21st century albums that have stood the test of time, so far...

[Jive Turkey]

There's this ridiculous theory going around that Kanye totally knew that the Spartans weren't Romans and that what he meant by keeping it 300 like the Romans was in reference to the Roman numeral CCC. Which, apparently stands for Cool, Calm and Collected.

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

 

[IWasBored]

Yeah, that's pretty lame.

 

[LemonMelon]

They're caaaaalling you out, Deputy.

 

[nielsgov]

Kanye's lyrics make me giggle. They're constantly entertaining. And the music is insanely good. I will take lyrics that make me giggle over insipid tripe that's been vomited all over the radio for decades dressed up like something new because the 3 chords the band knows how to play are slightly changed and the melody goes up rather than down.

This.

 

[IWasBored]

Kanye's lyrics make me giggle. They're constantly entertaining. And the music is insanely good. I will take lyrics that make me giggle over insipid tripe that's been vomited all over the radio for decades dressed up like something new because the 3 chords the band knows how to play are slightly changed and the melody goes up rather than down.

Fair statement, I'd take lyrics that made me laugh over generic, boring crap. As a novelty, though, not a massively praised work of art. But his lyrics just make me roll my eyes, and don't make me laugh at all. Note that I said laugh, I don't giggle.

 

[cobl04]

This often seems to be the response when hip hop lyrics get called out. The claim is that people are only looking at the negatives, bit where, in this artist's case, are the positives?

There are plenty of hip hop artists I love a great deal, Common, Cunninlynguists, etc., so it's not like I hate the genre, I just find things like the majority of the lyrics on MBDTF to be quite distasteful, despite how strong the music is.

I just get so frustrated by the extremely simplistic view that hip-hop is all "suck my dick". It says far, far more about the OPs than it does about hip-hop. There are some atrocious and (to some people) offensive lyrics out there, but as iYup says that's not exclusive to hip-hop.

From MBDTF, take lines like

Hey teacher teacher
Tell me how do you respond to students?
And refresh the page and restart the memory?
Re-spark the soul and rebuild the energy?
We stopped the ignorance, we killed the enemies
Sorry for the night the demons still visit me
The plan was to drink until the pain over
But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?
Fresh air, rollin' down the window
Too many Urkels on your team, that's why your wins low

Is hip hop just a euphemism for a new religion?
The soul music for the slaves that the youth is missing
This is more than just my road to redemption
Malcolm West had the whole nation standing at attention

I hit the Jamaican spot at the bar take a seat
I ordered you jerk, she said you are what you eat
You see I always loved that sense of humor
But tonight you should have seen how quiet the room was

A few of my favourite lines. The whole album is a really interesting look into the mind of Kanye West.

What does that even mean?

And his ignorance in the difference between Romans and Greeks in one of his newer songs is inexcusable. As is his mispronunciation of Maybach

His mispronunciations are deliberate, I'm sure. And stupid as it may seem they become popular. "Francis Ford Cocopola" from To The World is another example.

As far as he goes as a lyricist, I'd check out "Family Business" or "Last Call" or "Gone" from his first two albums as tracks that best showcase the emotional content and playfulness that stretch over his body of work. I don't know what bellwether folks use to compare/judge lyrics, but for me the complexity of his backing beats and sampling are hard to judge as separate entities. Not that I'm against that level of dissection, hip-hop is the biggest musical genre I can think of where it's detrimental to remove the rhythm to judge the "words." They're inexorably linked.

Hell, lines like "Oh, I remember how we first met / Okay, I don't remember how we first met" in "Bound 2" or the "Nahnahnahnahnah-the fuck you sound" burst in "Drunk and Hot Girls" carry a fuck-all attitude and bravado that work part and parcel with the image that he cultivates. For a person who seems obtuse publicly, his work feels incredibly self-aware. Yeezy's constantly toying with the expectations one has of him as an artist or pop star in an astonishingly candid fashion.

That's my take at least. Haters beware.

Basically this.

 

[Lancemc]

Hey guys maybe Kanye said Romans instead because...

waaaaaaait for it...



...it rhymes.

 

[Mount Temple]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

 

[Lancemc]

Wow, stfu

 

[nielsgov]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

Yes this is an accurate summary of this thread.

It's possibly to like both hip-hop and rock music.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Who was shitting on rock music??

 

[LemonMelon]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

You're here, actually:

No one should feel obligated to defend any particular genre here.

And yes, it's fine to gripe about boring lyrics.

 

[LMP]

I honestly enjoy a great insult every once and a while and I do say I found that quite funny!

 

[the tourist]

Yes. Just yes.

 

[bono_212]

Ok, I'm done with any sort of neutrality here.

There's no reason to discount the opinion of others on an entire genre of music just because your opinion on it is not positive.

Friggin' ridiculous.

 

[lazarus]

Told you they wuz dumb.

 

[bono_212]

I'm only talking about Mount Temple.

 

[gvox]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

Well a few of us saw him open for U2 and thought it was fucking brilliant and hands down the best opener of the tour...so there's that.

Even others still have been listening to hip hop/rap for the better part of 25+ years and would generally regard a dismissive claim that all rap is garbage as highly ignorant.

 

[the tourist]

Stop the presses. Me and gvox agree on something. Happens about as often as me and Headache agreeing on something.

 

[gvox]

Have you checked your forehead for a temperature?

 

[IWasBored]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

Haha!

Man, it's been a long time (well, unless you count schloop, but who counts Schloop as anything?) since someone said something this idiotic in here. Please stop, you're making the other non-hip hop fans like me look bad.

 

[Diemen]

I didn't realize I would be bombarded with Kanye and Rap loving fans who put down Rock music and gripe on about boring lyrics.

Where are you posting and what fan site am I on?

Kanye West Interference or is it U2?

I forgot......

Oh, I'm sorry, are people not allowed to discuss music you don't like?

 

[Kieran McConville]

Joshua Tree 20th Anniversary deluxe edition

 

[david]

1. Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
2. Sigur Ros - Takk (2005)
3. U2 - All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000)
4. Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
5. The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)
6. Tom Waits - Bad As Me (2011)
7. Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The Mysterious Production of Eggs (2005)
8. The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
9. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)
10. Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band - Horses in the Sky (2005)
11. The Decemberists - Castaways & Cutouts (2002)
12 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - No More Shall We Part (2001)
13. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest (2010)
14. The Black Angels - Directions to See a Ghost (2008)
15. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (2008)
16. The Gorillaz - Demon Days (2005)
17. Beck - Sea Change (2002)
18. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
19. The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
20. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
21. Destroyer - Rubies (2006)
22. Devendra Banhart - Cripple Crow (2005)
23. The National - High Violet (2010)
24. David Byrne & St Vincent - Love This Giant (2012)
25. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (2009)
26. Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
27. Fugazi - The Argument (2001)
28. The Walkmen - Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone (2002)
29. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
30. Iron and Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)
31. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (2010)
32. Tame Impala - Inner Speaker (2010)
33. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting Go (2006)
34. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica (2000)
35. Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000)
36. John Frusciante - The Will To Death (2004)
37. Blonde Redhead - 23 (2007)
38. Autolux - Future Perfect (2004)
39. The Antlers - Burst Apart (2011)
40. Low - Things We Lost in the Fire (2001)

 

[mikal]

I realize that what Mount Temple said was not very smart but wow, this is another example of how you guys pile on people. I think the point was made within the first 3 responses. Again, I think Mount Temple made a bad error but move on. Other than this post he seems like a pretty nice guy just trying to fit in to a new community.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

Wholeheartedly agree with mikal, in addition it does sometimes seem as if there's a 'boy's club' sort of environment going around which does negatively impact on what can be a pretty good place to talk music.

 

[cobl04]

Other than this post he seems like a pretty nice guy just trying to fit in to a new community.

I thought so too, honestly, and I love having new faces/voices around here. We could have a great open conversation about hip-hop lyricism and maybe Mount Temple's mind might be opened. I probably didn't help.

I was being facetious about Yeezus. Mount Temple's comment bothered me and then of course Schloop came in with his tired old shtick.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Schloop shtick

 

[gump]

Well, if anything, this thread made me listen to Kanye more over the last week than I had in months.

 

[gvox]

Schloop shtick