Kanye west joined the top 100 !!!! - Music

alelsupreme
Awful.

Gender: Male
Age: 27

What Lethal said, it's not exactly some deep look at society. It's mostly Kanye going on about his favourite topic: him. Not that that's a bad thing, he generally does this pretty well.

imnotanotter

Lethal hit it on the head, really. While there's no denying the solid production, the album to me is a reflection of Kanye's superego which seems to have displaced some his passion for addressing social issues that were present in his older albums. Not that this is all bad, keeping in mind MBDTF's success... But, even though I enjoy most of the album, there are at least a handful of hip/hop albums out there that I think better deserve a top 100 spot.

Wombi

Since College Dropout Kanye's been walking a fine line between discussing social issues and discussing himself. Even on Late Registration songs like Roses, Hey Mama and Celebration (3 of the best on the album) are almost entirely about Kanye's personal stuff. On Graduation it got even more personal. His mother had just died and that clearly made Kanye even more introspective. '808's' is where he kind of just dived straight first into personal issues. MBDTF has slight dips into social issues (as bananafish said '21st Century Schizoid Man' etc) but it's always brought back to him on every single song (I mean the very first word in the album title is 'MY').

Now does that matter? Of course it fucking doesn't. Not every song has to be a social commentary. Exploring the self is as important, complex and massive as exploring societal issues and Kanye explores his psyche so brutally and honestly on MBDTF. That's what I love about it, that's what a lot of people love about it. The masturbatory bombast? That's the soundtrack of his life.

In answering the thread question - I think it's great that a hip-hop album has reached the top 100. There are hip-hop albums I prefer, sure, but I also think the top 20 is pretty boring as shit. I think The Suburbs being the top 50 is a joke but so what? The top 100 is never gonna align completely with my taste, I'd never want it to, but MBDTF is a great album and we should be proud to have it there and let's hope it's the first of many albums to make it.

One more thing I wanna address (I've avoided this thread because there was constant bullshit being spouted and I wanted to address everything but I've left it to a few irritating qualms) - the idea that this album isn't hip-hop. I mean...what??? For a genre that's pushed so many boundaries it sure has a lot of fans who have a very limited view of what it can be. Of course this is hip-hop - I mean this is a genre where Paid In Full, Straight Outta Compton, 3 Feet High And Rising, Fear Of A Black Planet, The Low End Theory and Check Your Head came out within 5 years of each other. All y'all trying to pigeonhole it should be ashamed.

So what MBDTF might be pop-hip-hop or prog-hip-hop - is that shade? Does that mean it's somehow lesser? Hell no.

Guest

Jhereko wrote:

Since College Dropout Kanye's been walking a fine line between discussing social issues and discussing himself. Even on Late Registration songs like Roses, Hey Mama and Celebration (3 of the best on the album) are almost entirely about Kanye's personal stuff. On Graduation it got even more personal. His mother had just died and that clearly made Kanye even more introspective. '808's' is where he kind of just dived straight first into personal issues. MBDTF has slight dips into social issues (as bananafish said '21st Century Schizoid Man' etc) but it's always brought back to him on every single song (I mean the very first word in the album title is 'MY').

Agreed. I wasn't at all implying that the lack of social commentary was a bad thing, as I hope you understand, just that to say this album contained any real social commentary was a falsity.

Jhereko wrote:

Now does that matter? Of course it fucking doesn't. Not every song has to be a social commentary. Exploring the self is as important, complex and massive as exploring societal issues and Kanye explores his psyche so brutally and honestly on MBDTF. That's what I love about it, that's what a lot of people love about it. The masturbatory bombast? That's the soundtrack of his life.

Again, I agree that exploring the self is as important as exploring societal issues, and many of my favourite albums attest to that - Pink Moon, Here My Dear, Unknown Pleasures, Pinkerton - but I disagree that this album is a brutal examination of one man's psyche. Sure, it has moments that sound like these huge confessionals, as on 'The Blame Game' (which is my favourite song on the album), but I don't think this album is anywhere near as brutally honest as the other albums I have named in this paragraph. It doesn't speak to me in the same way as any of those, though of course I defend your right to have it speak to you in the way those albums speak to me. I also know that this rant isn't just aimed at me by any means, but I would like to point out, regarding the idea of this being about one man, and particularly the inclusion of the phrase "masturbatory bombast", that I did say MBDTF "is very good at what being what it is - a huge, oversized pop album that acts as a lush audio representation of one man's ego".

Jhereko wrote:

In answering the thread question - I think it's great that a hip-hop album has reached the top 100. There are hip-hop albums I prefer, sure, but I also think the top 20 is pretty boring as shit. I think The Suburbs being the top 50 is a joke but so what? The top 100 is never gonna align completely with my taste, I'd never want it to, but MBDTF is a great album and we should be proud to have it there and let's hope it's the first of many albums to make it.

Again, here is a point on which we massively disagree. My problem is that there are so many better hip-hop albums than MBDTF (at least 150, and probably more like 200), to my mind anyway, that I find it difficult to be happy that a hip-hop album is in the Top 100 when it's this one. I'm not "proud" to see it there, in the same way I'm not "proud" to see other albums I don't love in the Top 100. It's an album I like, as I've previously stated, but not one I love, and certainly not one I think belongs in the Top 100. I think it's madness that this album is rated above Late Registration, let alone the likes of Illmatic or 36 Chambers. That said, I avoided this thread for as long as possible (namely until bananafish made that ridiculous statement that I took issue with) because I largely agree with your sentiment - the Top 100 is never going to be made up of my favourite hundred albums, thank god, and so it really isn't that much of an issue for me. I don't like LZIV either, but its position on our overall chart doesn't bother me. People like it, and that's why it's there. The same goes for this album. I disagree, but I see no benefit to bitching and moaning about it, hence the reason I tried to stay out of this thread.

Jhereko wrote:

One more thing I wanna address (I've avoided this thread because there was constant bullshit being spouted and I wanted to address everything but I've left it to a few irritating qualms) - the idea that this album isn't hip-hop. I mean...what??? For a genre that's pushed so many boundaries it sure has a lot of fans who have a very limited view of what it can be. Of course this is hip-hop - I mean this is a genre where Paid In Full, Straight Outta Compton, 3 Feet High And Rising, Fear Of A Black Planet, The Low End Theory and Check Your Head came out within 5 years of each other. All y'all trying to pigeonhole it should be ashamed.

I agree that this album is hip-hop. This is actually a fantastic point well made that makes me question previous statements I have made about Death Grips not being hip-hop, which was probably a petulant comment made simply because their music makes me feel like an old man (it's just noise). But yeah, MBDTF is hip-hop.

Jhereko wrote:

So what MBDTF might be pop-hip-hop or prog-hip-hop - is that shade? Does that mean it's somehow lesser? Hell no.

No, being pop-hip-hop or prog-hip-hop doesn't mean it lesser. The fact that it's just an above-average album means it lesser. Wink

Wombi

lethalnezzle wrote:

No, being pop-hip-hop or prog-hip-hop doesn't mean it lesser. The fact that it's just an above-average album means it lesser. Wink

Ha, fair call. The bit about being 'proud' of it is ignorance on my part since there's plenty of albums in the top 100 I'm not proud to see there.