The MTV Video Music Awards is tonight. The show, which has been broadcast since 1984 (although MTV probably doesn’t want you to know that as it would make them seem very old to their target audience) is usually a pretty entertaining watch, although lately it’s been more for the train-wreck factor than for…you know, good music. I will be sitting this year’s broadcast out! Normally, I’d be up in front of the TV with some beer and popcorn live-blogging my […]
Posts tagged "Kanye West"
“Devil in a New Dress”: The Kanye Onslaught Continues
Kanye West is definitely staying true to his promise to deliver his fans new music every Friday for the remainder of 2010. This week’s entry is a jam entitled “Devil in a Blue Dress”. It definitely goes for a less aggressive approach than “Power” or “Monster”-maybe that’s a reason I don’t like it as much? I don’t know, maybe I need another listen. The song’s just not hitting me the way ‘Ye usually does-it sounds like a faded Xerox of […]
All You Need to Know About the Music of…Madonna! (Part Three)
Madonna came into the Nineties like a lion, and exited the decade like a lamb. Her final effort of the decade, “Ray of Light”, found Madge in a contemplative, serene mood completely unlike her public persona for the previous decade and a half. By the turn of the decade, she was a mother once, about to become a mother for the second time, and had even finally gotten some love from the establishment, winning a handful of Grammy Awards to […]
Raekwon, Kanye & Bieber: It Shouldn’t Work, But…
I must admit that I cringed a little when I heard that Kanye West was teaming up with Raekwon and Justin Bieber for a song. Look, I have nothing against the Bieb-he’s a talented kid. I just wasn’t sure how the three were going to mesh, and I was also giving Kanye the side-eye for teaming up with the hot flavor of the moment and sacrificing his artistic integrity. But honestly? I’d rather Kanye do records with JB than do […]
A “Monster” of a Track: Delivered by Kanye & Co.
I must admit to being somewhat preoccupied the last week or so with personal pursuits, so I may have been a little late to the party when it came to Kanye West and Jay-Z announcing a joint EP. Does this mean that the release date for Kanye’s own fifth album gets pushed back? Hope not. Considering Jay-Z’s horrid track record in regards to collaboration albums (two disgustingly bad albums with R. Kelly and one not terrible but pointless album with […]
Kanye & Jigga Kill ’em on the “Power” Remix
I feel like every time I write something about Kanye West I end up spending more time explaining WHY I like him so much than actually talking about the guy’s music. You know what? Time to stop the explanations. The most talented all-around hip-hop artist of the past decade has reconfigured his song “Power” to hit a million times harder than the already pretty hard-hitting original. Everything about this song is A+ material: from Jay-Z’s tight verse (why is Jigga […]
“Imma Let You Finish, But I Got Beyonce On the Track!”: New Kanye
To paraphrase Michael Jackson at the ’93 Grammys, Kanye West has gone from “where is he?” to “here he is again”. In just the past month or so, he has been behind one of the more entertaining Twitter pages in recent memory, he has released an interesting “video” for the song “Power”, and he has changed the title to his fifth studio album about 50 times. I’m not sure what the story is behind “See Me Now”. It doesn’t appear […]
“Power”: New Video, Same Old Kanye
If Kanye West was white, people wouldn’t hate him half as much as they do. The extreme ego and confidence that Mr. West expresses has previously been the province of rock stars. Yeah, hip-hop is typically brash, but most of Kanye’s career has been spent taking “brash” to an entirely new level. Despite his tendency towards verbal diarrhea and his (seemingly) unhinged personality (random Twitter posts, Taylor-gate) I give him props because a) he knows how to get people talking […]
After Ingesting the Hype, Thank Drake for Making a Solid Album
Hype is a hard thing to overcome-I’ve said it before. As someone who follows the goings-on of the music industry, I certainly fall victim to heightened expectations and wind up getting disappointed every once in a while. No one’s been the beneficiary of more hype over the course of the past year than Drake. His story seems unlikely in the world of hip-hop. He’s biracial. He’s Canadian. His first name is AUBREY, for Chrissakes. Even more damning, he was a […]
The "Power"-ful Return of Kanye West
Y’all know I love Kanye, right? Sure, he’s brash. Of course he’s obnoxious. But he’s also a fucking genius and is much more daring and artistic than the average hip-hop artist. People made a lot of noise about the whole Taylor Swift MTV situation last year, but people who really love Kanye are 1) completely used to his antics by now and 2) don’t really give a damn about Taylor Swift anyway. I don’t anticipate that the audience for his […]
Maybe There's Something About This Drake Kid: "Find Your Love"
I have no problem admitting my love for mass-appeal pop music, but I also think I’m smart enough to look past hype and like something based on musical merit (because yes, even mass-appeal commercial music can have merit). For the past year or so, the frenzy around Canuck TV star-turned-rap phenom Drake has felt all too much like unwarranted hype. How does a moderately talented, moderately decent looking kid with no street cred become hip-hop’s next big thing otherwise? The […]