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Holy f****** s*** man

Josan Gonzalez, New Work.

Brand new, completely engrossing illustrative work from one of the best: Josan Gonzalez (Previously on Supersonic).

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Maybe nobody caught the fact that this is Kanye West... on stage.. performing "FADE" ... with lasers.

I don't get the world. This should be on the front page of the New York Times.

Kanye West performs the show stopping “Fade” during his first ever appearance at Van Andel Arena on the Saint Pablo tour.

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Kanye West performs the show stopping "Fade" during his first ever appearance at Van Andel Arena on the Saint Pablo tour.

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“haterationnn, hollerationnn, in this danceryyyy”

“i don’t mean to interject, Ms. J. Blige, but don’t you mean “dance Soirée ..?”

“sis i been singing this since 2001 don’t do me…..we got ya opennn now ya floatin…”

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Well said.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and 808s and Heartbreak

On the 5th and 7th anniversary of MBDTF and 808s and Heartbreak, respectively, I have had a revelation as to why I hold Kanye West (the artist) with such high regard. Both of these albums are technical masterworks, no doubt, but their content is the reason they’ll be remembered forever. For some context, 808s and Heartbreak was conceived shortly after the sudden death of Kanye’s mother and the failure of his engagement to a longtime lover in 2008. The album wears these emotions on its sleeve, oozing absolute pain throughout its run time, but MBDTF, on the other hand, is like an impenetrable fortress for the first half of its running time; an almost impossibly well-produced group of posse tracks and hits of inflated ego and self-importance. MBDTF was made on similar tumultuous grounds as 808s; In 2010, Kanye had been shunned by a lot of the public after a very rude stunt he pulled on national television (again) where he interrupted America’s most beloved “Country” star. He had also gone through another public breakup. Because of this, the last half of the album is much more reflective and “soft” sounding.

Basically, the second half of MBDTF is more like 808s than we think it is, which is not a huge secret. However, when comparing the two albums’ biggest hits, Heartless and Runaway, we can see the progression of Kanye West not only as an artist, but a human being. These two songs deal with the same thematic elements in two completely different ways: Heartless is a song that leaves Kanye rapping and singing about how a woman could ever find it within herself to break up with him. With him! Kanye West! How could she be so evil? He sums this up in the song by saying the most Kanye thing he could possibly say: “You wait a couple months, then you gonna see, you’ll never find nobody better than me”.

For a nice juxtaposition and show of progression, Runaway finds a different Kanye West; one that has seemingly been beaten down by his own shortcomings, crooning “run away as fast as you can” and proceeding to show the world he is a real person that is willing to admit his serious flaws. He is no longer playing the victim; he realizes he is problem. 808s and MBDTF have always been among my favorite albums of all time, but they currently fit into the zeitgeist of my life much “better” than usual. I lost my grandmother that I was very close with only a month ago. She is the first immediate family member I’ve ever had pass away and I had a very tough time dealing with. I am also currently attempting to recover from a fresh (and admittedly amicable) breakup with a young woman that I still love.

Kanye does not get enough credit for his insight, and what he’s done here is give his listeners another poignant way to handle the loss of love: either play the blame game and take no responsibility, or admit to your transgressions and attempt to become a better person. I realize this entire post is self-important in its nature, but I guess that’s what I get for being a Kanye fan.

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Oh yes. Yes yes!

Kanye West - Father Stretch My Hands, Pt. 1 (Extended Version)

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THAT’S JUST THE WAAAAAAVE 🌊

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HALFTIME: Best Albums of 2016 (late as sh*t) - part 4

These are the big guys. I already know who’s taking the top spot, but beyond that it’s anyone’s game. These just happen to be the most potent albums of the bunch. The most fully realized. The most powerful. The most beautiful, and challenging.

Sill a few months to go, though. I’m hoping to have more albums gush over in the coming months.

For now, going into the last quarter of the year, these albums are at the top of the heap.

Autechre - Elseq 1-5

DJ Koze presents PAMPA Vol. 1

Christian Fennesz & Jim O'Rourke - It’s Hard for me to Say I’m Sorry

Pantha Du Prince - The Triad

Kaytranada - 99.9%

Chance the Rapper - Coloring Book

Aphex Twin - CHEETAH EP

Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

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HALFTIME: Best Albums of 2016 (late as sh*t) - part 3

Now we’re digging into the real heavy hitters as far as I’m concerned. These albums all have a chance at making top 10, even top 5. It’s a nice little assortment of world-bending experimental electronic behemoths, out-right noise, genre defying provocateur’s swan song, mathy disco-punk, streetwise hip-hop and creamy, long-awaited pop albums.

Top to bottom:

Holy Fuck - Congrats

Frank Ocean - Blonde

David Bowie - Blackstar

Isaiah Rashad - The Sun's Tirade

Beyoncé - Lemonade

The Dead C - Trouble

(One more coming...)

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HALFTIME: Best Albums of 2016 (late a sh*t) - part 2

Here we have some more awesome albums that are — at this point in the year, anyway — fairing slightly better than the albums in part 1. These records all have something special about them. They may even have shot at cracking the top 10, but they’re still not the real cream of the 2016 crop quite yet.

Here we have (top to bottom, right to left):

Swans - The Glowing Man

Twin Peaks - Down in Heaven

Underworld - Barbara, Barbara, We Face a Shining Future

PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project

Car Seat Headrest - Teens of Denial

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - In Summer EP

(More coming...)

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HALFTIME: Best Albums of 2016 (late as sh*t) - Part 1: Some of this year’s best albums so far. Meant to post these back in June, at the actual halfway point, but I guess I couldn’t be bothered.

Here we have the relative bottom dwellers of the bunch. Great records all, but none of them are going to nab the top spot. Still, they’re all more than worth a listen.

Big Ups - Before A Million Universes

Kendrick Lamar - untitled, unmastered.

Moderat - III

Not Waving - Animals

Heron Oblivion - Heron Oblivion

Thee Oh Sees - A Weird Exits

(More coming)

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Can't wait for next month's show.

Kanye West x Saint Pablo Tour 

Photo: Killian Young

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GOOD INTENTIONS CANNOT SAVE THIS ONE.

Before I rip this travesty apart, I would like to give props to Chris Cornell for making sure the world remembers that this is a Prince song. It’s a sweet gesture and I’m sure it will be taken as a nice tribute, but it lacks everything that was great about both Prince’s original AND Sinead O'Connor’s celebrated 1990 cover. Cornell's version of "Nothing Compares 2 U" seems to be made specifically for non-Prince (and non-Sinead) fans. While I'm sure there are some folks out there who will dig this flaccid, artless snoozer, the truth is that this song fails as a tribute, and succeeds only in hacking a flashlight down into the massive, cavernous talent gap between Artist and "artist" (tell me when it his the bottom).

Lacking the funky pulse of the original — released in 1985 by Prince side project The Family — Cornell’s solo acoustic take on this iconic ballad puts him in the unfortunate position of squaring off in with O'Connor’s almost unfathomably beautiful 1990 cover in the mind of the listener. That’s a battle few singers could ever hope to win. Maybe Thom Yorke could pull it off — maybe PJ Harvey or Erykah Badu.

There’s a chance Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips could put a nice spin on it if they brought their A-game. But sadly Cornell’s cover sounds like the kind of pseudo-rustic crap you’d expect to hear from Nickelback or Daughtry.

By opting for a sparse, singer-songwriter arrangement, Cornell makes the comparison to O'Connor inevitable. It’s sad, because he’s a very talented singer whose fully capable of pulling authentically soulful vocal performances (see “Say Hello 2 Heaven,” “Hunger Strike.”) Here, though, he kinda phones it in, and succeeds only in making this iconic and timeless song sound very basic indeed. In that, it’s a failure as a tribute to Prince. The man was many things, but “basic” was never one of them. He didn’t have a “basic” bone in his body. In fact, I think a strong argument could be made that the acronym of modern slang’s “basic” is actually “Prince.”

The moral of the story is: If you’re going to cover “Nothing Compares 2 U,” you’d better have one hell of an ace up your sleeve, because this is arguably the most exquisitely covered song of all time. O'Connor brought something new to the track, but Cornell’s decision to essentially cover her cover pretty much hamstrings this well-intentioned tribute.

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Countdown to the new PJ Harvey album, the Hope Six Demolition Project... it's coming in SIX days!

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Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Bitchin Bajas

Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties

OUT NOW on Drag City!!!

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On Animal Collective's "In The Flowers"

I remember when I first heard this song. I’d been a fan of Animal Collective since Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve Vanished, and I’d seen them perform with Black Dice back when they seemed to be undergoing an almost Sonic Youth-ian evolution from freaky noise terrorism into progressive experimental pop. I was not sure how I felt about the idea of the band taking on hip-hop and electronic production techniques and making a major play for mainstream recognition, and I was worried that Merriweather Post Pavilion would be a major letdown. But this song turned everything around. The first time through, I waded through the first few minutes, waiting for something definitive to happen. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, thinking, “oh, ok, nothing’s really different here, and I’m fine with that,” when the music came to life and shot out of my speakers like a like a living rainbow, illuminating everything in its path with broken synths and ecstatic melodies in one of the most powerful song climaxes I’d ever heard. It WAS different. It was nothing like what anything they’d done before, and that was good. It was the only thing that could have happened at that moment. It was inevitable. And even though some of the MPP tracks fail to hold up 6 years later, the tracks that do still just blow me away. It’s a shame that MPP was the penultimate achievement of the band I knew and loved, with Fall Be Kind being the truly final gasp of greatness. Centipede HZ was a mess, and Painting With borders on being unlistenable. They stopped evolving. Perhaps they should have stopped trying to evolve. In any case, Animal Collective didn’t age with its audience. But tracks like “In The Flowers” – though a tad bittersweet – will never lose their magic.

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The warped beauty of Moderat's album art. Be sure to check out the new album, III, out April 1 on Monkeytown/Rough Trade.