2016 musics

[RODAN]

update: the actual Life of Pablo album is even better than the teaser, fuck I love kanye lmfao.

 

[shaian]

not tryna overreact but the life of pablo is the best album of all time. if no more parties in la wasnt a single id have died listening to it the first time. thank you kanye, you saved my life god bless

 

[PDC]

is this an incredible exceptional game changing revolutionizing record? no, it is not. in fact this hardly sounds like a kanye record at all to tell you the truth. but still, the build up to the record was enough to drum up incredible hype for it and certainly galvanized the masses enough to make a huge effort to listen to it upon its release.

i actually do like this album and would probably rank it above yeezus, graduation, and 808s. there are some REALLY good tracks on here (ULTRA LIGHT BEAMS!!!) which remind me of mbdtf in some ways. however this album seems a little directionless and without any clear message that kanye usually tries to incorporate. some tracks i could have gone without, this album is a bit to long and has so many songs that could have been so much better, but were shoved away from greatness.

another thing, even though nowadays i think we all accept kanye as a producer over a rapper, he should still put a lot of effort into his rhymes. some of these lyrics sound straight stupid or juvenile, something that i know he is capable of avoiding. some of the production, while not bad, does just not sound like kanye or what his usual caliber of beats is. it could be just a little bit better.

i really like ultra light beams, best track since mbdtf imo. you have a bunch of "ok" tracks thrown about along with some more solid ones. waves is actually pretty good and i like it a lot, along with father stretch my hands part 1.

best:
ULTRA LIGHT BEAMS (best)
father stretch my hands part 1
famous
waves
no more parties in l.a.
30 hours
real friends
wolves....has potential....

none of the tracks are really bad outside of freestyle 4, facts has grown a lot of on me and everything else i'm pretty neutral for

for hip hop standards in 2016 this album is far above it. if kanye breaks up with kim, i'm expecting MBDTF 2.

 

[col49]

6/10. i swear freestyle 4 woulda put so dope if he had decided to develop the ideas he was setting up in the first segment of the track. honestly father stretch my hands is the most insufferable and grating track on the album for me, but otherwise i feel pretty similarly as da clash on this one. my mains gripes:
- lack of real thematic cohesion; some ideas hint towards a grand idea to all these tracks, but its left pretty undeveloped, makes the album come off as a bunch of individual tracks rather than a fully realized project
- inclination towards "trendy" production choices: pt 1 / 2 are the bigger offenders of this for me, at least in terms of production. i get that this album wants to kinda shift more focus onto kanye as a lyricist here, but the very unenjoyable production on cuts like these don't help for me. also, i found the autotune in some tracks, especially pt.1, to be pretty dang excessive
- overbloated: a bunch of these tracks do end up feeling more like interludes than anything, which i'd be cool w/if this was a project that had these broad tonal shifts that needed separation via such interludes. it is not. probably better in its original format, but i couldn't say for certain
- low energy: this is a pretty big step from yeezus in terms of the energy kanye delivers his verses with, which i guess isn't /that/ bad, but having been teased up to it w/shit like all day i was just hoping for more oomph from this release. the most viscera u get out of this is on facts, and for better or worse i'm still tryna get by it being an ad in my new lp

it wasn't the worst thing, and when it was bad it was usually only a little bad, so i'll probably be looking back to some tracks. excited to see pitchfork try to justify a bnm on this. they'll probably open w/two paras on the cover art, then something about how's he is a guy that does thing that get in newspapers, and top it off w/a discussion of what pablo means in relation to the album.

anywho, black mountain's been dropping some content, and it's pretty rad. also this band pup that i was never aware of until recently dropped this single, dvp, and its the catchiest, most energetic uptempo punk stuff i've heard in a while.

e: 9.0 with the opening line being "Pablo Picasso and Kanye West share many qualities". absolutely amazing

 

[danilo]

havent listened yet but im glad there's mixed feelings here. ill enter the fray soon

 

[danilo]

also the new AnCo leaked

 

[BKC]

I gave tlop a tentative 3, need to give it some more listens obv. it's apparently "kanye in musical form, what a crazy genius" (rym reviews have been insufferable, as unfortunately expected) which explains why it's all over the place. I think it's alright, doesn't really excite me and is kinda boring quite a bit but for now it's nice enough

 

[Plus]

Also on the 'meh' bandwagon for TLOP. I'll agree that ultralight beams is the best track, but that was mostly because of Chance anyway. Lyricism leaves much to be desired imo, but it's Kanye so whatevs

also lol at dissing t swift some more, that's always golden

 

[termi]

TLoP was mostly mediocre to me. I'll list some positives and negatives though:

+The stretch from FML through No More Parties is actually solid, bar that intermission. Some tracks are a little too long for what they're worth, maybe a little anticlimactic at points, but I still enjoyed them
+Feedback is pretty cool, some light Death Grips vibes going on here and nothing really goes wrong here, which sadly can't be said for most tracks
+Chance's verse on the opening track is cool

-The gospel thing on the opening track didn't do much for me, can't really say I get why people are creaming all over that track
-The autotune abuse gets fucking ridiculous at points. Kanye's singing on this album is just so unenjoyable and cringeworthy to listen to. Thought he grew out of this shit
-Facts
-What the fuck is I Love Kanye?
-The album feels unhinged as fuck. It feels more like a collection of songs than a coherent album to me
-Fade isn't that bad of a track but it makes for an awful closing track, further proving the sequencing on this album is wack
-Not even gonna bother talking about the lyrics explicitly but you know they are bad. Kanye can't write a bar to save his life and he doesn't have the delivery to make up for it

Kanye lovers will love this too, those who haven't been too impressed by Kanye in the past won't change their mind based on this album. Same old, same old. I don't care for this album mostly, but if you like it, that's totally cool. If you praise this as the best music ever and worship Kanye like the God he says he is, I have to question how much music you actually know, but hey, if it makes you happy, go ahead I guess.

I tried not to sound snobby but I probably did anyway, hope I didn't rustle any jimmies, opinions are opinions etc. Have a good one fellas.

 

[Deschain]

not sure if i care less about Kanye or AnCo.

 

[nLTk]

Won't divert from the overall sentiment on TLOP. Enjoyed some of it, indifferent to most. However, in defense of I Love Kanye, I thought it served its purpose as an interlude. I liked how he just spent 45 seconds addressing the current sentiment around him and laugh at himself a little bit.

Favorite tracks: Real Friends, Ultralight Beam, & NMPILA. I didn't hate 30 hours, but I didn't think it had the creativity that Kanye claims to love so much. And a lot of the tracks I liked were mostly the featured artist more so than Ye. Overall conclusion: HOV's going to have to try a little harder if he wants to get a stronger base of paying Tidal members.

 

[Aladyyn]

Can't wait until TLOP gets on Spotify

someone put me out of my misery pls

 

[Byrne]

I absolutely loved TLOP. I wrote a review on another forum using a pretty common format there (tracks in blue are "true love", green is love, orange is meh, white is dislike, red is hate) that I'll quote below if anyone's interested:

Title: The Life of Pablo
Artist: Kanye West
Genre: Hip Hop
Familiarity: Extremely, I've heard his whole discography

1. Ultralight Beam: What a way to start an album. I love the reversed synths mixed with the gorgeous gospel singing, and Chance's verse is utterly fantastic. Definitely the best-rapped verse on the whole album. I understand this was initially intended to be the closer, I think it would've worked exceptionally in either spot. There's something weirdly both goosebumps-inducing and catchy hearing Kanye say "we on an ultralight beam" as a gospel choir belts out amazing stuff behind him. There's kind of a dichotomy there with Kanye's absurdity on one hand and the pure, angelic sounds of a black choir on the other.
2. Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1: I absolutely adore the production on this one (a statement I'll be making a lot throughout this review). A lot of people criticize this song for having the goofy set of lines "Now if I **** this model/And she just bleached her *******/And I get bleach on my t-shirt/I'ma feel like an *******"...and I don't blame them because that's pretty silly. Doesn't really hurt the track for me though, I especially love the moment the beat kicks in around 30 seconds in. Awesome stuff going on there.
3. Pt. 2: This track is much more rap oriented and I'm not quite as huge of a fan of the long mostly monotone verse Kanye busts out here. It's not quite that memorable after that but still enjoyable. I kinda dig the weird Imogen Heap-esque vocal near the end (actually is this a sample of her? I wouldn't be shocked).
4. Famous: I like the vocal hook that Rihanna does here, and the verses are solid with a nice dark beat. I also really enjoy the "bum bum bedum" thing that's going on in the second half, it's a lot of fun to listen to and weirdly catchy.
5. Feedback: Fucking love the synthy/guitar/whatever instrument that fronts this track most of the time. Awesome production on here the entire time, although the rest of the song isn't particularly memorable.
6. Low Lights: This one just sort of bores me, it's definitely a "low" point on the album which makes the title very apt lol. It does seem like an interlude of sorts I guess but there's a couple more interlude-esque songs coming up soon so this is not exactly my favorite stretch of tracks.
7. Highlights: Definitely better than Low Lights, this one has actually grown on me since first hearing it. There's nothing particular special here, it's just a solid Kanye track that comes and goes. I dig it.
8. Freestyle 4: This one's really weird. I love how it starts with the spooky sounding production that reminds me of a haunted house on Halloween or something. Near the end of the track though I'm not entirely sure what's going on anymore and it seems like Kanye's losing his damn mind. If he had developed the first half into the second half better this could've been a superb track.
9. I Love Kanye: Pretty nice little rap here from Kanye. Short, sweet, and to the point.
10. Waves: This one delayed production because Chance really wanted it on the album. I think the record is better for it primarily because this track breaks up the darker rap heavy tracks that we'd started to get into. This one has some very bright, fun production that reminds me of Graduation. It's kind of got a cheesy sound but I really don't mind it at all.
11. FML: Competes with Ultralight Beam for my favorite track here. The production is impeccable, and Kanye's rapping really works. I also think these are the best lyrics on the record, he makes some interesting references and rhythms here. The Weeknd's presence on this track is actually great, I love his hook as the chorus. The outro is simply sick. Just an awesome track through and through.
12. Real Friends: This one's been out for a while but I hadn't heard it until the album actually dropped. Definitely a solid track but it kind of flies by without making a huge impression on me.
13. Wolves: I really love the vocal sample that serves as the background here. The last minute of the song is awesome and reminds me of the music that plays to introduce the final boss of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Which is awesome in my book, thanks for the nostalgia Kanye. I love the dark feel to this track, it's a style that's hit-or-miss on this album but this song is definitely an example of a hit.
14. Silver Surfer Intermission: This obviously isn't an actual song but I kind of hate the inclusion of this. It's just pointless and inflates the runtime by another minute.
15. 30 Hours: This song isn't bad by any stretch but it's pretty long and I don't feel like it needs to be on the album. There's some pretty crappy lyrics thrown in here and there and it's not particularly memorable which is kind of what you want when you're winding down a record as long as this one. I think you could cut this out completely and you'd have a better album.
16. No More Parties in LA: I think the only track I heard before release simply because I couldn't resist checking out a Kanye track that features Kendrick. Didn't disappoint. The song isn't perfect but Madlib's production combined with Kendrick's excellent verses make this one of the best on what is a truly excellent album.
17. Facts (Charlie Heat Version): Cool use of samples on here, I really enjoy the intro. This is another really solid track that's heavy on Yeezy rapping and utilizes some of the darker, more booming beats that is on this album a lot.
18. Fade: Awesome beat on this one, I really dig that funky bass. This seems like a strange track to end the album on to be honest, but I guess there weren't any notably better options so this is what we have. Solid outro but I feel that Kanye should've gone for a bigger, more epic finale.

End Result: I obviously love this album overall. It's a little uneven and goes to some weird places but as a whole there's some brilliant production and as a musician it's truly a pleasure to listen to and analyze.

Love or Hate?: True Love

 

[g]

I mean most of what I feel about the album has been said by Fagtron and 49 but as someone who has never been a big fan of kanye I can't really say the lack of a concept or cohesion is something that bothers me too much but as usual the use of autotune and his lyrics kinda let me down.
There are a few very good tracks (and a fee thay i just cant stand) just like on all of his albums but I know this isn't really an album for me anyway to begin with so I'll just say it felt like his other ones outside of the lack of "concept"

 

[Parpar]

For TLOP, I feel as if the LP had no general direction. You would think it something more beautiful considering the many changes it went through. If anything I feel the album was an assortment of songs he felt were "good" and just put together. There are only a few gems. I applaud the great use of samples and production (Donnie Trumpet, Madlib, etc). The GOOD Friday songs were the best songs (minus Facts) imo. Over time I might grow to appreciate it more like Yeezus but TLOP doesn't really sit well with me atm. Overall the album is like a 5/10.

Also, Tuck Fidal.

 

[danilo]

Not disappointed b/c I didn't expect this to be good. Everything about the roll out suggested a rush, half baked record, and that's what we got. The album starts off with an amazing song, continues with a pretty good one, and then we get Pt.2, where Kanye decides to sample a Future wanna-be for whatever reason. The sample is actually ridiculous. Kanye straight up samples the whole song, and just puts his voice on top of it for whatever reason. Lazy Kanye.

And that's what this album is to me - lazy. I like this album musically, but it's so chopped and screwed with short songs that don't develop, and Kanye's rapping is even worse than the majority of Yeezus. Even Kendrick couldn't bother to spit something anywhere near his potential.

For all this album's flaws, I can see myself coming back to it and enjoying it further. The absurdity of TLOP is its main appeal. Still, this is an album Kanye could've afforded not to release. All of his past albums were influential. I don't see this being influential. Yeezus was okay, but influential. 808s was bad, but massively influential. The Life of Pablo is just bad.

 

[danilo]

for hip hop standards in 2016 this album is far above it. if kanye breaks up with kim, i'm expecting MBDTF 2.

lol wut?

 

[Lavos]

TLOP is absolute garbage but I can't say I'm surprised

I'm stuck in a time capsule when rappers actually factual

edit: from track "30 Hours" **TRIGGER WARNING** "I wake up, all veggies no eggs, I hit the gym, all chest no legs"

yeah we can tell

 

[danilo]

the beat switch at the end of famous is absolutely brilliant

 

[Audiosurfer]

i enjoyed TLOP. other things i liked:

• 'Islah' by Kevin Gates (album)
• 'Good To Love' by fka Twigs (new track)

haven't listened to much music from this year in general though so hopefully i'll catch up and find some gems over spring break or something.

Edit: how did I forget 'The Wheel' by PJ Harvey? Quality stuff that has me lookin forward to the album, thanks 49 for reminding me.

 

[col49]

as a big fka twigs fan, I also really dug that track. interesting to hear her over less dense production. that kevin gates project was kinda vapid for me tho =(

been letting the new animal collective sit, and while I think it is being critiqued a little more harshly for being from them (which I wouldn't necessarily call unfair), it isn't fantastic. there are some really great tracks mixed in there, but it kinda lacks the manic energy to drive a lot of ideas sprinkled around. still worth a listen, but it's not comparing to their 2000's discography idt. hopefully pj harvey will deliver w/her upcoming album haha

 

[Deschain]

new Lushlife album is pretty dope.

 

[danilo]

that fka twigs song was pretty fucking wack. without the glitch/idm/wonky music there's not much to her. her voice isn't much of anything. sounded a lot like a top 50 billboard ballad.

 

[Lavos]

and suddenly there was a new kendrick album

 

[Plus]

Listening to this Kendrick album that dropped outta nowhere and it is str8 fire