waves actually makes a chris brown feature acceptable, he does great on it. lmao this dude also made a cudi feature good once again. fml is weeknd's best output in a minute. post malone on fade rocks etc. etc.
basically he used everybody well except young thug sadly, could have made a classic with that dude and instead puts him on some generic pop track like highlights.
Surprised the few pages I scrolled through on KTT peoples impressions were unsure. They were just eating this shit up a couple days ago on Yeezy 3 lol. Bout to peep tho. Excited for ULB obviously.
OT thread is moving too quickly, so is anybody here able to do a timeline, bullet points, sequence of events surrounding this release of the Kanye West album for me?
cheaper to make the new GOOD Music slave signee do a verse on it.
lmao he even threw Future's metro boomin tag in there too. cudi should just do kanye guest features now. dude is always nice to hear on these projects but his albums are....yeah
Nah, brehs... I don't know. First listen done. Will probably be my least played Ye album.
Ye's rapping is at a point were it's distractingly weak and basic - maybe he should only produce primarily from now on. And production-wise I've heard more innovative stuff on random Soundcloud albums last year, or, e.g., the Earthgang album, but with better rapping. Also no one's Autotune annoys me as much as Ye's, completely destroyed Blood On the Leaves - even if it's deliberate or "dada", still wack. Fortunately not that much on TLOP.
Most songs are too short and not fleshed out enough. Good ideas here and there.
But, as so often with albums, a few more listens could change everything. So, round 2, let's go.
I think that's kind of Ye's MO going forwards. The whole comment he made during his apology tour last year about just wanting to work with different artists, mentioning MBDTF/Yeezus was his glass ceiling, and from the onset characterizing this project as just a body of fun songs/gospel with a whole lot of cussin.
But unlike Dre, I think Ye gets frustrated when good songs don't see the light of day on a project which has led to TLOP, a hodgepodge of sounds across various sessions and years.
Similar to how it's difficult to rate MBDTF highly unless you have the background or investment in of all the events in Ye's life, I think people will rate TLOP higher if they take it as a compilation. Ye put the bar so high for concept and themed albums though, it's gonna be hard for people to shake that off.
That said, I'm pretty certain it's one of his weaker projects, but the vibes are too positive right now and I'm basking in the greatness that is on there.
Nah, brehs... I don't know. First listen done. Will probably be my least played Ye album.
Ye's rapping is at a point were it's distractingly weak and basic - maybe he should only produce primarily from now on. And production-wise I've heard more innovative stuff on random Soundcloud albums last year, or, e.g., the Earthgang album, but with better rapping. Also no one's Autotune annoys me as much as Ye's, completely destroyed Blood On the Leaves - even if it's deliberate or "dada", still wack. Fortunately not that much on TLOP.
Most songs are too short and not fleshed out enough. Good ideas here and there.
But, as so often with albums, a few more listens could change everything. So, round 2, let's go.
A little and this and uh, the album seems to have the spotlight on Kanye's friends instead of Kanye. This album sounds more like a Cruel Summer album where Kanye just happens to be on every track. Pablo is really random and flashy.
Far from me to defend Yeezy but the hangups people have about the bleached asshole or Taylor lines are just hilarious to me. I bet your favourite rapper has said worse things than that, word to Em fans.
Yeah definitely feels a lot like a Cruel Summer album. Real Friends is still the standout track to me. Just top notch beat, subject matter. Everything. It's a heart felt tune. I also agree I'm definietly basking in the postive vibes atm, so banging the album throughout the day but I doubt I'm going to listen to much of this album out of a handful of tracks in a few weeks. I've replaced Wolves with the original version, Sia's part is too sublime. I'm not getting the praise for Waves too?
Far from me to defend Yeezy but the hangups people have about the bleached asshole or Taylor lines are just hilarious to me. I bet your favourite rapper has said worse things than that, word to Em fans.
The highest praise music can get from living beings with capabilities like ours
Feedback
Highlights (Thugga x Ye works perfectly)
Real Friends
Wolves (Might be one of the best Ye songs he ever made, have to give this more time)
No More Parties in L.A. (I can see why many Ye stans don't fuck with this cuz it's actual hiphop on a hiphop beat)
Aight Tier
Cool tracks that are appreciated
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 2
Famous
FML (That beat-switch second half is fantastic)
Fade (weird closing track)
Wasted Potential Tier
Disappointing songs that could have used some extra time in the lab
Ultra Light Beams (This song never really takes off for me and is too loaded with different people)
Freestyle 4 (This needed so much more time.. and real Future)
30 Hours
Recycle Bin Tier
This the kind of songs you wouldn't even wish your enemy had to listen to
Waves (This is what you delay the album for, Chance?)
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 1
Facts
The actual album cover
The actual album rollout
Low Lights (I like the vibe on this)
I Love Kanye (I see you Ye)
Silver Surfer Intermission (Didn't read about the content so I was positively surprised by this, but it kinda takes away of the timelessness of this album because this is something that *just* happened)
Ye's hobo fashion
Overall:
Usually when one of the big ones drops an album I try my very best to find any place to listen to it, but this time this album rollout was so botched and unnecessarily tampered with that it deflated my hype which was caused by his Soundcloud tracks. Seriously: not even TDE pulls this kind of shit with their fans, and they did a terrible job with TPAB and an even worse one with Jay Rock's album.
The thing though: the entire album rollout sums up the actual album perfectly - a huge lack of confidence.
Remember that Kanye was ready to get back into the ring one or two years ago but decided to pull his album back because a) the Paul McCartney experiment didn't really work out for him and b) he kinda got shook by To Pimp A Butterfly which I can't blame him for since it can be said that this album pushes its genre forward in terms of sound and importance. So what I feared was a Kanye who isn't really sure what he has to do in order to drop the kind of album he wants to drop, and unfortunately this is the Kanye we got in the end.
It's like he was looking at the current music/rap market and put everyone who is relevant or has potential to grow on the album to the point where it feels more like a cautious "Kanye & Friends" album than an interesting solo Ye album. You got tracks that sound inspired by TPAB, you got tracks inspired by the dominating trap sound, you got tracks that sound like oldschool-rap Kanye, you got tracks that give you MBDTF vibes, you got tracks that have a more poppy flavour - and none of this does really sound a coherent album with a vision behind it but a mess of hundreds of ideas that either clash or work. I can't imagine even die-hard Yeezy stans being satisfied with this.
There are some funny Ye lines here and there (I laughed out loud at the GoPro and bleached asshole lines), but overall it feels like he had nothing of value to say. Ye was never the biggest lyricist but managed to drop memorable lines here and some more "feels"-filled lines there, but man are these lyrics lazy as hell. The Taylor Swift line was as unnecessary as the Meek lines on Summer Sixteen and rubbed me the same way, he talks way too much about his dick and just comes over as a very insecure man who is scared of who he has chosen to portray in this world. Each Ye album had a point to it or themes it tried to work through but man, this is an album by Kanye the musician about Kanye the symbol.
And it's not only that his lyrics are lacking more substance than they usually do, but that it feels like Kanye is underrepresented on his album because there are way to many other different voices and people. This is an already short album that barely manages to last an hour and then a lot of what you hear is not Kanye but fucking Swizz Beats for example.
The most bizarre thing this album did for me though is retroactively appreciating Yeezus which is way tighter produced and has more coherent sound and subjects.
Overall, I think this album has some nice highs and just too many underdeveloped ideas and too much unnecessary fat. Him tweeting during the late production cycle showed a glimpse of the pressure he put himself under and I feel like it broke him to a certain point. I mean you let fucking Wiz Khalifa call you out in public and then look like the bigger moron later? To the point that not only your ex benefits from the situation but you feel forced to change the album title? What's with the early-access album rollout? Why do you let so many malnurtured dread-wearing skeletons whose vocabulary probably ranges from "YES" to "ok this classic already" influence you? Are you scared to be out of touch?
Kanye is someone who I like being arrogant, but that arrogance always came with a great album that further manifested him as one of the greats. And nothing will probably change about this, but TLOP to me shakes the whole Ye myth up and felt like an album he thought he HAD to drop instead of an album he wanted to drop, an album with an actual message and vision instead of shallow dickswinging. Oh, what could have been brehs.
It's Kanye's greatest hits compilation. If he doesn't drop another album it'll be looked back on very favorably.
It's not cohesive at all but there's a very high density of piff for a 18 track album. Only songs I don't really feel is NMPILA and the new Wolves. He even made Facts good.
The highest praise music can get from living beings with capabilities like ours
Feedback
Highlights (Thugga x Ye works perfectly)
Real Friends
Wolves (Might be one of the best Ye songs he ever made, have to give this more time)
No More Parties in L.A. (I can see why many Ye stans don't fuck with this cuz it's actual hiphop on a hiphop beat)
Aight Tier
Cool tracks that are appreciated
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 2
Famous
FML (That beat-switch second half is fantastic)
Fade (weird closing track)
Wasted Potential Tier
Disappointing songs that could have used some extra time in the lab
Ultra Light Beams (This song never really takes off for me and is too loaded with different people)
Freestyle 4 (This needed so much more time.. and real Future)
30 Hours
Recycle Bin Tier
This the kind of songs you wouldn't even wish your enemy had to listen to
Waves (This is what you delay the album for, Chance?)
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 1
Facts
The actual album cover
The actual album rollout
Low Lights (I like the vibe on this)
I Love Kanye (I see you Ye)
Silver Surfer Intermission (Didn't read about the content so I was positively surprised by this, but it kinda takes away of the timelessness of this album because this is something that *just* happened)
Ye's hobo fashion
Overall:
Usually when one of the big ones drops an album I try my very best to find any place to listen to it, but this time this album rollout was so botched and unnecessarily tampered with that it deflated my hype which was caused by his Soundcloud tracks. Seriously: not even TDE pulls this kind of shit with their fans, and they did a terrible job with TPAB and an even worse one with Jay Rock's album.
The thing though: the entire album rollout sums up the actual album perfectly - a huge lack of confidence.
Remember that Kanye was ready to get back into the ring one or two years ago but decided to pull his album back because a) the Paul McCartney experiment didn't really work out for him and b) he kinda got shook by To Pimp A Butterfly which I can't blame him for since it can be said that this album pushes its genre forward in terms of sound and importance. So what I feared was a Kanye who isn't really sure what he has to do in order to drop the kind of album he wants to drop, and unfortunately this is the Kanye we got in the end.
It's like he was looking at the current music/rap market and put everyone who is relevant or has potential to grow on the album to the point where it feels more like a cautious "Kanye & Friends" album than an interesting solo Ye album. You got tracks that sound inspired by TPAB, you got tracks inspired by the dominating trap sound, you got tracks that sound like oldschool-rap Kanye, you got tracks that give you MBDTF vibes, you got tracks that have a more poppy flavour - and none of this does really sound a coherent album with a vision behind it but a mess of hundreds of ideas that either clash or work. I can't imagine even die-hard Yeezy stans being satisfied with this.
There are some funny Ye lines here and there (I laughed out loud at the GoPro and bleached asshole lines), but overall it feels like he had nothing of value to say. Ye was never the biggest lyricist but managed to drop memorable lines here and some more "feels"-filled lines there, but man are these lyrics lazy as hell. The Taylor Swift line was as unnecessary as the Meek lines on Summer Sixteen and rubbed me the same way, he talks way too much about his dick and just comes over as a very insecure man who is scared of who he has chosen to portray in this world. Each Ye album had a point to it or themes it tried to work through but man, this is an album by Kanye the musician about Kanye the symbol.
And it's not only that his lyrics are lacking more substance than they usually do, but that it feels like Kanye is underrepresented on his album because there are way to many other different voices and people. This is an already short album that barely manages to last an hour and then a lot of what you hear is not Kanye but fucking Swizz Beats for example.
The most bizarre thing this album did for me though is retroactively appreciating Yeezus which is way tighter produced and has more coherent sound and subjects.
Overall, I think this album has some nice highs and just too many underdeveloped ideas and too much unnecessary fat. Him tweeting during the late production cycle showed a glimpse of the pressure he put himself under and I feel like it broke him to a certain point. I mean you let fucking Wiz Khalifa call you out in public and then look like the bigger moron later? To the point that not only your ex benefits from the situation but you feel forced to change the album title? What's with the early-access album rollout? Why do you let so many malnurtured dread-wearing skeletons whose vocabulary probably ranges from "YES" to "ok this classic already" influence you? Are you scared to be out of touch?
Kanye is someone who I like being arrogant, but that arrogance always came with a great album that further manifested him as one of the greats. And nothing will probably change about this, but TLOP to me shakes the whole Ye myth up and felt like an album he thought he HAD to drop instead of an album he wanted to drop, an album with an actual message and vision instead of shallow dickswinging. Oh, what could have been brehs.
Fire Emoji Tier post, Nibbs. Pretty much sums up my thoughts, couldn't have said it better. I've always been a huge Ye stan, but I think it's time to accept that he peaked musically. He should focus on his other passion projects for now. I don't think I will miss his music that much.
The production is god level though. Kanye just couldn't keep up. I'm not even talking about tapping, I'm not even a huge fan of Ye's rapping, I prefer Yeezuz type crazy crooning but it just ain't there on this album. Lots of throwaway lyrics. Pretty much agree with Nibel on the overall feel of the album.
The production is god level though. Kanye just couldn't keep up. I'm not even talking about tapping, I'm not even a huge fan of Ye's rapping, I prefer Yeezuz type crazy crooning but it just ain't there on this album. Lots of throwaway lyrics. Pretty much agree with Nibel on the overall feel of the album.
Now that I also heard the Soundcloud version of 30 Hours without the garbage second "verse" I understand why folks said Ye botched it. At least it's just a Bonus track.
I'm really digging NMPILA now, which is weird since when we got it on soundcloud, I thought it was an alright song. I don't think they changed anything for the album version.
The highest praise music can get from living beings with capabilities like ours
Feedback
Highlights (Thugga x Ye works perfectly)
Real Friends
Wolves (Might be one of the best Ye songs he ever made, have to give this more time)
No More Parties in L.A. (I can see why many Ye stans don't fuck with this cuz it's actual hiphop on a hiphop beat)
Aight Tier
Cool tracks that are appreciated
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 2
Famous
FML (That beat-switch second half is fantastic)
Fade (weird closing track)
Wasted Potential Tier
Disappointing songs that could have used some extra time in the lab
Ultra Light Beams (This song never really takes off for me and is too loaded with different people)
Freestyle 4 (This needed so much more time.. and real Future)
30 Hours
Recycle Bin Tier
This the kind of songs you wouldn't even wish your enemy had to listen to
Waves (This is what you delay the album for, Chance?)
Father Stretch My Asshole Part 1
Facts
The actual album cover
The actual album rollout
Low Lights (I like the vibe on this)
I Love Kanye (I see you Ye)
Silver Surfer Intermission (Didn't read about the content so I was positively surprised by this, but it kinda takes away of the timelessness of this album because this is something that *just* happened)
Ye's hobo fashion
Overall:
Usually when one of the big ones drops an album I try my very best to find any place to listen to it, but this time this album rollout was so botched and unnecessarily tampered with that it deflated my hype which was caused by his Soundcloud tracks. Seriously: not even TDE pulls this kind of shit with their fans, and they did a terrible job with TPAB and an even worse one with Jay Rock's album.
The thing though: the entire album rollout sums up the actual album perfectly - a huge lack of confidence.
Remember that Kanye was ready to get back into the ring one or two years ago but decided to pull his album back because a) the Paul McCartney experiment didn't really work out for him and b) he kinda got shook by To Pimp A Butterfly which I can't blame him for since it can be said that this album pushes its genre forward in terms of sound and importance. So what I feared was a Kanye who isn't really sure what he has to do in order to drop the kind of album he wants to drop, and unfortunately this is the Kanye we got in the end.
It's like he was looking at the current music/rap market and put everyone who is relevant or has potential to grow on the album to the point where it feels more like a cautious "Kanye & Friends" album than an interesting solo Ye album. You got tracks that sound inspired by TPAB, you got tracks inspired by the dominating trap sound, you got tracks that sound like oldschool-rap Kanye, you got tracks that give you MBDTF vibes, you got tracks that have a more poppy flavour - and none of this does really sound a coherent album with a vision behind it but a mess of hundreds of ideas that either clash or work. I can't imagine even die-hard Yeezy stans being satisfied with this.
There are some funny Ye lines here and there (I laughed out loud at the GoPro and bleached asshole lines), but overall it feels like he had nothing of value to say. Ye was never the biggest lyricist but managed to drop memorable lines here and some more "feels"-filled lines there, but man are these lyrics lazy as hell. The Taylor Swift line was as unnecessary as the Meek lines on Summer Sixteen and rubbed me the same way, he talks way too much about his dick and just comes over as a very insecure man who is scared of who he has chosen to portray in this world. Each Ye album had a point to it or themes it tried to work through but man, this is an album by Kanye the musician about Kanye the symbol.
And it's not only that his lyrics are lacking more substance than they usually do, but that it feels like Kanye is underrepresented on his album because there are way to many other different voices and people. This is an already short album that barely manages to last an hour and then a lot of what you hear is not Kanye but fucking Swizz Beats for example.
The most bizarre thing this album did for me though is retroactively appreciating Yeezus which is way tighter produced and has more coherent sound and subjects.
Overall, I think this album has some nice highs and just too many underdeveloped ideas and too much unnecessary fat. Him tweeting during the late production cycle showed a glimpse of the pressure he put himself under and I feel like it broke him to a certain point. I mean you let fucking Wiz Khalifa call you out in public and then look like the bigger moron later? To the point that not only your ex benefits from the situation but you feel forced to change the album title? What's with the early-access album rollout? Why do you let so many malnurtured dread-wearing skeletons whose vocabulary probably ranges from "YES" to "ok this classic already" influence you? Are you scared to be out of touch?
Kanye is someone who I like being arrogant, but that arrogance always came with a great album that further manifested him as one of the greats. And nothing will probably change about this, but TLOP to me shakes the whole Ye myth up and felt like an album he thought he HAD to drop instead of an album he wanted to drop, an album with an actual message and vision instead of shallow dickswinging. Oh, what could have been brehs.
- Ye stans fuck with NMPILA because its shit talking Ye with quotables and long verses
- Mention of TPAB getting Ye shook is like an instant 3 strikes
- The fuck sounds inspired by TPAB on this album? Sonically, nothing. So are we gonna start attributing any post-TPAB comments on institutionalized racism to Kendrick now even if it's been a theme throughout Ye's whole career?
- Disagree with him not having anything to say, dude put his depression out there on this album like nothing since MBDTF/808s, and in a different way. Quite a good chunk of the album reflects on him losing his sense of self and people slipping away from him. Because the album isn't structured well or cohesive around a theme, I do think that it's hard to sell this as a grand vision, but doesn't talk about anything? Nah, we get prime Ye vulnerability moments on here, which is where the MBDTF/808s comparisons even stem from.
- I disagree with your point about other voices clouding the expression in this album. I think Ye has a good history of using other voices to complement his own perspective (not that he hasn't done better in the past), and it doesn't feel overshadowing to me here.
- Most criticisms of the album rollout are overblown, unless we're talking about the Tidal stuff, which was 30 mins of extra waiting. Not an excuse for not delivering on Feb 11, but it's kind of an odd talking point. It's not like dude promised us Federal Reserve or anything. If we are making inferences about how volatile the tracklist seemed to be and arguing thats a bad thing, I can see where you're coming from.
- Ye's excitement about TLOP kind of hurts your point about him being forced to drop it. I don't think there's anything in the history of the making of the album that points towards that, besides him saying it's one of his best albums instead of his best, and even that's kind of a sloppy point when dude was still recording at that point. I mentioned either here or in the other thread that he just wants to put stuff out.
- Since when has Ye aimed for an album with a message? Dude makes what the fuck he wants and that almost always starts with a sound he wants to explore, or in this case, multiple sounds.
Most of everything else you said falls in line with my own first impressions, but to reiterate a bit, this album is going to be pretty exemplary for the effect of expectations on an album release, much moreso than TPAB had. Not just the stuff Nibel mentioned above which includes several gaffes or marketing stunts over the past month, but also various comments Ye has made about him conquering music already and wanting to take his creative talents to other domains. I don't say this to absolve Ye of criticism, though I'll reserve my thoughts for a proper review, but I think the opportunity for criticism and opinions informed by more than the music are the highest they've been since the Swift debacle.
Another thing expectation-wise is Wolves. A lot of people including me really built that track up and no two ways to slice it, Ye dropped the ball. I can't shake a global feeling of disappointment because I think about Wolves when I think about this album as a whole. It's the first song we knew was gonna be on the album, not some loosie like Only One, and it was so good we knew it wouldn't be thrown in the bushes.
Another thing expectation-wise is Wolves. A lot of people including me really built that track up and no two ways to slice it, Ye dropped the ball. I can't shake a global feeling of disappointment because I think about Wolves when I think about this album as a whole. It's the first song we knew was gonna be on the album, not some loosie like Only One, and it was so good we knew it wouldn't be thrown in the bushes.
