Kanye West- Yeezus Review

 

Kanye's new album, Yeezus, is here, no doubt hoping to piss people off.  And although the lyrics are as crude as ever, (one line about fisting a woman actually succeeded in widening my eyes) it's just as likely to offend die hard hip hop fans with it's abandonment of the genre's tropes.   The music he's made with his sixth go around is certainly not pop, but it's not exactly an underground album catering to the backpackers.  He's combined mainstream hip hop's mumbled hooks and tales of lavish luxury with the pretentious musical jackoffery of the underground's most undanceable electronic artists. And honestly, it's a match made in heaven. 

The lyrics on Yeezus are not only trashy, they are pure trash.  I've never been impressed by Kanye's raps.  His jokes are juvenile and his insights are shallow, but that's part of the fun.  I love hearing how pleased he is with himself after a horrible pun or a "shocking" commentary on society.  After years of following him, I don't put much importance on what Kanye has to say. What is important to me is that he means it, and I believe he does.  When it comes to technical delivery (outside of parameters like passion, where he's always excelled) he does an adequate job here.  He relies on a lot of his old tricks, a familiar repertoire of intonations which he has been fitting to their emotional counterparts since College Dropout.  The one surprising new wrinkle he's added to his game are some genuinely disturbing gasps and screams, which fit in well with the overall mood of the album.  His vocal rhythms are fine and although not nearly as groundbreaking and avantgarde as the music, it sort of works to his advantage.  The rhythm of his raps are the remnants of the old Kanye, last heard on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  It's as if the real Mr. West could always be found in his words and his music has just now caught up with the ugliness that he spits.  The lyrics are trashy, but it's a perfect match for the sleaze that oozes out of these beats.  The bars he spits act like an anchor for his wild synthesizers and lo-fi drums to improvise over.  One could even argue that his rhymes have now traded places with the typical role that drums take on in hip hop.  His words are as monotonous and droning as a typical 4/4, kick/hat/snare beat, they fade into the background as your ears gravitate towards the dynamic sounds he dashes onto their foundation. 

The true allure of this album is the beats. These abrasive compositions make up for the lack of solid verses, they are more controversial and shocking then anything Kanye has ever said.  The music is always powerful, unpredictable, and boundary pushing.   They consist of samples drenched in distortion and reverb, synthesizers that are loud and tortured, the death rattle of a crashing computer, and drums that are always stark, minimal, and distinct.  This album has few slick transitions, in place of bridges there are violent interruptions.  The bulk of the songs are carried by dark keyboard riffs with the occasional interlude of a more traditional hip hop sample.  These samples are always sinisterly manipulated and sound as if they're battling against the restraints of their new electro captors, gripping to the Earth as they're dragged to Hell.  There's not a dull moment on this album.  Just when a particular movement seems to have run its course, something new and terrifying destroys its memory and rules in its absence.   

Few other artists captivate me the way Kanye West does.  He's constantly on the cutting edge, some might even say he's guilty of following trends.  In my eyes he doesn't so much follow them as he does respond to them. The vast majority of hip hop tends to bore me and even albums I regard as classics rarely contain enough variation to keep me engaged until the end.  I've already listened to Yeezus back to front twice, and that's something I wouldn't do for just about any other hip hop artist.  I'm not sure if this album will stand the test of time.  Beyond the context of the current scene in hip hop and the contrast with his prior works, this album may just become a strange diversion in Kanye's discography.  Only time will tell, but for now, I applaud the man for all his bravado, eccentricities, and bold experimentations.  Yeezus doesn't sound like it was made by a rockstar seeking out a paycheck.  These are the sounds of an artist seeking out a place in history.  Kanye probably won't succeed in changing the world with this album, but he damn sure tried. 

I had a Bad Day

When I see a woman who is beautiful, kind, funny, and weird, and perfect... why can't I be happy? 

The fact that she exists is a miracle, but I can't appreciate it. 

Why do I need her to love me? 

Schools

Our schools here in America are shitty.  Here is what I would like to change about them:

- Critical Thinking was a class I took in college.  I'm not sure if this is the way the course is always taught but the one I took was all about how to process information.  It was about being skeptical and finding out if your source is reliable.  The class basically taught you how to learn responsibly.  Why are we not teaching this for 4 hours a day from Kindergarten to the 10th grade?!?!  How do we expect children to learn if we never teach them how?  I'm sure some high schools offer this class but mine certainly didn't and it should be taught at a much younger age as I stated before.  Another function this class could have is as a workout for your bullshit detector.  I think we should specifically offer a critical thinking class dedicated to helping kids figure out psychologically if a person is a con artist.  Wouldn't it be awesome to have a class that teaches your kids not to join a cult, or fall in love with someone who will beat the shit out of them, or join a pyramid scheme?  If I had kids I know I would definitely have them properly trained to be on the lookout for social predators. 

- Responsible Free time:  I believe that starting at around the age of 14 schools should offer kids a chance to work on their own for 2 hours on whatever they want.  You want to be a guitarist?  You can practice guitar for 2 hours.  Schools currently teach kids how to do what their told.  What happens when you're on your own and you have to figure out what you want to tell yourself to do?  This "class", could also help people find what they're passionate about.  I know so many people who have no idea what they want or like, maybe this class could help kids find out.  I think the world would be a much better place if everyone had a healthy and fulfilling hobby (except hobby is too dismissive of a word, but you know what I mean).  Of course this class would still have teachers, but their main job would just be to encourage the students and to make sure that they are working. 

- Completely overhaul the subjects that are taught:  OK, this one is a bit radical but I believe it is necessary and could really help our society.  First of all I believe that very few people are born exceptional and I don't mean that in a negative way.  I just mean that most people are kind of a blank slate when they're born, much more nurture over nature.  Yes there is the occasional Albert Einstein or Jeffrey Dahmer who comes around and would be brilliant or evil no matter what.  But for the most part I think people are highly suggestible, especially at a young age.  Right now we do indoctrinate people with a lot of good values, but there's a lot of bullshit in there too.  What I'm trying to say is I think that if we brainwashed human beings into being nice and thoughtful and caring, it would work.  So fuck science and math and history, we need to spend 90% of school teaching people to be good.  To help their neighbors, to be open minded, to not fight, to be empathetic and never want to hurt another human being because we've truly ingrained it into their skull how important it is to be good.  I don't think all traditional education needs to be thrown out the window, but it should be a secondary concern.  Would you rather have the person standing in front of you in line at Starbucks know Trigonometry or be a P.H.D. in good gosh darn honest niceness? 

- Happiness:  We need a class that actively gets kids thinking about happiness, because happy people do not rape or murder.  Get people thinking about their own happiness at a young age, make it something that they pursue.  Teach them the meaning of real happiness and  how it comes from being accepted and valued by people who you respect and by valuing yourself.  I think this could help a lot with bullying too. 


- Those are the main things I'd change about schools.  This last one isn't an original idea of mine, it's one I've heard from many places and I strongly agree with it, teachers should hold a much higher status in our societies.  They should be paid more, they should all need doctorates, and they should be revered.  You should need more education to teach 5 year olds than you should to teach college.  Honestly, these people are in charge of children, their job is ridiculously important and it should be treated as such.

Government Jobs

This is something I've thought about for a while.  What if there were places in every major city in America where anyone over the age of 18 could work for minimum wage?  You don't need to be hired, you could be homeless, you could be unemployed or you could stop by on one of your days off to make a quick buck.  I've had this on my mind for a long time and it seems like an awesome way to help with the unemployment problem.  I think it would also force private businesses to pay their employees more. 


The only thing is I'm not sure what the job would be.  It would need to be something quantifiable so that you wouldn't have to worry about people coming in and sitting on their ass doing nothing and getting paid for it.  Perhaps it could be something as simple as picking apples, once you have 100 apples in your bucket you get paid.  It would also have to be something simple so that it wouldn't discriminate against the uneducated.  Again, some sort of farming would be a good choice. 

I'm sure this could bring up all sorts of problems, but it's not my job to think about them.  That's your job, tell me why I'm a fucking moron!   Oh, and if you don't feel like insulting me maybe you can ponder what sort of job would be best for this new project.

Why Can't We Choose Where Our Tax Money Goes?

This is something I've thought about for a while.   Wouldn't it be nice if there was a small checklist on your W-2 form where you got to choose where your tax money goes?  I know that it probably wouldn't be smart to give people full control over this, because certain programs would inevitably become more popular, and others would be neglected.  But even if we had control over only 10% of where our tax money goes I think it would definitely boost the countries morale.  Hey, maybe it could even stop a war or two if no one chose to have their money pay for tanks and guns.  I think this would be awesome.  Somebody please tell me why I'm an idiot.  I'll feel especially stupid if this is already an option we have.  I tend to do my taxes as fast as possible, like ripping off a band-aid. 

Intro to the Blog

I've decided to start this blog as a place for me to throw out my naive ideas about how communities can work in a better way.  I often find myself in a conversation with friends where we will discuss ideas for new laws or government projects.  Inevitably we end up believing that none of them could work for some unforeseen reasons far above our heads.  We say things like "I'm sure it wouldn't make sense economically," or "tons of people have probably already thought of this and there's a good reason it hasn't happened."  But the one thing we've never done is search for the reasons why. 

So here I am, tell me why these ideas are impossible.  At the worst this will be a fun critical thinking exercise, and in my most optimistic fantasies I've thought maybe, just maybe we will find out that some of these proposals might actually work.