late review
I must stop trying make things I write for this blog comprehensive, or I'll never get anything posted to it at all, and it'll all be very frustrating. This was intended to be a track-by-track breaksown of Kanye West's Late Registration, which in itself is a frustrating album, because it manages to display an awful lot of talent, whilst ultimately not being very good. It's not just that it's inconsistent and patchy: that was also true of The College Dropout to an extent.
The problem is also that the good tracks on this album are as numerous or as good in themselves as the best tracks on College Dropout. And I say that having given Late Reg time to grow on me, on the basis that I was initially ambivalent about Dropout, but ended up listening to it constantly and considering it one of my favourite albums of 2005. Without wishing to tabulate these things too much, the best track here is 'Gone', and it isn't quite as good as 'Last Call', the best track on his debut. Equally, 'Drive Slow' stands out a mile here in terms of quality, but might not have done quite so much on his debut.
Anyway, here's how far I got with the track-by-track stuff:
'Heard 'Em Say'
Con: features the singer from Maroon 5.
Pro: despite that, this is actually pretty good - Maroon 5 guy is just confined to some vaguely generic backing vocals, and doesn't really indulge in any of the distinctively bad vocal ticks which help make Maroon 5 records the disaster they are. Nice piano sample, and lyrics make me think of 'We Don't Care' in terms of tone - that almost fatalistic attitude towards life being shit that Kanye sometimes comes with.
'Touch The Sky'
Con: I actually think 'Touch The Sky' makes Kanye seem a lot like Puffy (circa several years ago now) - the obviousness of the sample, the slightly clumsy rapping, the smug-and-corny shouts of "Top of the world, baby!"
Pro: Then again, I may be one of the few people here who doesn't think that's entirely a bad thing. When I'm in the right mood, this song really amps me up (the secret is to play it as loud as possible). And I love the lines about Cam'Ron and pink Polos.
'Gold Digger'
To chop up what I said on Stylus...
Con: Kanye West's increasingly rubbish attitude to women - "I want to touch their bottoms but what if they steal all my lovely money?" - which wouldn't bother me if stupid stupid journalists for broadsheet newspapers and the like didn't tend to call him a refreshing alternative to macho sexist gangsta rap, or whatever.
Pro: The beat is 100% irresistable brilliance, particularly the sound that comes in around 2 minutes 42 seconds in. I could listen to that sound for hours. Also time has revealed that this one sticks with you - you find yourself wanting to hear it out as often as possible, so you can do the Jamie Foxx dance to it.
'Drive Slow'
Pro: Doesn't have something on it that annoys me. Makes me wonder what the Paul Wall album is like.
'Home' / 'Crack Music'
Con: I still cannot get over the way you have a solo Common track followed by a track on which The Game says like three words. Wrong way round, Kanye!
Pro: Shame too 'cos 'Crack Music' is a good beat, it could just do without that monologue at the end, and needs a guest verse.
'Bring Me Down'
I quite like 'Bring Me Down', but it's a bit too much of an inferior re-tread of 'Never Let Me Down'.
'Diamonds From Sierra Leone'
Incidentally, if Jay-Z has a cunning plan to make everybody so desperate for him to come out of retirement to such an extent that nobody ever accuses him of having planned the whole thing in the first place... He's going about it the right way.
'Hey Mama'
Pro: I've read even critics who give the album a good review dissing this as mawkish and corny or whatever. I mostly disagree: it stood out as one of my immediate favourites, that production is so LUSH, and the sentiment's no more 'mawkish' than Ghostface's 'All That I Got Is U'.
Con: Those lines about his mum being like a book of poetry are a bit much. If it was just one line, that would probably be okay, but to extent the metaphor... Ick.
'We Major'
I'm still annoyed by the way Kanye says "We major? We major!" - it's sort of over-intoned. What I like about is, I suppose, the Nas verse - the way he seems to have developed a tone of voice that says "No, I've never equalled that first album, but on the other hand, I do spend a lot of time with Kelis. With no clothes on."
'Gone'
Pro: Will definitely be on my songs of the year list if I make one. That Cam'Ron verse!
Con: I'm not sure there is one, but I might come back to this.
'We Can Make It Better'
Con: This, on the other hand, borders on the unforgiveable.
The Skits
Pro: No, there is nothing good about the skits either.
Con: The other day, I was on the Tube with this album on 'random' and got two "broke, broke broke!" skits in a row. At that moment, had Kanye appeared in front of me wearing one of his Noel Edmunds jumpers, I think I might have punched him on the nose.
I must stop trying make things I write for this blog comprehensive, or I'll never get anything posted to it at all, and it'll all be very frustrating. This was intended to be a track-by-track breaksown of Kanye West's Late Registration, which in itself is a frustrating album, because it manages to display an awful lot of talent, whilst ultimately not being very good. It's not just that it's inconsistent and patchy: that was also true of The College Dropout to an extent.
The problem is also that the good tracks on this album are as numerous or as good in themselves as the best tracks on College Dropout. And I say that having given Late Reg time to grow on me, on the basis that I was initially ambivalent about Dropout, but ended up listening to it constantly and considering it one of my favourite albums of 2005. Without wishing to tabulate these things too much, the best track here is 'Gone', and it isn't quite as good as 'Last Call', the best track on his debut. Equally, 'Drive Slow' stands out a mile here in terms of quality, but might not have done quite so much on his debut.
Anyway, here's how far I got with the track-by-track stuff:
'Heard 'Em Say'
Con: features the singer from Maroon 5.
Pro: despite that, this is actually pretty good - Maroon 5 guy is just confined to some vaguely generic backing vocals, and doesn't really indulge in any of the distinctively bad vocal ticks which help make Maroon 5 records the disaster they are. Nice piano sample, and lyrics make me think of 'We Don't Care' in terms of tone - that almost fatalistic attitude towards life being shit that Kanye sometimes comes with.
'Touch The Sky'
Con: I actually think 'Touch The Sky' makes Kanye seem a lot like Puffy (circa several years ago now) - the obviousness of the sample, the slightly clumsy rapping, the smug-and-corny shouts of "Top of the world, baby!"
Pro: Then again, I may be one of the few people here who doesn't think that's entirely a bad thing. When I'm in the right mood, this song really amps me up (the secret is to play it as loud as possible). And I love the lines about Cam'Ron and pink Polos.
'Gold Digger'
To chop up what I said on Stylus...
Con: Kanye West's increasingly rubbish attitude to women - "I want to touch their bottoms but what if they steal all my lovely money?" - which wouldn't bother me if stupid stupid journalists for broadsheet newspapers and the like didn't tend to call him a refreshing alternative to macho sexist gangsta rap, or whatever.
Pro: The beat is 100% irresistable brilliance, particularly the sound that comes in around 2 minutes 42 seconds in. I could listen to that sound for hours. Also time has revealed that this one sticks with you - you find yourself wanting to hear it out as often as possible, so you can do the Jamie Foxx dance to it.
'Drive Slow'
Pro: Doesn't have something on it that annoys me. Makes me wonder what the Paul Wall album is like.
'Home' / 'Crack Music'
Con: I still cannot get over the way you have a solo Common track followed by a track on which The Game says like three words. Wrong way round, Kanye!
Pro: Shame too 'cos 'Crack Music' is a good beat, it could just do without that monologue at the end, and needs a guest verse.
'Bring Me Down'
I quite like 'Bring Me Down', but it's a bit too much of an inferior re-tread of 'Never Let Me Down'.
'Diamonds From Sierra Leone'
Incidentally, if Jay-Z has a cunning plan to make everybody so desperate for him to come out of retirement to such an extent that nobody ever accuses him of having planned the whole thing in the first place... He's going about it the right way.
'Hey Mama'
Pro: I've read even critics who give the album a good review dissing this as mawkish and corny or whatever. I mostly disagree: it stood out as one of my immediate favourites, that production is so LUSH, and the sentiment's no more 'mawkish' than Ghostface's 'All That I Got Is U'.
Con: Those lines about his mum being like a book of poetry are a bit much. If it was just one line, that would probably be okay, but to extent the metaphor... Ick.
'We Major'
I'm still annoyed by the way Kanye says "We major? We major!" - it's sort of over-intoned. What I like about is, I suppose, the Nas verse - the way he seems to have developed a tone of voice that says "No, I've never equalled that first album, but on the other hand, I do spend a lot of time with Kelis. With no clothes on."
'Gone'
Pro: Will definitely be on my songs of the year list if I make one. That Cam'Ron verse!
Con: I'm not sure there is one, but I might come back to this.
'We Can Make It Better'
Con: This, on the other hand, borders on the unforgiveable.
The Skits
Pro: No, there is nothing good about the skits either.
Con: The other day, I was on the Tube with this album on 'random' and got two "broke, broke broke!" skits in a row. At that moment, had Kanye appeared in front of me wearing one of his Noel Edmunds jumpers, I think I might have punched him on the nose.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home