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The West denies change, defies change... resists change. But change is the basic nature of everything that is.... And this is how philosophy, art, morality and certain other things are established. But all established things are temporary, and the nature of being is, like music, changing."
-- James Stewart, "The Development of the Black Revolutionary Artist" (1968)
How to approach the spectacle that has become popular music: A world where artists make more money from ringtones than album sales; where child stars are lured from their disheveled fade into oblivion simply to be mocked for being disheveled and fading into oblivion. These are tenuous times for those at the top. This anxiety permeates Kanye West 's third studio album, Graduation, which lives up to the hype generated by his sales "feud" with gangsta rapper 50 Cent.
It is an album of foreboding, futuristic synths and eerie organs. "Good Morning" opens the album nicely with a breezy Elton John vocal sample and playful boasting. The first single, "Can't Tell Me Nothing," with its paranoid, Dr. Dre-esque strings, directly addresses the notion of loneliness at the top. ("I feel the pressure/Under more scrutiny/And what I do?/Act more stupidly/Bought more jewelry/More Louis V/My mom couldn't get through to me/The drama, people suin' me/I'm on TV/Talking like it's just you and me.") The '85 Prince-like "Flashing Lights" engagingly chronicles the ups and downs of life with a high maintenance girlfriend. The Daft Punk-sampled second single, "Stronger," is irrestistible and crackles with the urgency that we've come to expect from a Kanye single. Only he could turn a song about an insecure rap star sweating a girl in the club into a motivational anthem.
Clearly, Kanye was comfortable with the society he lived in as he created the self-deprecating, audacious underdog debut, The College Dropout, and reveled in the celebratory, I-told-you-so jubilation of his second album, Late Registration. But where Late Registration sounds like someone who has been around the world once, Graduation sounds like someone who's done that four or five times and is now wondering if life might be better on Saturn or Mars. It is his darkest work, and his trimmest, with the least to prove. Consider it his Axis: Bold As Love. Even the cover art -- Otaku-inspired Superflat with Kanye's ubiquitous bear mascot catapulted into the universe -- bears witness to his disenchantment with (and attraction to) the superstardom he has finally achieved.
In spite of everything, he's remained true to himself. This is never more evident than in the melancholy "Everything I Am," in which he paints himself as ordinary in contrast to other music icons and society in general. ("I'll never be picture perfect Beyonce/Light as Al B. or as black as Chauncey/Remember him from Blackstreet, he was as black as the street was/I'll never be as laid back as this beat was.") Songs like this and the Toomp-produced "Big Brother" -- a poignant summary of his mercurial relationship with his idol/boss Jay-Z -- suggest the variable nature of his self-confidence, a rare sentiment in this "A Bay Bay" rap climate.
There aren't many cameos on this album and most are disappointing. Mos Def does yet another wasted guest spot (is he going for the Guinness World Record?) on the malicious "Drunk and Hot Girls," a studio joke that should've stayed so. Lil' Wayne drops shattering verses on everything he touches, yet seems bored with "Barry Bonds." And while "Homecoming" is a nice (if obvious) allegory about Kanye's Luke 4:24 situation with his hometown of Chicago, there's something about Britain's Chris Martin singing about "fireworks at Lake Michigan" that smacks of insincerity.
But these are more music biz concessions than grand failures. Where Late Registration celebrated his growth as a producer, Graduation astounds with his growth as a writer. (Peep the ABACBACAC rhyme flow 47 seconds into "Good Life.") Consequently, it improves with each listen, and prods -- once again -- a slumping genre of music to broaden their horizons -- or at least die trying.
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tracey kelley
9.23.07 @ 10:00a
I have tried really hard to like "Mr. West." Truly. But I'm blinded by the constant hype that smothers meaning and the insular nature of the lyrics. It's a problem I have with most of popular music today.
Why, for example, should I give a tinker's damn about the "sales feud"? Who spun this, exactly? When did music need such a popularity contest meter? And how can I enjoy a simple song when I have someone's purse/clothing/perfume line being shoved at me, too?
Yesterday, I absorbed Sia's Lady Croissant, Amos Lee's Supply and Demand, and Kings of Convenience's Quiet is the New Loud a few times over. Obviously, it was a mood thing, because all three of these strike that mellow sunny afternoon chord.
But, for better or worse, I wasn't clogged with images from newspaper headlines, duct-taped shirts, or venetian blind sunglasses. I enjoyed the music for what it was, a lyrical pursuit of life as it relates to anyone.
Tragically, these artists will probably never know the popular "perils" that West often sings about.
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