Kanye West - The Life of Pablo (February 14, 2016) Album • Page 2

Notice any differences?

 

We're in class now, but if nothing pops up, we'll give it a listen later today and I'll report back

 

it's accurate in my thoughts about the album

 

That writeup is about as confused as he claims the album is.

 

I think "this wouldn't be the same in a vacuum" arguments are almost always cop outs. Most of my favorite albums of all time are favorites because of the conditions surrounding their release / when I discovered them. If you plop Pinkerton or Take Care or The Upsides on my lap today, they definitely wouldn't hit as hard as they did when I first heard them.

Love Steven and his podcast is usually a weekly listen for me, but that feels like a reach for a reason to dislike something.

 

Yeah, I don't agree with that write-up at all. Everything they mentioned surrounding the release -- the tweets, the memes(?), the MSG show and SNL performances -- those were fun, but strip them away and I still think the album as a whole makes plenty of sense and its parts (songs) fit together just fine. In fact, I'd argue they play an integral role in the album's identity. They're a portrait of their creator in 2016 just like any of his past albums have been, a snapshot of the time period. I'm not even sure I know what "all narrative and virtually no music" is supposed to mean...if they're saying the rollout has eclipsed the album, I could see an argument for that, but I don't think that takes away from the album itself. I can even see being annoyed by the constant publicity surround this album's rollout, but I don't know how you can listen to songs like "Ultralight Beam," "FML" or "Real Friends" and still have trouble "supplying [your own] rationale for its existence."

 

Yeah, disagree with that writeup entirely.

1) There's a really strong juxtaposition between the overarching narrative surrounding the album and the actual music on the album, which can't be removed or put into a vacuum. You can't dismiss an album's existence just because the contextual narrative isn't one you find personally relevant.

2) There are SO MANY "gut punch" musical moments on this album. A few of them have lyrics, a few are wordless vocalizations, and many are production-driven.

3) Evaluating Kanye's newest album as a "term paper" seems fair at first--each of his prior works have had an easily identifiable central concept. But it's actually completely unfair when you consider that an artist's discography (and, you know, music in general) does not have to conform to an overarching narrative.

 

steven hyden, king of boring ass white dude rock music , says there is no substance to this. okay lol.

 

I'd also say that a lot of the "extras" he mentioned (tweets, memes, etc.) come as a direct result of the music and not the other way around, meaning the album is completely capable of being enjoyed and understood outside of those elements.

 

pretty amusing to me that this is the third iteration of this thread on this site

 

Yeah, what happened to the last one? Was searching for it earlier and this was all I could find

 

There's an argument that the TLOP rollout is one of the most successful artistic rollouts of all time, but it REALLY depends on how you define "successful".

1) If the rollout is intended artistically - to affect your judgment of the album - this did it in spades. The medium/message connection hues closer on this project than any other one that I can remember.

2) If the rollout is intended promotionally - to make people aware of the album - than it's a lock. He generated more buzz for this album (billions of organic impressions) than I even thought possible, and extended his marketing cycle months longer than anyone else on Earth could possibly extend it.

3) If the rollout is intended commercially - to get people to check out the album - well, we don't know. And I feel like we never will, because it's too hard to judge how many people actually listened to it in a closed streaming economy.

Knowing Kanye, it's all of them. But I would love to know what he's most interested in.

 

The first one was deleted when more beta testers were invited, for some unknown reason.
Second one was made by schlotty and it got erased when he asked jason to nuke his posts over the weekend.

 

oh, did schlotty leave or something? damn

 

Yeah. You missed quite a bit of action over the weekend. Hah.

 

feels like hyden is severely misguided in applying old standards of kanye's work to this one, it is so self evidently a radical departure from the way he constructed his past albums that it is deeply unfair to criticize it the way he is. just a total misunderstanding of the album.

 

Damn, that's too bad I always have trouble keeping up with the chat thread (not sure if that's where it happened) and this week has been one of the worst I've ever had, so my time on the site just been a little sporadic as of late. I'm sorry to hear that.

 

Do not agree with that write up at all. Think it's a reaction to want to think of it that way given its roll out. How do we not know it was part of the plan the whole time? Kept people interested and talking past the album release. Either way the album is solid. It's different yet it feels like a greatest hits of some of his past releases. First time I heard the outro on Famous with Rhianna's voice fading away, I was hooked. Goosebumps like crazy.

 

Out of curiosity, has Rihanna said anything about the Taylor line?

 

I'm at Staples Center right now and they're bumping Fade during a break

 

The last Cavs game I watched on TV I could hear them playing Real Friends at one point.

 

all guitar bands. thats not even getting into the demographics of this - which are abysmal, btw. you have to try to be this myopic.

kanye west? unfocused and pointless! modern baseball? geniuses, love em!

 

He seems like a really fun guy to hang out and just talk music with!

 

maybe if u almost exclusively wanna talk about white dudes playing guitar