The first 4-5 songs are actually pretty great. The whole thing is just overstuffed. Needs to be cut to 8-10 songs.
"Praise the Lord" fucking bangs out of car windows.
I know consensus is that the ASAP Rocky album is a boring slog, (I mostly agree) but I still think "Praise the Lord" sounds fucking great coming out of car windows on a sunny day.
This mixtape came out at just the right time for me. It was right as I went into my freshman year of college, and was really into downloading anything remotely interesting from datpiff.
Looking back on it, now, there's nothing really remarkable about it, but it really felt special at the time. As someone who grew up genuinely loving music of all genres, it finally felt like I'd found an artist who was pulling from a similar wide range of interests (even if it was only a shallow dive into all those genres). The fact this "rapper" was pulling from all of these different areas of music that I also loved, was really part of me feeling at peace with my musical identity. I had always listened to everything, but was afraid to say that rap was the genre I cared about most. It still felt like to do so was to be someone trying to "act black," (I'm actually 1/8th black, but I'm not Logic, so I'm not out here sayin the n-word, when I pretty much look white and get every benefit of being white.) Now that rap was pulling from everything, it just felt like - you know what, everyone can just like what they like.
So I loved everything about the mixtape, down to the corny interludes and it became a record I would go back to throughout college whenever I needed the comfort of something familiar that I loved, even as its emotional impact lessened ever so slightly with every listen. Like many pieces of art from my youth, it became something that was meaningful to me because of my associations with it rather than from its inherent value. So tonight, I'll probably throw this on, and go for a lonely drive through the night, cos it's nice to be reminded of things that meant so much to us, even if that's the only way they're meaningful anymore.
I'm not glad he's dead (nor am I particularly mournful, but yeah 20 is young...) but I do have to agree that I can listen to my torrented copy of 17 and feel less like I'm "supporting" a monster.
It’s just the platform they used to post their music and find their fan base and has become the [somewhat derisive] name for the subgenre. Not really inherently tied to the service in some fundamental philosophical way as far as I can tell...
What if you torrented 17 cos of Kendrick (WTF k.dot?!) and you couldn’t help yourself, but you didn’t wanna give him a penny of streaming money and you secretly enjoyed it, but have shamefully kept that to yourself up until now and you still absolutely think he is a fucking piece of garbage, but you also get the sense that this asshole kid probably has some deep issues and has gone through some shit, but it’s no excuse, and you’ve basically decided that the music is interesting but only medium interesting so you’re not going to listen anymore cos fuck man the world is fucked up enough already and I can’t support that shit, but you’re still a little bit curious. Is that ok?
I just really hope that Kanye figures out how to live. Cos I genuinely wish him a better life, but also selfishly so I can go back and listen to this album as an artifact of a tragic time in his life that he overcame. Right now, it’s not transcendent enough for me to forget my anger and that anger prevents me from giving it a fair listen.
I think this lp owes more to Yeezus than anything else (I also rate LR lower than most in Ye's catalog). The brilliant sequencing and transitions, the listen-to-it-all-in-one-go concision. Daytona's more minimal, and less discordant, but that's cos it's perfectly matched to Pusha words and his delivery. And fuck - I love listening to Pusha's voice. I'm with you - what a fucking revelation.
I mean... I know this is the internet so everything is exaggerated, but Marvel movies aren't awful. They're just mostly fine, and sometimes pretty damn good when they have an inventive director (Ragnarok and Black Panther).
kanyeshrug.gif Just doesn't seem like something to get that upset about... (like Kanye for instance).
Did you not like Nothing Was the Same or If You're Reading This...? Cos those are still the best Drake projects...
Take Care is also pretty great. You know what - fuck it, maybe Views is the outlier here and Drake is just good.
Nah - him and Clams made some fucking slappers. He's definitely a "how he raps" guy vs. "what he raps" guy. The relaxed bravado and flow-switching is just damn great. Palace works with or without him cos he does enough to the track for it to feel different but still grand with him on it. He's got good taste and he adds great texture.
There's also been this weird way in which the word is now often used to refer to males specifically (even white males). Also don't know what to do with that, but yeah... language is weird, man.
Didn't Tom have a whole back and forth with Combat Jack on this subject (or something very near to it). Not sure what happened but I think CJ schooled Tom in some way...
I normally skip these gossip articles unless it's Kanye (I'm still human, guys), but this is one is so weird, that it's absolutely worth the click. Wow. Just wow.
You know what — I honestly haven’t even thought about it enough. So, I don’t have anything smart or thoughtful to say. Probably shouldn’t have even said anything in response to your earlier comment
Now — I’m not one to bemoan trigger warnings. They’re perfectly reasonable, but it’s interesting that their growing use coincides with a very spoiler-phobic attitude to art. I watched this video without any info, and part of the power of it for me was the shock of violence. Not really making any arguments here, but yeah... there’s something there.
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