff favorite); J Dilla's "Nothing Like This" which is in Jhuff's Elecroslow II; and some Madvillain.

So enjoy some sweet video watching, readers. Speaking of Madvillain, here's my favorite (and real short) song from their album "Madvillainy":

Kanye Review, My Take, That's Take Two

(Ben D. Schuman-Stoler)

First of all, I’m not sure I agree with most reviewers’ first statement when they take on Kanye’s Graduation. They say that Graduation has salvaged 2007 from an otherwise miserable hip-hop year. I have three words: None Shall Pass.

Ok, to business.

Graduation is good. Really good. Rarely do I hear an album whose first play makes it stick. Every song has something catchy. “Even Drunk And Hot Girls,” the most meaningless, repetitive, and annoying song on the album, has something in it that has me repeating the chorus under my breathe—at least until I catch myself.

None of the other songs, however, produce such embarrassment. The musicality of the album is universally appealing: danceable (“Stronger”), meditative (“Everything I Am”), galvanizing (“Homecoming”), and sometimes all of that in a single song (“Good Life”). The album is so dynamic it fits almost any mood, almost any get-together.

The lyrics and message of the album are more complicated and varied. Take the final song of the album, “Big Brother.” We see Kanye try and sneak one past us with some rhythmically pleasing lines that match the beat and impress the masses with vague unspecified lyrics that don’t make any sense—like his big punchline “people never get the flowers, while they can still smell em”…what the hell does that mean?. But he also tantalizingly gives us a rare view into the machinations of his relationship with Jay-Z (“but to be number one, I’ma beat my brother”).

There has been much talk as to the cockiness and egocentricity of Kanye on the album. But that every song on the album has some kind of over inflated, self-aggrandizing proclamation doesn’t add up to compromised morals, as some critics would claim. Instead, it’s part of something bigger: Kanye isn’t only talking about how great he is (which is, along with competition, a fundamental characteristic of hip-hop lyrics), he is talking about the fulfillment of dreams.

It just so happens that his dream is to dominate the hip-hop world and live a lush pampered life.

Take the song “Champion.” The hook (“Did you realize that you’re a champion in they’re eyes”) and the title are completely self-promoting, and the song is filled with the kind of upper class snobbery that fills the rest of the album (“I shop so much I can speak Italian”). But these statements are built on other ones, not more modest, but more constructive. So Kanye mentions his father’s aversion to buying him the clothes he wanted. What Kanye is really saying is, "I worked my butt off to get what I wanted."

I have no problem with that; it was Thoreau, after all, who said, "I will not through humility become the devil's attorney."

Critics have also talked about Kanye’s rhyme style and debated about his place in the lyrical hierarchy. I don’t think there’s much argument here. He is a smart rapper and a good performer (he definitely falls under KRS’s definition as a true MC) but he has average flow (see “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” it’s gross, most of its rhymes have conspicuous clunky pauses in them just to make them fit…he sounds like Young Joc) and too often the points he makes are diluted by the same dumb-it-down-for-the-people attitude mainstream hip-hop has had since the beginning of time.

So, whether or not this album is one of the greatest of all time is not for me to decide—we’ll leave that for future critics. What I do know is that there are 12 good songs on this album in which Kanye’s brilliant production and witty creativity combine to overshadow and supercede any and all of his weaknesses.