Kanye West Yeezus Review10/11/2021
Haven’t you heard? In a fascinating if mildly irritating New York Times interview West compared himself — in this order — to Steve Jobs, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Nicolas Ghesquière, Anna Wintour, and David Stern. Henry Cavill may wear the tights, but Kanye West is our true Superman. The album is also, at its essence, a very. W ith Yeezus, Kanye West has once again created something singular in the world of platinum-class hip-hop: an album built on alien, angular beats, slowly morphing drones and sirens, abrupt periods of silence, and a pulse-quickening style of delivery from Yeezy himself. Review: Kanye West, Yeezus.Yeezus is the soundtrack to my 2013. More often than not, these people miss the point.Top reviews from other countries. These are the people Kanye West infuriates. This strikingly performative pomposity fits all too well into perceptions of West — notorious usurper of acceptance-speech microphones, Kim Kardashian’s baby daddy, entertainment news regular — as the embodiment of a culture of celebrity decadence. From serious think pieces to Page Six gossip, it’s impossible to read about West without encountering his spectacular ego, whose audacity would make Nietzsche alternately marvel and blush.
![]() ![]() Laced with chilly synths and thumping beats, its song structures fractured by jarring starts and stops and shifting dynamics and moods, yet teeming with melodic and soulful interludes, Yeezus is not the EDM record suggested by early rumors and his collaboration with Daft Punk (just try dancing to one of these songs). That’s why Yeezus provides such a wonderful initial jolt. Hence the slow trickle of information, West’s SNL performances of the album’s two most accessible tracks, the projection of his face spitting out “New Slaves” on city architecture around the world.West made no secret about how dark his new material would be and that Chicago house music inspired its sound, but very few people had actually heard any album cuts before it leaked last Friday. “Blood on the Leaves,” on the other hand, is basically a break-up song, which makes the inclusion of Simone’s tale of lynching perplexing, if not offensive.So Yeezus isn’t Kanye West’s protest album after all. The song lands its true stinging blow, however, when it targets America’s shameful War on Drugs:Meanwhile the DEA, teamed up with the CCAThey tryn’a lock niggas up, they tryn’a make new slavesSee that’s that privately owned prison, get your piece todayThey prolly all in the Hamptons, bragging ’bout what they madeAt first glance, “Black Skinhead” and “Blood on the Leaves” appear to contain political messages, the former due to its provocative title, the latter for its sampling of Nina Simone’s seminal “Strange Fruit.” Although the first verse of “Black Skinhead” contains the album’s boldest lyric (“They see a black man with a white woman/ At the top floor they gone come to kill King Kong”), ultimately the song becomes another declaration of Kanye West’s overall awesomeness (see “Stronger,” “POWER”). The notable exception of course being “New Slaves,” where West draws a (problematic) line between abhorrent Jim Crow racism and the marketing of luxury goods to young, poor African-Americans. Greatest love songs of the 80s”Hold My Liquor,” another break-up song, sounds as if it exists in the three minutes that conclude “Runaway.” Chief Keef and Justin Vernon own the track, trading mournful, Auto-Tuned vocals. A sample performed by reggae artist Capleton, and another Vernon vocal, provide a foothold into the album’s most outré track “I Am a God.”“Hold My Liquor” and “Bound 2” are the glory of Yeezus, painfully great tracks on an album that doesn’t contain a single bum note. The growling, escalating fury of “New Slaves” gives way to a wondrous Frank Ocean coda (side note: more Frank next time, Yeezy). But its aggression is a delivery system for catharsis, a trick West repeats on Daft Punk-produced album opener “On Sight” and the blaring air-horn dancehalltrack “Send It Up.” West balances Yeezus’ severity over and over again with strategically placed embellishments, namely those aforementioned samples and collaborator-provided hooks (funny how the word “starfucker” sounds beautiful when sung, with piercing regret, by Justin Vernon). “Black Skinhead,” for good reason the album’s presumptive lead “single,” pummels with Mansonian intensity. And for all its insularity, with repeated listens Yeezus opens its maw and sinks its fangs in deep. Amharic books pdf free downloadAnd then he sticks you squarely across the face. With one sweep of the hand, West brushes away expectations. Kanye West doesn’t give the listener a second to realize the album is more a masterly response to a masterpiece than a masterpiece itself. If “Hold My Liquor” recalls Twisted Fantasy, then “Bound 2” is West’s reminder that nine years later, he is in fact the man who once recorded The College Dropout.Yeezus is a sprint forward, with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy‘s lush grandiosity far in the rearview. “Bound 2” is the gulp of air at the end of an often stifling album: a moment of unadulterated joy after so much rage.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorErin ArchivesCategories |