Last Friday, I had the day to myself. I was in London, one of the great cities of the world, full of culture. I chose to go shopping for vinyl records. There are many good neighborhoods for this, but I was close to Soho, so that’s where I headed. There are loads of shops, but [...]
“Stay sick.”
I am once again tardy in linking to my latest Spot-on column. It’s called Hip-Hop for the Long Haul and it focuses on the supposed conflict between 50 Cent and Kanye West. My point was that while the competition made for a great marketing angle for their respective new albums, the hip-hop genre is struggling [...]
“Everything I’m Not, Made Me Everything I Am”
The new Kanye dropped on Tuesday. Longtime readers will recall that I am quite enamored with both the hip-hop genre and with Mr. Kanye West. You may recall my earlier post about the official mixtape, which previewed the Graduation album and also included a couple tracks featuring raps over indie rock, specifically Thom Yorke and [...]
Kanye Goes All Indie On Us
Longtime readers will know that I love Kanye West. He’s a great producer and an okay rapper that still manages to be interesting at almost all times. I’m sure Timbaland, much as I admire him, was thinking he deserved to have some of Kanye’s success as both producer and performer, but Timba’s recent solo record [...]
Leading lyricist, loquacious.
As I stated previously, everybody’s doing their Best-Of lists, but I ain’t playing that game. In part, because — who am I to judge? Also, because I consumed such a pathetically small portion of the year’s media offerings that I am unqualified to bear witness. But let’s talk about a few things this week. Kanye [...]
“Yeah, she’s a triflin’ friend indeed…”
Kanye West’s offhand remark about President’s Bush’s attitude towards African Americans continues to reverberate. First, there was the marvelous moment during NBC’s hurricane relief special with a frantic, shifty-eyed Michael Meyers looking desperately like he wanted to be anywhere else in the universe as Kanye blurted out, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Then, [...]
“I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day…”
If you’re not familiar with the minor brouhaha over the upcoming Fiona Apple album, I’ll catch you up. She recorded a complete set of tracks for Extraordinary Machine in 2002 with producer Jon Brion. Then, the album was reportedly being shelved indefinitely by executives at Apple’s label, Sony Music, who didn’t hear a potential single. [...]
“Tell the truth…”
Chris Nolan does a fine job of analyzing NBC’s Concert for Hurricane Relief, in particular, the impromptu comments of Kanye West. His remarks were a little inarticulate, but they were from the heart and they seemed to have earned him a lot of fans who otherwise wouldn’t have cared about him. He’s not the only [...]
Final registration
I swear, this is the last time I’m going to talk about Kanye West’s new album Late Registration — at least this week. I already posted two tracks — you want any more, go out and buy the damn album already. Of note is the song “Roses,” a track about Kanye’s sick grandmother and another [...]
Color me gone
We started with the beginning. Now we see how Kanye West’s Late Registration ends — not with a bang, but a steady groove. “Gone” begins with a sample from “It’s Too Late,” from The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads. The piano loop starts, the drum kicks in. I presume co-producer Jon Brion can be [...]