New Jersey White Boy's Rap of the Week: Yeezus by Kanye West

Fun Fact - This picture was actually from 2006 for the cover of Rolling Stone,
after Late Registration tore up the Grammys

So, I’ve been bumping Yeezus all day, every day. And let me tell you, it’s… slightly above average.

Kanye West has spent his career trying to reconcile his two halves – his pop-rap leanings, and pushing the boundaries of rap as an art. It started out as trying to talk about real issues during the time gangsta rap was massive. It moved to pushing other boundaries, like defining stadium rap sounds (Graduation), what emo rap is (808’s and Heartbreak), and dark sounds with rap (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). Here, we see him try to reconcile all of the iterations of Kanye, while pushing what industrial pop-rap sounds like. Think Death Grips, but meant for the radio/hood. If it sounds like a monumental task that might come out as a relatively incohesive mess, well, you’d be right.

The album essentially is in two parts – the more industrial, “fuck the system” first half, and the “I did what I wanted to do” second half. The first two singles, if you can call them that, “Black Skinhead” and “New Slaves” are standouts on the first half, criticizing corporations for exploiting people, but also the materialistic culture of young Americans who feed into it. He also addresses racism – the racism he sees from the rich white people he rubs shoulders with, along with the racism black culture throws at him for “acting white” (which might also be taken to rail against the “hood” mentality of a lot of young black people). The beats are open, dark, and rough, featuring blaring synths, distorted basslines, screams, scared panting, and heavy drums.

Where's Daniel Tosh to say "high fashion"

“I Am a God” will be the song people cite when they say how arrogant, douchey, and full of himself West is, because people don’t like to listen deeper than the music. But that’s a different article for another day. Regardless, with a title like that, it’s hard not to believe that it’s just based on his egotism. But I have a different theory, but you have to only look at this album, not at Ye, not at his public persona, nor at his earlier albums. This fits squarely in the criticism of the “hood” mentality. This is a hyperbolic brag that you would see Lil B The Based God do, who I’ve already established is a parody of the current state of rap (he named a mixtape God’s Father; come on). Lyrically, it’s a tad weak and laughable - “In a French-ass restaurant/Hurry up with my damn croissants” is an actual line from the song. He even has a conversation with Jesus, and rather than, you know, talking about real things with the GOD DAMN SON OF GOD, he chooses to spend that time bragging about how he’s “trying to stack these millions”. And every time “God” shows up, aka when “I am a God” is pitched down, Kanye screams, as though he’s being punished for saying something like that. To me, that sounds like a pretty harsh critique of the ridiculousness of the brags a lot of rappers put out (“I’m so fly I can sue an airplane”), and that by making these brags, they'll be punished in heaven for it. It’s hard to say if that’s right, but it would fit with the theme of the first half and makes me sound like an intellectual, so I’m going with that.

“Hold My Liquor” serves as a good transition from the first half of the album to the second half. Chief Keef is completely unrecognizable, slurring his way through an autotuned hook. And quite frankly, it’s the best thing Keef has ever done. He and Kanye are incredibly open and vulnerable about their alcohol abuse, saying how they “can’t handle no liquor”; they act reckless and stupid when drunk, but the pain of their daily life is too much to handle sober. However, Kanye, who has admitted to having an alcohol problem after the Swift Incident, is still (hopefully) sober 4 years later. So good for him. It also features Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) in a minimal role. It’s not a song that stands out on the album, but it is slowly becoming one of my favorite from the album.

Gasp! It's the Illuminati!

The second half of the album seems like it’s a bunch of leftover material from 808’s; a lot of depressing, break up lyrics. “Blood on the Leaves” takes an inspired, amazing sample of the Nina Simone version of “Strange Fruit”, the powerful poem/song about the brutal lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith and chops it up in a way only Yeezus could. The beat is amazing, like a more hyped up beat off of 808’s, and, like a beat off of 808’s, Kanye spends half of it “singing” with some heavy autotune. It talks about a rough divorce, along with a few recycled themes from “Gold Digger”. His character apparently married this girl while they were hitting up the club scene, and she wants to settle down a bit, but he can’t leave the nightlife. his pastor said abortion is wrong. So he loses his wife, and now is stuck in an “unholy matrimony” of paying child support to the other woman and alimony to first, making him unable to buy coke and another high-end car. I feel like he could have done something so much better with the beat and the themes of racism (you know, like what he talked about on the first half of the album) that the sample gives him. Hell, even the repetition of “blood on the leaves” could have been about the how people kill over drugs, and how it’s glorified in other rap songs. But nope, it’s a breakup song with a subplot about gold diggers and religion.
He gets a gold digging stripper or some other unreputable woman pregnant, and has to tell his wife, because that’s what a good person does. Oh, and because

The wordplay is hit or miss too, possibly intentionally. He must have been hanging out with 2Chainz 2much, because some of the lines he spits are the kind that belong in a True Religion store. “Star Wars fur, yeah I’m rocking Chewbacca”? “Eating asian pussy all I needed was sweet and sour sauce”? “Chopped ‘em both down/Don’t judge ‘em Joe Brown”? I mean, yeah, I like “your titties, let ‘em out, free at last/thank God almighty, they free at last”, but come on, that other stuff is Lil Wayne punchlines, not Kanye West punchlines. I mean, he got signed off the strength of the line “Mayonnaise colored Benz/I push Miracle Whips”. I expect better.

What I do know is that Kanye is now all about saying “fuck you” to the system. Hell, he didn't care that the album leaked. Which is the whole point of this album – Kanye made an album in protest to the consumerist society we live in today. It’s anti-corporation and anti-materialism, and a lot of it plays like he made something he truly wanted, without regard to whether it would sell. I’m actually a little surprised he didn’t release it for free, a la the amazing NO LOVE DEEP WEB. Although it would make sense, since his label seems to take down any Youtube videos of the singles. Regardless, he doesn’t care if people love this album, hate this album, or whatever. And I do commend him on trying to push the industrial sound I love from Death Grips into the pop arena, and doing what he wanted to do. But damn, I wish it was better.

Overall, it’s not Kanye’s strongest album. In fact, if you count Cruel Summer as a Yeezy album, this is his 3^rd worse. Which still makes it a better than average album (I’d give it a 6.5-7/10, if we had rating system here), and I enjoy a good portion of the tracks. “Bound 2”, “I’m In It”, and pretty much the entire first half are all things I’ll be bumping for a while. Even “Blood on the Leaves” is great solely on the strength of the production.

But his skills as a rapper have fallen off since MBDTF, even though there have been a few stellar tracks since then. I mean, you can point to the fact that he’s lost of a lot of the micromanaging of his vision like he had in the past (the number of editors, writers, producers, vocalists, and sound engineers is too damn high), or that he’s gained a level of fame that puts him out of touch with real people, or that the lack of drugs/alcohol in his system has driven him insane, or the death of his mother has left him without any guidance and in a constant state of grief. Whatever it is, Kanye needs to take a step back, raise his new daughter, and spend a lot of time working on his own stuff, by himself. It’s a shame he didn’t that here, because the potential was there.

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Pick of the Moment: Paramore by Paramore

Paramore has done something that’s hard, if not impossible to do – to change what your music is about, but to keep your sound and original fans. But somehow, they've done it, and done it spectacularly on their 4^th album.

If you were alive in 2007, you’re familiar with emo music. And if you weren’t alive then, you should get off the computer and study for kindergarten. Emo music was everywhere, and every rock band on the radio made it. Panic! At the Disco, Fallout Boy, Hawthorne Heights, My Chemical Romance, and Linkin Park were on repeat on my mp3 player, along with millions of other kids around the world. But Paramore was slightly different – they had a female lead singer. A very, very, very hot female singer. This brought in a trend of emo/alternative bands with female leads like Flyleaf and Hey Monday. However, Paramore is the only band from that era still kicking today. Why? Because they've evolved in a way that doesn't alienate their fan base, but matches the waves and trends in contemporary music, and this album is a culmination of that.

Their previous effort, brand new eyes, hinted at the new direction they would be going for Paramore. bne had a mix of love songs and I hate you songs, the latter being what they had traditionally done, and was what every other alternative band had done before them. But these love songs were something new, and, at least for me, was a refreshing change for both the band and the genre as a whole.

The best way I can describe the songs here is that they are aggressive love songs. I mean, look at “Be Alone”. It starts off in a fairly standard, aggressive way, but then we reach the chorus and Hayley sings out “You should be alone/Yeah, you should be alone/You should be alone with me”. It keeps the normal alt-rock attitude and sound, but it’s a song about how much she’s into a dude, and how he should totally hang out with her because it’ll be totally awesome. Totes. Same with “Still Into You”; it’s all about how, even after all this time, she’s still in love her guy, with a traditional alternative rock backing. It’s sweet, it’s touching, it’s headbang worthy.

There’s a few of the angry songs, but they aren't really angry. They come across as more of an acceptance of facts, an attempt to move on and separate from the past, and if they have to do it angrily, then so be it. Even “Part 2”, which is a sequel to “Let the Flames Begin” off of Riot!, takes the edge off the anger from the lyrics on the original track, but keeps the aggressive music somewhat intact.

And they experiment too, which is nice. They take a stab at post-rock on “Future”, mimicking Sigur Ros or God Speed You Black Emperor, in their own way. They do some sunny, beachy songs with “Moving On”, “Holiday”, and “I’m Not Angry Anymore”, all interludes on the album. “Hate To See Your Heart Break” takes on a late 50’s, early 60’s pop R&B love song feel (and by “pop”, I mean the stolen white version). It really shows off Hayley’s talent as a singer, if you ever had to question it. Plus, there’s the addition of the keyboard on nearly every track, which adds a nice, new layer to the sound.

Whatever you thought of Paramore before, ignore. Give this album, or at least a few of non-single tracks a listen. Trust me, I think you’ll like it. Know what else you'll like? Our blog on Facebook.

Track of the Moment: This Close by Flyleaf

Oh God, here’s Wildcard Eric talking about bands and genres nobody likes or cares about, even though every time he’s shown a different and more musically talented side to those things. Today, we have a Christian metal band. And that was the sound of everyone reading this article throwing their laptops through a window. Come on, do we need to this every single time? It’s like you don’t understand what this blog is about – sharing music interesting music that we like. And I wouldn’t like Flyleaf without a reason.

Everyone knows their hard-hitting pseudo-metal debut album. With songs like “I’m So Sick” coming over the radio and hitting MTV, people were taken aback; this little 5 foot tall girl with such a sweet voice breaking into scream as some metal or very hard rock guitars and drums crash around it. Many people wrote them off as some gimmicky, emo band who favored a more abrasive sound after that first listen. But, I was in my From First to Last, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance phase (I look back at that period with a touch of embarrassment), so I stuck around and discovered a varied, hard rock band. And then I never heard from them again.

However, one day about 2 years ago, I decided to check back up on them. It had been 5 years since the release of Flyleaf, and I was curious to see what they had been up. Much to my surprise, they had released a new album in 2009, so I immediately picked it up. And the new material was interesting; it was a slightly different, softer album. Lacey Sturm, the lead singer, had dropped the scream (for the most part, it’s there in the background on a few songs) and the guitars went more for a standard hard rock/harder alternative sound.

Now, before I get to the actual music, there is an interesting story behind the band, and, more importantly, about the music they made. Born in 1981, Lacey Mosley began to try drugs at the standard age of drug use, 10 years old. She then began using heroin in a bad way when she was 13, probably in an effort to mimic the lead singer of one her favorite bands, Nirvana. A few years later she was kicked out her home for fighting with her mom so badly that the police were called (in a move to mimic Courtney Love, or so I assume). She was sent to live with her grandparents in Mississippi, where she became depressed and suicidal from losing her friends, family, boyfriend, and, most importantly, her drugs. Usually, this is the point in the story where she becomes a crack whore and eventually is found dead in a cheap motel. Obviously, something happened to change that. In a movie-like twist, the day before she was going to kill herself, her grandmother dragged her to church, where she found God, accepted Jesus into her heart, and became a devout Christian. I’m not very religious, but it’s stories like this that make me glad that there’s something that gives people a reason to continue living, even if I don’t believe in the same thing.

At some point during her musical career, she met Joshua Sturm, a guitarist for the band Kairos, a Pittsburgh based outfit. In 2008, Lacey Mosley became Lacey Sturm, and in 2011 gave birth to Josh Jr. I know what you’re asking; what does this have to do with her music? Well, it explains the emo stuff of their debut album, their hardcore leanings, and the softer, more love and Christian focused Memento Mori, released in 2009. It also explains the lack of new music in the past few years, other than an EP in 2010 (there’s supposedly an album coming out this year, but who knows). And it’s one of the more interesting musician stories of the past few years and one that we can all relate to.

While I do suggest you take a look at Flyleaf, particularly if you like a more aggressive or hard sound, I’ll be looking to Memento Mori for today’s track. As Mark pointed out, this album sounds like something Paramore would make. I’m not in complete agreement, but it is a reasonable enough comparison for you get an idea of how the album sounds. As for the track itself, “This Close” is definitely a good mix of old and new Flyleaf. Minus the creepy stalker-ish vibe of the chorus, it’s semi-emo, semi-angry song. It features a heavy bassline and a wailing guitar riff that sounds more at home on an Armor For Sleep album, it really showcases Lacey’s emotional vocals and range. I particularly like the dark but open instrumentation during the verses, which really helps add a punch to the chorus. But if you’re a fan of alternative rock, the entire album is a solid listen.

Track of the Moment: Note to Self by From First to Last

So everyone knows and (probably) hates Skrillex. If not, you should climb out from under that rock you’ve living under, invest in some subwoofers and go to Youtube. But, as I promised last Wednesday (as I’m sure all of you read and remember), I was going to talk about Skrillex, aka Sonny Moore, before he went into “dubstep”.

Now, this would usually be something reserved for NJWB, because it’ll provide some of my amateur controversy-stirring psychology, but I promise I’ll try to keep it short. Prior to “ruining” dubstep and becoming a meme of how much people hate him (each one of those words is a different picture; feel free to click and laugh), he was the lead singer a screamo band called From First to Last.

From First to Last gained a good amount of popularity in the mid-2000’s (at least, as much as a screamo band could) with original and creative song writing, and a lot of interesting guitar solos and bridges. However, towards the end of the decade, the screamo market became a bit over-saturated, and the genre as a whole began to lose popularity. So in 2007, Sonny Moore left the band, of to pursue his own solo career. He stayed in the alt-rock genre for about a year or so, going on the Alternative Press Tour in 2008, playing with Team Sleep (which has Zach Hill from Death Grips, and Chino Moreno from Deftones), and opened for Chiodos. If you know your alt rock/screamo/emo music, that’s some pretty big stuff.

However, in 2008, he also began DJing as Skrillex at some clubs around LA, and eventually released My Name is Skrillex in 2010, and got signed on Deadmau5’s record label. And from there, it was history. Bad history, in my opinion, but history nonetheless.

Now, why would I have an opinion with some pseudo-psychology about this? Simple. Moore first joined From First to Last right as screamo was becoming really popular (2004). The early-to-mid 2000’s saw a huge rise in bands putting out this hard rock instrumentals to gutturally screamed vocals, fueled by the success of acts like Linkin Park. But that success was pretty short lived, and within 10 years of Hybrid Theory’s release, screamo went the way of disco, grudge, and hair metal; mostly reserved to the few hardcore fans from that era. Even Linkin Park went to a different sound with A Thousand Suns, which was worked on 2008 until it’s in release in 2010.

Right around the same time screamo was dying out, dubstep was coming in (as I so eloquently explain in this article). So now we find ourselves with the crux of my argument; Sunny Moore loves riding musical trends. You can claim some similarities between FFtL and dubstep, but it’s hard and most evidence is a tad shaky. Which is why I believe that Sunny Moore is just a fame monger who wants to attach himself to the next big thing in music, regardless of what it is.

I'm apparently not alone in my opinion

Does Moore believe in the music he’s making and has made in the past? I’m sure he does. But that does change the fact that in a few years, once the novelty of, and interest in, dubstep wears down, we may see Moore running to the next big thing, leaving the people who got Skrillex tattooed on their knuckles or carved into their arm wondering what they hell they were thinking (well, they should think that anyway, but moreso).

Anyway, FFtL played a role in my late middle school, early high school years, and it’s just such a nice, nostalgic feeling to revisit some of my favorite songs off the 2 albums with Moore at vocals. It’s still interesting and original, especially given the direction screamo has gone to keep up with the trends. Enjoy “Note to Self”, one of my favorite tracks.

Track of the Moment: Chemicals by Armor for Sleep

Oh god, an alternative rock band. Or, if you’re an idiot, an emo band. But hold on there buddy, things aren’t as bad as they seem. This New Jersey-based band broke up in 2009, and broke my heart the same year, so there’s 2 good things for you right there (if you’ve already begun to resent me for this article. Or just resent me in general). But if you listen to the song, you’d see why it was so hard for me when they broke up. If the last few posts of mine haven’t told that I like a story-driven album, I like a story driven album. And Armor for Sleep is the prince of concept albums, behind The Mountain Goats (in terms of their ability to churn good ones out; not trying to diss Pink Floyd or The Beatles here). On their third and last album, they dropped the concept album idea, and just went for a series of self-contained ballads. And there are the vocals; Ben Jorgensen had this slight whine to his voice that was perfect for sad songs, and gave a sense of truth on positive songs. And their music felt so original in a genre that has become stagnant. The strange guitar effects, the melodies, the sense of composition, it all comes together amazingly like no other band in whatever genre you want to call them. I chose "Chemicals" because I feel like it shows off all of their best talents. So try them out, see if you like it. At the very least, their harder sound will be a nice change from the usual indie stuff posted here.