Skip to main content

Review: Kanye West - Yeezus

Rating: 6.6

Up until now, Kanye's always made music like The Beatles: high quality, palatable, and not particularly emotionally resonant. Yeezus is a completely different beast. It's somewhere between the Sex Pistols and early Nine Inch Nails. It's got brutal, simple electronic sounds and a punk mentality.  Kanye's apparently moved past Common and thrown his lot in with Chief Keef. I don't think he could've done anything more misguided. Look at it this way:

Kanye's Strengths:
Writing and finding great melodies
Layering sound

Kanye's Weaknesses:
Drum programming
Rapping (all of it - lyrics, flow & rhyming)

Yet, for some reason, he's roped in Rick Rubin to remove everything that plays to his strengths and focus entirely on his weaknesses. It's like asking a drum 'n bass producer to cut out the low end and make a Brian Eno album. There's no way you're gonna get good results. Now, I will admit that, if you are looking for anger in sonic form, Yeezus does a pretty good job. Unfortunately, if you're looking for quality music, you're gonna have better luck just about anywhere else.

Amazingly, critics and fans are still in love. If nothing else, this cements Kanye's position as the most respected artist in music today. No one else could've received such accolades for something so mediocre. Even Radiohead couldn't get the benefit of the doubt to this degree when they released the similarly mediocre King of Limbs a few years ago. Who knows, maybe this'll be the Never Mind the Bullocks of rap: a mediocre album that that, nevertheless, changes the genre and garners lasting respect. Probably not though.

 Key Tracks: The Chorus of Bound 2

Track-by-Track Rating:
  1. On Sight - 7.0
  2. Black Skinhead - 7.5
  3. I Am a God - 7.0
  4. New Slaves - 7.5
  5. Hold My Liquor - 6.0
  6. I'm in It - 5.5
  7. Blood on the Leaves - 6.0
  8. Guilt Trip - 5.0
  9. Send It Up - 5.0
  10. Bound 2 - 7.5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Greatest Song of All Time

The music business has its fair share of complexities, as you would expect from any business with such a long history, and that is, at its core, built upon international law (i.e. copyright). That complexity is almost always hidden from the listening public. However, one piece that is curiously exposed every year when the Grammys come around is the separation between what is a "record" and what is a "song". The second and third most prestigious awards at the Grammys are, respectively, "Song of the Year," and "Record of the Year." What's the difference? Most people, including most musicians, wouldn't be able to tell you. I couldn't either until I took a music industry course in college where someone finally explained it to me: A "song" is melody and lyrics. The best way I have to think if it is, if hear someone play a faithful-to-the-original, acoustic cover, the "song" is what would be the same between the orig...
Post a Comment
Read more

Best of The X-Factor UK

This coming Wednesday, Simon Cowell's replacement for American Idol, The X Factor, will debut here in the states. So, here's my favorite moments from the UK X-Factor, in the hopes that the US version will have moments just as good. Cher Lloyd - Turn My Swag On : A cheeky British teenager (16 at the time) covers the Keri Hilson cover of a Soulja Boy song.  On paper, it should've been a complete joke, but, somehow, Cher made it work.  She totally had the attitude, the look, and the voice to pull it off, and it didn't hurt that the song was actually awesome. Hands down the best and the most unique audition I've ever seen on any of these reality singing shows.   Jamie Archer - Sex on Fire : The song was a huge hit in the UK and an even bigger hit in Australia.  How it never became a hit in the US is beyond me.  Anyways, Jamie Archer has a perfect voice for the song and he just fucking sells it.  I can't help but smile watching this, and, judging by the vide...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fallout

This is an old song that I finally finagled into sounding good. The track uses Neon Indian's Fallout and was inspired by Frank Ocean's Strawberry Swing .  As with that song, I stripped the song of its original vocals and used the title as a starting point to craft a story of my own.  Hope you like it. http://www.mediafire.com/?bqv9d7821m7nn7m (I tried posting to SoundCloud, but the fact that I pretty much used a copyrighted track in its entirety did not make them very happy.) Lyrics: [Verse 1] Falling, falling out of control Away we will go To make love, oh how sweet Warm night, city breeze Not so sweet nothings and furtive stares Not the answer to my prayers, but Stagger, stumble through the door Bet tomorrow that’ll make you sore [Chorus] And we’re falling in and falling out of control And we’re falling in and falling out of control [Verse 2] Turn on the night light, not too bright Just enough to set things right, it Won’t go over w...
Post a Comment
Read more