A post about Kanye West.

Look, I know I'm a white kid. I know I'm a white kid who has spent little to no time listening to hip-hop (the one hip-hop album I can really get into is The Score by The Fugees). But all of the buzz about Kanye's new album made me too curious; people left and right, critics and amateur listeners alike, proclaiming that he is now the prophet of modern music, or something. So I got a copy of it from my brother, uploaded it to iTunes, and listened.

Verdict: It's good. But I don't. get. the universal praise.

The production of "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is oft-immense and always ambitious, because of course, Kanye's first love was producing. A lot can be said about the varied styles from song to song: no two songs are alike (unless you count Lost in the World/Who Will Survive in America). The subject matter is pretty much unique to this album, half candid autobiography, half satire of the modern rap industry, but multiple verses border on typical hip-hop fare. There are some good beats (POWER, Devil in a New Dress, and Runaway will be in my head for a long time to come) that are unfortunately offset by some less memorable ones (Lost in the World, Gorgeous).

But.

Some of the lyrics were seriously lacking. In particular, "Look like a fat booty Celine Dion/ sex is on fire, I’m the King of Leon-a Lewis" (Dark Fantasy) and "The way you look should be a sin, you my sen(sin)sation" (Devil in a New Dress) and "Baby, I'm magic, ta-da" (So Appalled). Now, to be fair, these are only three lyrics out of a ton, but I don't want to make this post entirely about lyrics I don't like. There are definitely some memorable verses. Nikki Minaj's in Monster and Pusha T's in So Appalled were my two favorites. Kanye's never really wowed me. I found that he was never really consistent throughout a verse.

Something also has to be said about the drawn out song lengths. Some of these songs could have been trimmed down by a couple of minutes without any damage to the end result. Particularly the end of Blame Game: a two and a half minute monologue by Chris Rock in which he obsesses over a woman's vagina would be the lowest point of any album. It just didn't stop. The incessant auto-tuned moaning at the end of Runaway is also dragged out to a miserable length, as is a gratuitous gap between Kanye's verse and Rick Ross's verse in Devil in a New Dress. When the music underneath is virtually unchanged, it just leaves you checking your watch. It dwells. It dwells a lot. And this is coming from a guy who enjoys meandering 15-minute post-rock songs.

That's about all I have to say. There is more to like than there is to hate, but all things considered, I'd give it a 7 to 7.5. Not a 10. It's far from a 10. But maybe I'm biased or undereducated on the hip-hop business. Like I said, I'm just a white kid.

Thoughts?
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Also, it took me about 10 minutes to format the "FREE DOWNLOAD!" from the last post. It was almost as fun as decorating for Christmas. Almost as fun.

SONG OF THE POST: So Appalled by Kanye West, Jay Z, Pusha T, CyHi da Prince, Swizz Beatz, and the RZA.

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