For those that actually like Kanye, how you think it stacks up? I'm diggin but not sure where I'd place it. It has a lot of amazing stuff, but still feels kinda like brain storms at times almost.
Early highlights for me are Ultralight Beam, Waves, FML,...well almost everything except tracks 2-9. /edit Famous has grown on me a lot.
NYT Review:
Stereogum review is up:
Early highlights for me are Ultralight Beam, Waves, FML,...well almost everything except tracks 2-9. /edit Famous has grown on me a lot.
NYT Review:
Log In - The New York Times"Pablo" doesn't have the cool rage of "Yeezus," his last left turn of an album, but it has maintained its sense of propulsion, while somehow echoing the soul-baptized sound that Mr. West made his name with, both as a producer for others and on his debut, "The College Dropout." These are styles that don't play well together, but Mr. West's synthesis is almost seamless.
Many of the highest points on "Pablo" are the disruptive moments - jarring intrusions from guests, or unexpectedly complicated song structures, or the interludes in other people's voices. All together, the symphonic effect recalls his 2010 masterpiece, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," the album that skyrocketed him beyond simple conversations about his pop effectiveness and instead laid the groundwork for the eccentric part of his career.
Stereogum review is up:
Premature Evaluation: Kanye West The Life Of Pablo - Stereogum"Name one genius that ain't crazy." That's Kanye West on "Feedback," delivering the single most quotable line of his new album The Life Of Pablo and maybe the clearest defense of his decade-plus legacy of bullshit. Just in the past few weeks, West has pulled some deeply concerning nonsense: The Cosby tweet, the Taylor Swift line, the publicly badgering Mark Zuckerberg for a billion dollars. And perhaps more intriguingly, he's existed in a state of absolute chaos lately, working on Pablo up until the very moment of its release and then even after. For most artists, we'd be treating all this the way we treat B.o.B.'s flat-earth conspiracy theorizing: As evidence that he's completely lost it, that he's floating off in some rarified coked-out delusional-celeb space, that we'd never have to take him seriously again. But before this weekend, West had released six truly great solo albums. And he's going to keep our attention. Right now, he's seven for seven.