Also, people are saying this verse is going to launch a bunch of feuds. As entertaining as it would be to see one of those rappers exercise some extremely bad judgment and go after Kendrick, I bet we hear radio silence. Don't nobody want none.
To tell you the truth, I saw it when it first came out, and since forgot much of it. You're probably right that it's a poor example of what I'm talking about - but I think the general point is still valid.
What I've noticed in the generational shift from "High Fidelity" to something like "500 Days of Summer" is that connoisseurship went from being a really shallow and pitiable signifier of identity to something that was totally legitimate. In High Fidelity, at least part of the point is that great taste in music isn't a substitute for things like compassion, responsibility, maturity -- and anyone who thinks it is, is probably still stuck in that snobbish, high school mentality where it's deathly important what brand of clothes you wear.
In all the more recent movies and tv-shows, though, connoisseurship is all of a sudden taken much more seriously -- a much more valid indication of a person's character or identity, without the layer of irony that previously came attached with it. When Summer says she likes the Smiths in the elevator in 500 Days of Summer-- we're not really meant to question how shallow and unwise a basis for an "adult relationship" shared fandom ultimately is; we're meant to understand that she is SPECIAL. And Oh My God, do you know how rare it is to find a pretty girl who likes the exact same bands you do?
Anyhow, I blame the shift on Facebook - a medium that has taught us that the ultimate template of identity is basically a list of movies, tv shows, and bands. It doesn't matter how you feel about them, or WHY you like them; so long as you name check the right things, you've either asserted your status as a deep, thoughtful person or an illiterate, cultural boob.
So let me get this straight...
"Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign" = an unfiltered glimpse into the abyss of the id, a staggeringly honest and complex exploration of a tortured genius's mind, etc. etc. etc.
"The way they act like/ even bringing it up/ means you’re the one with the problem/ Well, that’s why" = mansplaining "at its MOST egregious"
Uh, ok.
Oh man, I forgot about how splendidly incoherent that Deconstructing Grimes article was. It was like someone laced the free quinoa in the grad student lounge with cocaine and adderall.
Of all the big commercial "alt" rock albums of the early 90s, I think this one holds up the best...by far, actually. Quite a few of these songs sound like they could be released last week.
The only thing I don't like isn't that Billy Corgan never made an entire album in the vein of "Luna"...it's like cowboy/outer-space music? Such a cool sound.
Know when you're beat, son. But if you really want to pursue this feeble strain of thought, let's do this...
First off, your first post never specified "social" injustice. It's pretty easy to win an argument if you can continually shift the assertions you've made in the past, but I'm not having that here. AIDS as a fatal sexually transmitted disease would definitely fit the broad category of "injustice", unless you're a religiously-afflicted puritan who believes that people deserve to die for having premarital sex or being promiscuous.
But for now let's just go along with your sad, little capitulations: if you think there is no social component to the AIDS crisis, and a huge one at that, then you weren't around (or sentient) in the 80s and early 90s. I mean, jesus, even if you did the bare minimum and watched Philadelphia starring Sir Thomas Hanks, you'd know that a whole set of public stigmas and social repercussions attached itself to the disease. But for the sake of showing how completely futile your objections are, let's say that you are completely right and AIDS and foreclosed farms have nothing to do with social injustice: that still leaves the other examples of Tibet and Live Aid and things like the concert for Darfur that render your initial absolutism false: "ONLY when..." One example disproves it.
Lastly, who says you have to put an album out or have a world tour to be a part of the music community? If so, then I guess Buddy Holly wouldn't be part of it, or the Modern Lovers, or Sky Ferreira.
tl;dr - you remain wrong.
Yes, because there was never anything called Live Aid, Farm Aid, The Tibetan Freedom Concert, The AIDS Benefit at Wembley Stadium, or any of the hundreds of other benefits and events that routinely attract "the music community."
Furthermore, Pussy Riot is part of the music community, so it makes sense that the music community would stick up for them. Your argument would be better served if you could provide examples of other musicians who were the victims of "injustice" but did not attract any support -- or if you just knew what the fuck you were talking about.
Donnytilla, I hope you cleared that use of the Paul's Boutique album art with both Capitol Records and Jeremy Shaton, the photographer.
And Raptor Jesus, you just "cheapened" my experience of the Harry Potter films by sampling a screen shot and then putting text all over it. Thanks a lot for killing my childhood, asshole.
Turtle Island should be #1. That chorus has just permanently colonized a bit of my brain and I hear it echoing whenever it moves around its room, relaxes on the divan, or cooks itself dinner...and the vocal solo at the end of the song, oh god...
Aaaand there it is. Does everything that Kanye does come attached with a memo, "Please intellectualize this for me guys, because I can't seem to do it myself...ps - also frame it in the most hyperbolic terms possible, thanx!"
Dude if his name was Megatron Ward, do you really think he'd cover it up with the pretentious jazz-era ex-patriot author initialing? That thing would be PLASTERED on every cd. In fact, he'd probably just go by Megatron.
Oh man, back in the days when you bought an album and had absolutely no idea what you were getting...I remember standing in a record store debating whether or not to buy this CD. I liked the single I had heard but a friend had compared Bjork to Madonna, and for some reason that comment really ruffled me. So glad I went ahead and bought it despite my teenage hang-ups about being cool.
Dude, if you have never heard Marquee Moon before you are about to have your mind blown straight out your ass and then your ass blown straight out your mind. Like, simultaneously.
There were just so many weird inclusions. I mean, Lonesome Dove is a good book and all - but does anyone seriously believe it's the 20th best novel EVER?
Oh fuck you for down voting my idea. Would you rather the tunnel vision be centered on the vulva, eventually delving into the interior of the birth canal and up into the uterus, where we see fetal Justin Timberlake twanging his umbilical chord to the beat of the song?
I totally feel that. When you are 30 years old, slightly balding, a small but noticeable paunch, married, and working as a school teacher, it's a little difficult to pump "I am a god / hurry up with my damn porsche garage / put my fist in your bitch like i'm malcom sex" in your Nissan and get into the same headspace that you might have when you were around 18 or 19. I'm less able to identify with this sort of hyper-masculine, uber-mensch -- and now it just feels like rappers like Kanye are not on my side at all, and are just yelling at me.
That said, Run the Jewels is fucking awesome...and I have a deep urge to break any glass objects in my immediate vicinity and turn over all my bookshelves when that first track comes on.
Awesome breakdown, Raptor! But I think Jay Z was always kind of a crass materialist, corporate slave, no? Every one of his songs is like an extended advertisement for name-brand, luxury products. Much of the lyrical content can be boiled down to "I'm very wealthy" or "I was poor but now I am wealthy." I mean since when did we confuse the guy who's telling us he's a "business, man" with Vincent Van Gogh?
I'm sort of getting a similar feeling of overblown rhetoric about the Kanye West album. The way some of the reviews of Yeezus go, Kanye is like black Nietschze. Kanye is NOT black Nietschze. But that's OK because art can be good, even brilliant, without being profound. Look at the Ramones. I guess I just missed the point where everyone started believing everything Kanye/Jay-Z were saying about themselves and then echoing it in hyper-intellectual, overblown analysis.
Have to agree here. Nothing is worse than a lonely summer. At least in winter you can put on some tea, light a fire in the fireplace, beckon to your cat, wrap yourself in a blanket, and slog through Moby Dick.
I agree! At first, I thought all that stuff about making money, name dropping expensive brands, and being a "business, man" was just metaphorical. Turns out this guy is actually kind of a crass materialist, how weird.
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