I have been emailing people an mp3 of Ultralight Beam in various states of drunkeness over the last couple weeks, because goddamn do that song take out my knees, a paean to the helpless of the modern time, frayed with weakness and desperation, the best of Kanye always comes when he's at his weakest (even if all the best moments on this track come from Chance). Those gospel blasts, that unexpected raw structure!
This is a loose album.
Kanye's made his point with Dark Twisted, blew off steam with Yeezus, and now what? A reach to empty skies. A thrashing.
And gospel, the euphoria, the askance, the redemption, it come through in flashes.
And through those first 12 tracks it works, a sum greater than its parts, all these facets of stretching, of trying, of wanting, every chord stretched to near-breaking, flames licking on every side, even as bullshit lines about bleached assholes and fucking Taylor there's the springloaded Catholic guilt of confession, hail mary hail mary counterpointing countless sins, splattering and smattering, a joyous Passion of the Christ gone Kingsmen.
Fucking brilliant moment circa I Love Kanye, likely the most cuttingly self-aware song ever done by any artist, and around then I went hot damn! I just want this album to stick the landing!
No song here (Ultralight excepted) stands out, but it works so damn well as flow. Up through track 12 that is.
Then it
just
drags
the hooting of Wolves
the pointless rambling of Silver Surfer Intermission
the interminable sloppiness of 30 Hours
the Madlib-gone-too far loopiness of No More Parties in LA
Madlib's a good point of reference, this's got the loose, tactless pacing of classic Doom albums.
which I love!
should I give this a pass then?
Nah, problem is you can't have it both ways.
If Kanye'd commited to making a loose-ass stoner record that'd be cool. But he wanted it to be a big bad good real record, and then he let the tail flop out at the end. It leaves you hanging.
MBDTF worked because it was so fucking TIGHT. This is half that then a ripcord into a ramble.
It's frustrating, 2 halves of 2 great albums that don't belong together.
Still think its pretty great. Still think Kanye's an asshole, still think he's just-pretty-good as a rapper, but man has some kind of magic as a recordmaker.
Latest news is that he's gonna release "3 albums a year".
I hope not. I hope he'll focus, coalesce - if he'd hacked this album together with another disc's worth of material he could've had 2 classics. Instead its a lurching undead beast, you're impressed and all, but ain't nothing like the real thing 4/5
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment