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

Popular posts from this blog

Made a Blog, I Made a Blog, Look at Me, I Made a Blog

I spend what can only be described as an obscene amount of time listening to music.  So, to convince myself that all that time hasn't been a complete waste, I've made a blog to share some musical knowledge I've gained over the years.  Thank you for being interested/bored enough to bother reading this, and hopefully, you'll learn a bit and discover some good new music. First, a bit about the blog name so you don't think it's complete retarded.  It's just an amalgamation of two song names, "Champagne Supernova" by Oasis and "Bitter Sweet Symphony" by The Verve (both absolutely classic britpop tracks, BTW).  It doesn't really mean anything, but it rolls off the tongue well.  Also, more importantly, it conjures up the lovely image of a melodious, alcoholic explosion of musical joy, and I sorta like that. Now a bit about my general music philosophy, illustrated by one of my favorite musical quote, courtesy of Lil Wayne, off of the song...

Top 10 Albums of the 2000's

Since everyone likes lists, here's another list.  My 10 favorite albums of the aughts.  By far my favorite decade in music and the one I know the most about; it was rather heart wrenching trying to narrow the list down to 10.  More than enough has already been said in the music press about all these albums, so I'll just give a explanation of why I like each and note my favorite tracks. The National - Boxer : My favorite album of all time.  The general topic of the album, the fear and general discomfort of transitioning and settling into adulthood, really connects with me at the moment.  It feels tense, while Alligator feels drunk and High Violet feels depressed.  This tension gives the songs a direction and a purpose absent on the other albums.  It also doesn't hurt that it has the best songs of the three.  Hell, there's not a single bad track (one of less than a dozen albums that I can say that about).  Also, Bryan Devondorf is sim...

Lists 4 Bitches

Now, for some actual music.  First, my last.fm account if you want a quick snapshot of what I like.  (Yes, I know, the name is stupid, go ahead and laugh, I don't care...)  Also, I made you bitches a list...bitches love lists... Top 10 Songs of 2011 (so far): The Weeknd - Wicked Games :   This song is perfect.  The best track off of the most interesting album to come out this year (It's also free, you should download it and give it a listen if you haven't already: Link ).  The overblown drums and grimy guitars give the song a lot of momentum and a great ambiance, but really, the song is all about Abel Tesfaye.  His voice is hauntingly perfect (or perfectly haunting, either one works) and his songwriting is on point all the way through.  I tried to pick the best part of this song, but I just can't.  It's that good. Tyler, The Creator - Yonkers : Should have won Video of the Year.  At least he won Best New Artist. Kid deserved it. H...