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The best thing to do when thinking about Kanye West the artist is to forget about Kanye West the personality. He's obviously got some issues and he definitely does not leave them out of his songs, but as an artist he's unmatched right now in hip-hop. As I said when I reviewed the Kid Cudi album I didn't care much for West's last album 808s & Heartbreak but I also underestimated the influence it would have on hip-hop. Now he's taken the basic ideas from 808s and pushed it to new limits. The rawness of the lyrics has been matched now with a complexity of music that is truly groundbreaking.
If you want to see what is happening on the edge of popular music, then I would suggest putting this album on. You will have to look past West's insanely personal songwriting and his obvious anger and focus more on what he's doing here with sampling and with song structure. I think it's worth the listen.
This is the kind of album you throw on just to listen to.
Anger is not necessarily a bad lyrical influence, just think of Darkness on the Edge of Town, but as a songwriter you have to be able to remove your own personal anger from the songs and West fails to do that on this album. It is so explicitly angry it hurts the album all in all and because of that following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.
compelling tune.
ReplyDeleteOK, I come back to this review because of a Gatorade commercial out now. A number of athletes are singing a song I didn't recognize. It's really compelling, so I look it up. Turns out the song is "All of the Lights," by Kanye West. Not only is it probably the greatest drum band for high-school marching bands of all time, this is a brutal, baleful, brilliant lyric that literally brought tears to my eyes this morning:
ReplyDeleteSomething wrong
I hold my head
MJ gone, our ... dead!
I slapped my girl, she called the feds
I did that time and spent that bread
I’m heading home, I’m almost there
I’m on my way heading up the stairs
To my surprise a ... replacing me
I had to take 'em to that ghetto university
All of the lights
Cop lights, flash lights, spot lights
Strobe lights, street lights
All of the lights
All of the lights
Fast life, drug life
Thug life, rock life
Every night
(all of the lights)
Turn up the lights in here, baby
Extra bright, I want y'all to see this
Turn up the lights in here, baby
You know what I need
Want you to see everything
Want you to see all of the lights
Restraining order
Can’t see my daughter
Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order
Public visitation
We met at Borders
Told her she take me back
I’ll be more supportive
I made mistakes
I bump my head
Courts suck me dry
I spent that bread
She need a daddy
Baby please, can’t let her grow up in that ghetto university
All of the lights
Cop lights, flash lights, spot lights
Strobe lights, street lights
All of the lights
All of the lights
Fast life, drug life
Thug life, rock life
Every night
(all of the lights)
That is a piece of work right there, boy, and what he does with the word "lights" there is phenomenal.
Drum break, to drum band.
DeleteNot, not to.
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