Mine is The Life of Pablo. Everything else out sounds like little toy music for plastic people who live in ticky-tacky houses and go to church and shit.

Kids table music. All of it. David Bowie and Flume are the only competition that would be insulting. Maybe that Not Waving joint too.

TLOP nonstop. Masterpiece. Damn that "Famous" track w/ Rihanna is the hottest fucking thing in the world!

Can't tell me that "wake up Mr. West!" line doesn't get you bro.

I feel like the beats and music on this record are objectively amazing.

I had my girlfriend throwing her hands in the air during the second half of "Famous" ....

Did anyone read that NPR piece? Anyone at all?

The Life Of Pablo gets a 9.0 rating + BNM status on Pitchfork.

http://m.pitchfork.com/reviews/album...life-of-pablo/

I hate the way Pitchfork determines and decides how successful an album is. I hate that every publication in the world could hate an album, but if Pitchfork loves it, it's a success, even if it bombs. I hate this because they have ultimate veto power over everything, and they can damage a career by giving an artist a low rating.

But I'm not going to lie.... I'm psyched and relieved that Pitchfork and NPR both seem to hear the album the way I hear it.

I haven't read the review yet. Will get to it in the am. It's late and I must get to sleep, but I think we can call it at this point: TLOP is a success. Even if it flops commercially.

That Pitchfork review was more about Kanye's Twitter account than the actual album. They gave Ye's public image a 9.0, congrats I guess but even in that aspect he deserved like a 4.0 for all the dumb shit he said in the last few weeks.

In one last rug pull, Kanye claimed that the "Pablo" of the title was neither Escobar nor Picasso, but St. Paul of Tarsus ("Pablo" in Spanish).

Disappointed to be honest..

Man College Dropout, Late Registration and yes even Graduation are amazing lyrically for me. 808s is not a rap album so whatever. Yeezus had its share of dumb lines but I thought they fitted the aesthetic of the album, it was so underground and raw.. and I thought he would bounce back from that on his next one too. Not to mention it also had some substance (like the lyrics I pointed out a while back, when I called them overlooked) which I can't find in TLOP at all.

This little video is gonna make you happy then: https://twitter.com/hotfreestyle/sta...69623606345728

As well as this one: https://twitter.com/andersonpaak/sta...41292966854656

But... But... There is substance.
Even if it's just on "Real Friends," "NMPILA," "Wolves," "30 Hours," (I pick these because they're song you have claimed to like, right?)... Even if it's only those tracks, that's still four out of this world songs. I think College Dropout only has about 4 truly out of this world tracks...

"Famous" (dude this is seriously my favorite Kanye track since pre-Yeezus)

I am not trying to convince you to like the album. I AM trying to convince you to give it more time. And I'm definitely trying to convince you to NOT allow this one disappointment to ruin Ye for you.

Sorry bro, I'm not trying to troll you here. But we're stuck in a bit of a stalemate. The more you diss the album, the more I'm probably going to praise it and question you about it. I don't want to piss you off, but I also don't want you talking crazy, saying you're rethinking all of his music.

I stressed a bit about "dumb" lines on Yeezus at first too. But now I think it totally works. There are lines that can be viewed as "dumb" on every album. Especially hip hop albums. But what can I say, I don't actually believe Kanye's dumb in any way (except for socially). I think he knows how to sound profound (which he does, many times on this album... I don't know the lyrics well enough yet to quote A ton of examples but whatever), and I think he knows how to sound pigheaded and dumbassed, and I think it's all ALWAYS been part of Kanye's aesthetic.

Look at the chorus of Runaway, the best song he's ever done in my opinion.
Toast for the douchebags and assholes, really? Lyrics about sending dick picks to bitches? In a love song?! How does that even work? I don't know... I can't explain it. But it totally works!

His "dumb" lines are systematically linked to his most beautiful songs, his ugliest moments are what make his best moments so great. I think he's of particular significance to men becaus he reflects back at us feelings we can all relate to about how we've viewed women, mistreated women, been assholes to our girlfriends and wives, but he also reflects back the best of us. The instinct we have to provide and protect and love our wives and mothers and daughters.

His music is real in a way that assclowns like Future (no offense, Future, you had your moments bro) never will. He says the things we all think (not literally of course, but he says awful things just like we all think awful things and he says heartwrenchingly beautiful things just like we all think lovely things..) he says it, shouts it, expresses to the entire world what we keep bottled up.

The baser instincts of humanity are a huge part of Kanye's personal appeal for me. Love him or hate him, you can't really say he doesn't own his shit.

Actually they kinda went song-by-song... they talked about his image, but what they had to say was not super complimentary.

I thought you'd like the review, because it says a lot of the same things you've said (albeit without the apocalyptically negative bent l), calling the album sloppy and hastily out together. But they still found excellence in it. They even took that "bleached asshole" line you hate and called it, what was it.. The most "unforgivably stupid thing he's ever said in an album?" Was that it?

But still, they see that it's a Kanye album, and that Kanye knows what he's doing and has dropped another Fucking masterpiece on us. Because they're usually pretty spot on about Kanye, and this album is FULL of excellent moments.

Dude can I just ask you, as a friend, to please not give up on Kanye just because one album *finally* didn't blow you away. Honestly, you may hate the lyrics, but if you told me that this album was musically crap, I would not believe you. Your taste in hip-hop and in music in general is too good for that. It's very obviously a beautiful and hard hitting album scattered with revelatory musical moments and some of the best beats ye's put on a record in 6 years.

I tried to PM you about this shit because I thought maybe we could rap about it (aww' check my pun skills yo!) more comfortably without basically arguing publically with one another (for the first time I can remember). Maybe we should switch this convo over to a pm chat to make it a little less "BLAH!" Because I seriously don't want to offend or set you off, but I am really curious to hear your responses to some of my questions that you haven't gotten around to yet.

Eh?

I should say though, that I definitely think this is Kanye's "Let it Be" ... Yes it's something new for him, but it's not an absolute game-changer. It's a comfortable album, with Kanye being Kanye, not trying to reinvent the wheel, but simply making a really fucking badass wheel that rolls super good :cool:

There's a line in the Pitchfork review that stuck out to me. It said something like "it sounds as if Kanye's is still furiously mixing the album and making changes even as it's playing through your headphones" ... This nails it. Because it does feel a bit all over the place. In terms of flow, it's somewhere between Cruel Summer and Yeezus, with these brief reprieves bringing a little bit of "Dropout" and "LR" back into the fray.

Or maybe it's Kanye's Abbey Road? Abbey Road sounds inconsistent as hell, like you're being slammed with a different song ever couple of seconds, even wen you're listening to a song that encompasses the entire second side! But Abbey Road had a bit of everything on it. Thrown at you with abandon, the Beatles just playing themselves instead of other characters for the first time in ages.

So I get the "sloppy" comments, and I get that it sounds unpolished... But again, what can we expect from Ye other than the unexpected? Who expected him to suddenly stop being an anal retentive mad scientist who spends a thousand hours on a single track? Not I. And yet that's what he did. And as Kanye fans. We should know better than to wish this sounded more like "old Kanye".... Though in all honestly it sounds more like MBDTF than anything else he's done.

Ok, I'm gonna take a breath here. Maybe go listen to that Anderson (no dot!) Paak joint you guys are so fired up about.

Can't wait to hear what the rest of you think of the Life of Pablo. Can't wait to have a discussion about it with the whole crew. Even if every opinion is different, I, like louder, totally value all the input that comes into this thread. I'm proud of the Café, boys. Can't believe it... I was like a different person when I pestered Louder to start a recurring hip-hop thread to help me get back into the genre.

It worked dude. If there was an SYG award for thread making, you'd win the fuck out of it.

HOLY WOW! THAT SHIT IS HOT!

Why have I been sleeping on this dude again? I'm going to buy his fuckin album on iTunes right this second.

The very reasons i didn't like the tone of Yeezus because frankly i didn't think it was just being artistic for the concept of that album. To me it felt like this was the direction he was going.. not surprised at all to see it follow on this new record.

But if I know you, you probably haven't heard the new record. (?)

'Cause it's absolutely nothing like Yeezus. Entirely different direction. Nothing alike. Some of the lyrics may be closer to Yeezus lyrics than those on MBDTF, in terms of approach and subject matter, but still not on the same tip as Yeezus.

And I thought you didn't like Yeezus because you absolutely hate Kanye West, as you've stated hundreds of times over the years. I think you've expressed an appreciation for "Jesus Walks" once or twice, but that's it. ?

Real! He's very very talented.

Yeezus felt super blunt and rushed to me at first. I also thought it was more than Kanye was just getting lazy than that he was making some grand statement about music or culture, or deliberately trying to challenge people. That smelled like a bit of an excuse to me at the time, and I'm still irritated that the album had no cover art.

But it really makes quite a bit of sense to me now. I think it was deliberate. And I think it was a great fucking album... Exactly what hip-hop needed. It lit a fire under everyone's ass, and it plays from beginning to end with no let up. It's the culmination of his aesthetic protests that started with 808's. It was a reminder that you don't need glitz to make a great hip hop album. You don't need to make the best, or be the biggest or brightest to turn the genre on its head. All you need is passion, something to say (doesn't need to be Walt Fucking Whitman, just needs to matter to you), and Kanye had a lot to say on that album, about himself and his frustration and his image and his sadness.

Even if you hate it, you can't point to another rap album and say "Yeezus sounds like that" because it only sounds like Yeezus. Any time an artist can pull that off, it's a success. Yeezus started out as lower on my list of albums for 2013 than 12 Reasons to Die and The Terror. It ended at #1, and I've listened to it many times between 2013 and now. No so with those other albums. Not a bit.

Bought the album and I'm jamming to it right now while working from home. Hot shit, bro.

Yeezus is still great. TLOP just happens to be that one Kanye album I don't mess with. It had to happen eventually and yes it makes me a little sad, not to mention confused (due to how the majority of the world seems to love the record and hear it differently than myself), but everyone and their mother had "duds" in their discography before, including each and every one of Ye's idols, so it's really not the end of the world.

That's what's up! I love the album.

Glad to hear you say that man. I mean it's one thing for you to not like the album, but it would be tragic if you said "that's it- I no longer like Kanye West, now I'm a hater."

I still think the record will end up growing on you, because you've got a better feel for hot beats than anyone I know. Sometimes I don't even realize a song is good until I hear your take on it. You helped me get over my Kanye "hump" (hating without having really heard everything from the first half of his career), and you've helped me get over the fact that even though I *hate* Drake's bitch ass and about half of his music, the other half is fire, no matter how lame he is.

So i have confidence that you'll come to at least a neutral point with this record.

BUT, Kanye's music aside, I have to admit that even I hung my head in shame when I read this shit:

This is some sad shit.

Yeah, TLOP is the hottest kind of fire (in my always humble opinion), but I think Kanye's severely bipolar, and his name checking of lexapro and psychiatry is real talk. I don't know that he's on coke, but I was almost a neuropsychologist (#TheGradSchoolDropout), and I know quite a bit about the patterns of severe type one BPD. I think Kanye has it. Possibly autism as well. But this is a manic episode if I've ever seen one. In that sense, I think he is sick.

MUSIC STILL BEST IN THE WORLD THO!

Nah don't, I'm enjoying it.

I told you many times Sev, I don't judge or attack music nonchalantly.. indeed the last time you called me out I sat there for over THREE HOURS listening to Kanye albums on YouTube only to realize exactly why I don't own a single one! I don't like Yeezus because the lyrics are absolute trash and the production is meh.. there was some potential. Indeed when I first saw Black Slaves on SNL i was like, "Whoa, I might actually dig this record!"

Then it turned out to essentially be glorifying a night at the strip club and I was like... "yeah this is what happens when people can get laid with any girl they want, they lose sight of perspective and think with their dick too much."

No matter what, I just do not enjoy listening to Mr. West's voice. Lyrics matter not, beat matters not, as long as it is his vocal chords and mouth making the wordsounds? Count me out.

I'm not trying to jab at you dude. I just don't remember you ever being open to Kanye. All I meant was that I didn't realize you were ever even on the fence about Yeezus. Not even for a second. But I don't remember everything.

I do know that one of the first time I talked to you about Kanye, NR, louder and I were having one of our little Yeezy cheerleading practices, and you said you couldn't stand him. I said something like "I used to hate the guy too, but now I'm addicted. You should listen to MBDTF or Graduation" and I think you said sorry bro, been there, done that.

So I had the impression that you knew why you didn't like him long ago. I didn't know you spent 3 hours actually listening to the songs I was recommending. Thad cool of you, though.

Anyway, I know you're not the type to judge music (or to judge people based on their choices in music) rashly. I've got crazy respect for you SFAD, even if you hate Kanye and Jay-Z (and probably Aphex Twin and Flaming Lips and VU and Dilla and all the other artists I hold most dear) ... not trying to start a beef here. I love you even though you probably think I'm a musical simpleton with cotton and gum in my ears.

Fair enough man. I still love your cantankerous ass too. You goddamn nerd ;)

I feel like it should be noted that I almost never use the words "bro" or "dude" in my day to day life. Nor do I refer to music as "fire," or go on tirades about things. This thread brings some wild shit out in me.

I wish we'd all gone to college together. Could have made a dope sitcom out of all of us sharing a common area in a dorm.

Like i said, look back we had this very discussion. I even went through all the lyrics on Yeezus on rap genius just to make sure i was being fair

Like i said, look back we had this very discussion. I even went through all the lyrics on Yeezus on rap genius just to make sure i was being fair

We woulda drank a lot

Yall should know i speak even more raw in person. Its a wonder i can pull off code switching when i am teaching or at church to not be talking like Eazy E

To be fair, Yeezus didn't sound like Kanye either. Neither did MBDTF. Cruel Summer and WTT fit pretty well with MBDTF, but both of those albums sucked compared to MBDTF even though they were dope as hell.

And Graduation didn't sound like it even came from the same genre as LR, which was already an absolute restructuring of the College Dropout's aesthetic.

So yeah, it doesn't sound like Kanye, but that kinda means it sounds like Kanye, doesn't it?

And hey, don't say Real Friends sounds like Drake. I hate to go back to that Rolking Stone article, but Kanye invented Drake. Kanye invented Future. Kanye invented fucking Young Thug, and Kendrick Lamar, and every modern rapper making even the slightest impact. That Rolling Stone article said as much, and it's true. So with nothing but Kanyes everywhere you look, hip-hop is essentially a Kanye West product at this point. How can you fault him for sounding like popular hip-hop when popular hip-hop was built on him?

I respect your opinion, but this is a battle Kanye can't win if you hold him to insanely high expectations. It means that if he EVER stops makes a "good" album instead of a "great" album, you're going to look at him like he's a failure!

He's not trying to reinvent shit here. He's just being Kanye. And if any of you (except for the folks who genuinely hate Kanye and always have) try to tell me that this is a truly "bad" album, I'm gonna call bulkshit on you. It may not be your favorite Kanye album, but I've got all the year's big new hip-hop releases. I've heard them. And TLOP makes each and every one of them sound boring and fucking castrated by comparison.

I'll agree right now that this is not as good as MBDTF, but when is anything in hip-hop ever going to be that good again?

The last Beatles album sounded very much like a traditional rock record. There were a lot of bands that were making music in that scruffy, cusp of the 70's vein by that point. But are you going to tell me "Let it Be" isn't a brilliant song?

Did you bitch that Free As A Bird sounded like an Oasis ripoff? Come on. Be reasonable.

King D'Angelo won 2 Grammy awards! Congratulations!!!

Ok, so I think I've identified what it is about this album that I love so much. I'm actually trying to hear the negative now, straining to even, but man... I just can't. And do you know why that is?

It's because this music is fucking ecstatic. It's booming and it's joyful and it sounds like it was ripped right out of Ye's (and Chance's, Thug's, Kendrick's) chests. Even the sad songs have an almost heavenly sound to them. Even the big beat tracks (talking about Feedback) just force me to feel. That's such a huge part of music for me. The feeling that I can't fight. All of my favorite music is music I can't deny, and this album is liberating in its absolute "I don't give a fuck"-ness, and the positivity and gravity of its sound.

It makes me smile. It makes me want to bounce. It makes me sad. But I tell ya, I didn't think Kanye would ever make music that sounded this open and alive ever again.

Basically, louder, you pretty much got your wish! Kanye made a pretty fucking happy album, dude! Yeezus was an excercise in pinpointing anxiety and panic and rage. This album has some serious moments but it's also got *funny* moments (I'm the ghetto Oprah! You get a fur, you get a fur, you get a check, you get a check, WOO!) like on Dropout, only ... You know... actually kinda funny, not totally skipable.

When Famous segues into that Bam Bam sample with the choral scale behind it (thanks Pitchfork for teaching me how to describe that) it's EPIC. Waves? Epic! ULB is fucking epic. These are the most positive moments on a Kanye album since Graduation.

I really wish at least one person here would agree with me and (NPR and Pitchfork, and the folks on torrent sites), but ultimately it doesn't matter. This album makes me incredibly happy. As long as I can see Kanye live when he's touring behind this, I'd be pretty damn happy if he called it quits for good. All that really matters for me is how it feels going into my earholes. And it feels like heroin made in heaven.

See that's ok man. I'm glad you like some of it. I'm not flipping out, and I can totally dig what you're saying. I'd be a real pussy if I got mad just because people didn't like what I like. My dad thinks Jack Kerouac was a shit writer. Do I hate him? Well... Kind of, but that's because he's legitimately an asshole and a bit of a horrible person, so.... Bad example... Point is, I can handle you not loving the record. And I'm stoked that you enjoy some of it.

Just, please, don't ever say that Kanye is ripping off anyone... Least of all Drake. Please. Just, as a friend, humor me.... and never say that again. ;)

Apart from Real Friends and No More Parties and 30 hours, all of which very clearly have amazing lyrics, these are some of the more overlooked moments where Ye totally sounds like Ye, and is either clever as hell in an adorably smug asshole way, or just plain kills it with a perfect line:



"I know I know I shouldn't even bother
With all these gossipin' no-pussy-gettin' bloggers

"Hands up / we just doin what the cops taught us
Hands up hands up then the cops shot us"

"i aint scared to lose a fist fight
And she grabbing on my - like
Wanna see if it'll fit right
...
Sun can't shine in the shade
Bird can't fly in a cage
Even when somebody go away
The feelings don't really go away"

:)

Which ones?

Man he should have been up for Album of the Year. What bullshit. If Kendrick doesn't win that award at least, I'm gonna fly off the handle.

R&B album of the year and R&B record of the year for Really Love. That was just the pre show. The main event starts at 8pm. Kendrick already won 3 awards too.. and he's gonna perform there! History in the making!

There's definitely a "curator" vibe to the album. I can agree with that. It's why I say its closest sonically to MBDTF and Cruel Summer.

Again, I'm sorry for just talking and taking and blah blah fucking blah, and I am not offended by your opinion. I genuinely don't think it sounds like anyone else. Not at all. It's not monotone and mumbly enough to fit in with radio rap. I listen to a lot of hip-hop, and I can't think of anything that sounds like this record. Not even the new Pusha T. So ... I guess I don't see what you're seeing. But whatever, doesn't matter.

I'm starting to feel pretty embarrassed about how much taking I've done about this. If I was on the fence about the album, I'd read my comments and go from optimistic to fatigued to "someone shoot me in the Fucking head now and never talk about Kanye West again."