Lots of critics, and Kanye himself, keep calling this a "minimalist" album. I call bullshit on that. There's lots of Kanye excess all over the place. There's nothing minimalist about "Blood on the Leaves" (one of my favorite tracks on the album), which has an audacious sample of Nina Simone's version of "Strange Fruit" and blasting horns from TNGHT/Hudson Mohawke.

But I may offer up how the album is more minimalist than usual for Kanye. Credit to my girlfriend for reminding me of this quote from Coco Chanel: "Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory." Kanye is using this idea here, I think. The songs on Yeezus sound like he's removed one or two elements, which causes a somewhat jarring effect. Like, drums. There's barely any drums on this album at all, which is very strange for a hip-hop album. Or take for example my other favorite track, "Bound 2," which is built around a clever loop that shows Kanye can still make an old soul music sample like nobody else. There's no drums here either, and there's no bass even! Well, there's a very simple, single note bassline that pulsates during the chorus (which, while one of my favorite hooks in a Kanye song ever, only happens 1.5 times in this song).

I've been pondering this a lot over the last few days. I think there are a few things that are contributing to my current ranking of hip hop as extremely interesting right now:

1) Drugs: It's in a psychedelic era due to the type of drugs in the scene right now. The culture is dominated by molly (x), lean, and weed. All of those give varying degrees of mind alteration, but they've contributed to some seriously trippy and experimental music being made.

2) Crossover: for better or worse, hipsters are into hip hop. This has had a validating effect on the artistic value of the music (it's not just pop anymore). This has led to a lot of crossover of genres with things like Justin Vernon showing up on Kanye albums. It's also led to a lot of interesting production work and choices (also heightened by #1 above).

3) Maturity: we're in like the 3rd generation of the culture now. As such, we get non typical people like Kanye West, Danny Brown, Kitty Pryde (who I can't stand), Odd Future, ASAP Rocky, who have a broader world view than the ghetto-centric vision of much of hip hop in the past.

Personally I do appreciate that Kanye is still trying to make interesting music, but I think his lyrics really detract from the album on this one. His jokes aren't funny. I used to really like Kanye but I don't want to hear him stroke his own ego for an entire album anymore. I think a lot of hip hop is moving on from that. Or at least if you are going to do the whole boisterous thing you have to do it better than this.

I pretty much agree with this take.

Good post. I too do appreciate that he is trying new things but this one just missed the mark completely imo. I am turned off my songs where he is talking himself up like he's a GOD (in I am a God) and other tracks as well. Other than Black Skinhead I wasn't feeling this album at all.

That being said, I still look forward to his music.

Joe Budden was great. One of the best underground rappers ever. But he's changed now.

Ironically, one of his best songs IMO was the one of him talking about changing..

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/wXpkqQZfkHw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Listened to this all the way through probably three times yesterday and once today.

Once you get past the first listen, the lyrics just take away from an otherwise incredible album.

Macklamore > MandM + cain west

You're comparing a flavor of the month to two rappers who have stood the test of time. While I think Macklamore is interesting, his staying power is completely unproven.

Macklemore is ****ing terrible.

I'm just listening to this for the first time this morning. I just lost my shit laughing for like two minutes straight when he busted out the croissant verse on "I am a God".

Born Sinner is growing on me. It's still boring and it's still worse than Cole's first album and his mixtapes, but it's not bad.

Well, if you came into this album looking for hip-hop and classic Kanye I could see how you'd hate it. I had the good fortune to read through this thread first and sort of knew what I was getting into.

That being said, I'm enjoying it so far. He's definitely lost his ****ing mind. I doubt he attempts anything like this ever again. I just don't know where all the singles are on this thing. I'm enjoying the beats moreso than the lyrical content; but I suppose I've taken a liking to disjointed, raw music over the last six months or so. Thanks Reaper for introducing me to Death Grips, and NewChief for Swans for that appreciation.

On my phone can you send me a link?