Yeezy

I'm digging Grantland, the new sports / pop culture site from ESPN's Bill Simmons (aka The Sports Guy), and Molly Lambert's article on Kanye West can't pass without comment.  She nailed a lot of what I was trying to get it in my review of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy:

Kanye West is having an identity crisis. Kanye is always having a crisis, but I'm really excited about this particular one because he's on the edge of intense personal revelation. Rather than getting stuck in any one static Kanye persona, he's allowing the "Kanye West" persona to continually evolve. He wants to know what the hell is happening with him psychologically, and so do we!

Best of 2010

This is an odd year, where I listened to a ton of bluegrass / folk but many of my picks are from the hip-hop world.

Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. Runners-Up: The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae, So Runs the World Away by Josh Ritter

Track: "Runaway" by Kanye West. Runner Up: "The Curse" by Josh Ritter.

Best Cover: "Hit 'Em Up Style" by the Carolina Chocolate Drops (original by Blu Cantrell).

Live Act: Mandolin Masters' Workshop, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival (featuring Ronnie McCoury, Sarah Jarosz, David Grisman, Joe Walsh, and Buddy Merriam).

Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Rating: A

Because the world needs another review of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

I had a running conversation with a friend this summer about Kanye West and Jay-Z. My friend was in awe of how cool Jay-Z is. There's no doubt that Jay-Z is cool but what I argued is, not only "Who cares?" (and let's face, I wasn't one of those "cool" kids in high school, the last time anybody talked about coolness), but that Jay-Z's coolness not only doesn't make him interesting, it makes him particularly uninteresting. What do we really know about Jay-Z?

On the other hand, Kanye West is not cool. He would love to be cool, he has a lot of cool associates, he does a lot of cool things (and, certainly, some not-so-cool things), but he's just missing something. When he tries to be cool, it comes off like he's trying to be cool. That sounds uncomplimentary, but it isn't: Kanye comes through in everything he does. Whether or not he's telling the truth at any given time, he's so transparent that it comes off as honesty. And when deliberately tries to let us in to his world - like in "Big Brother" off Graduation (coincidentally, about his relationship with Jay-Z), or his entire last auto-tuned masterpiece 808s & Heartbreak, it can be amazing art.

In MBDTF, we get both the putting-on-an-act-but-we-can-see-right-through-it Kanye and the honest and heartfelt Kanye. He puts on an act in tracks like "Gorgeous" and "Monster," where he seems to relish the villain role that his controversial comments on George Bush and his much-mocked interruption of Taylor Swift have cast him as. But as much as he would like us to believe he's thick-skinned, it's obvious he's not - his dig at the South Park writers who mocked him is funny ("choke a South Park writer with a fish stick / dick," but you can tell it really rankles). When he lets down his guard, it's devastating. He tears the entire hip-hop scene apart in "So Appalled," criticizing the "champagne wishes, thirty white bitches" scene for being "fuckin' ridiculous" while people are "going through real shit man - they outta work." It's backed by legitimately creepy electronic sounds.

Then there's "Runaway," which is both wrapped into one. I thought "Jesus Walks" was the most important song made in the last ten years, but now it might not even be his best track. "Runaway" hits on all levels - the spare, haunting piano, the relentless beat, Kanye lyrically just opening a vein about his own insecurities ("I always find something wrong / You've been putting up with this shit just way too long / I'm so gifted at finding what I dislike the most"), and finally embracing his villain status ("Let's have a toast for the douchebags") and ultimately pushing away those who care about him, advising "I got a plan / run away as fast as you can." It's heartbreaking, and it would be painful to listen to if it wasn't so fucking beautiful; the denouement is him singing the melody so distorted through a vocoder that it's indecipherable. It's braggadocio and vulnerability swaddled in psychedelia and a beat, and it stretches for nine minutes. Honestly, it's so good I could write about it for ten times that long.

Usually I need to listen to an album several times before I form an opinion on it. 808s and Heartbreak took my months to get into. But MBDTF is accessible right away, immediately grabbing you with its beats and unique sounds. Still, it rewards several listens; every repeat makes me appreciate a new song or catch a new lyric or sample or beat. Say what you want about Kanye - whether he's embarrassing himself in public or making the best album of the year, he's multi-dimensional and never boring.

One last note: it's only $4 in digital form on Amazon. You're crazy not to get it.

Kanye West official site

Top 10 Concerts Ever!

Jim DeRogatis is leaving The Chicago Sun-Times and has written a run-down on his 15 favorite concerts in covering music. Inspired by this, I'd like to offer my favorites:

1. Wilco at Stubb's BBQ 9/22/2001 - the first great show I ever saw. Wilco was in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot limbo, and the whole country was in post-9/11 confusion. It was the first time I heard "Ashes of American Flags" and it was incredibly powerful. The band seemed taken aback by the applause for their set and played three encores, closing with a raucous version of "I Got You (At the End of the Century)".
2. Flaming Lips at Madison Square Garden 12/31/2003 - in a special New Years' show Sleater-Kinney opened and Wilco closed, The Flaming Lips stole the show. Dancing people in costumes, great music, unbelievable feeling and thousands of balloons made for an unforgettable night.
3. Fleet Foxes at Somerville Theatre 10/6/2008 - the Pacific Northwest band makes beautiful music, but it's not always the most high energy, so I didn't know what to expect. Live, their music was equally beautiful, with gorgeous harmonies and passionate vocals and playing. The crowd was totally swept up, universally standing in movie theatre setting. Afterwards I turned to my girlfriend, who hadn't spoken a word through the whole set. "Was that one of the best shows you've ever seen?" she asked? It sure was.
4. Art Brut at Middle East 5/16/2006 - the best live act going. I've seen them three times since, and they are always terrific. Eddie Argos works so hard to give everyone their money's worth, and the best part is you can see how much fun he's having the whole time. This was my first experience seeing Art Brut, and I've gone out of my way to see them every time since.
5. Okkervil River at T.T. the Bear's 11/10/2005 - like Fleet Foxes, this Austin-based group can be subdued on record. However, this live show was gripping, with singer / guitarist Will Sheff ripping his guts out on just about every song. The band didn't go on until midnight but still played two hours. In the final encore, Sheff gave the audience the choice between classics "Kansas City" and "The Okkervil River Song" and someone shouted out, "Both!" Sure enough, they played both, sending everyone home happy.
6. Sleater-Kinney at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel 2/14/2003 - Something has been missing in my life ever since the Olympia, WA-based trio broke up in 2006. I saw them five times; this, the second time I saw them, made my Valentine's Day in 2003 as they tore up one of Providence, RI's best venues.
7. K'Naan / Wale at House of Blues 4/1/2010 - see review here.
8. Mutual Admiration Society at Paradise Rock Club 8/12/2004 - This supergroup consists of the members of the talented Nickel Creek as well as Toad the Wet Sprocket's Glen Phillips. The show was fine until partway through, when rather than all take a break different members would play some of their solo items. We were treated to gems like Chris Thile's "I'm Nowhere and You're Everything," Nickel Creek's ukelele ditty "Anthony," and John Paul Jones playing a solo mandolin version of Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." Yes, that John Paul Jones. After that, the band had the crowd eating out of the palm of its hand.
9. Phoenix at Austin City Limits 10/2/2009 - see review here.
10. Kanye West at Ryan Center 10/26/2005 - I might have been the oldest person at the rapper's show on URI's campus, but there couldn't have been too many folks having more fun than me. The music was powerful and Kanye showed a charisma not always present on record, killing it for one of the most energetic crowds I've ever seen.