Kanye West

[LoathedVermin72]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

[LetMeSleep]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

Is this 12mins long?

[LoathedVermin72]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

Is this 12mins long?

24. I didn't do the math.

[LetMeSleep]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

Is this 12mins long?

24. I didn't do the math.

Well your mind is in tatters.

[LoathedVermin72]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

Is this 12mins long?

24. I didn't do the math.

Well your mind is in tatters.

no i am always bad at math

[VinylGuy]

Its really really good...and i love that this is a 24 min thing.

[LoathedVermin72]

B R E V I T Y

[LetMeSleep]

B R E V I T Y B A C K S P A C E R

[epilogue]

B R E V I T Y B A C K S P A C E R

[bodysnatcher]

the rap about medulla oblongata

I thought about The Waterboy every time I heard that

[Jorge]

I listened to this album on repeat for a full work day today. Don't know how many plays that translates to...40 run-throughs or something like that? 50? Whatever. This album is perfect and my mind is already blown apart.

Yeah I really love it. It's a concise and surprisingly cohesive album. All the songs share a musical DNA, occupy a similar emotional space and explore connected themes. I also listened to it a bunch of times

[Monkey_Driven]

A little underwhelmed after the first listen. Excited to listen again though.

[verb_to_trust]

Its very cohesive. That combined with the raw subject matter and 7 song length make it really easy to engage with.

[chewm]

LV's reaction towards everything Kanye warms my heart honestly.

I'll probably listen to this later today.

[Teeeeeekay]

So you can’t purchase this anywhere?

Just drove to Virginia and don’t have my laptop or any pc any got a mega link I can download through my DAP?

[LoathedVermin72]

So you can’t purchase this anywhere?

Just drove to Virginia and don’t have my laptop or any pc any got a mega link I can download through my DAP?

You can buy it on iTunes. Not sure about other outlets. I was able to find a copy on SoulSeek.

[Teeeeeekay]

Maaaaan, soulseek is what I use at home!

[LoathedVermin72]

Maaaaan, soulseek is what I use at home!

gimme a sec, I'll hook you up

[Teeeeeekay]

Maaaaan, soulseek is what I use at home!

gimme a sec, I'll hook you up

[LoathedVermin72]

Condensed, preliminary analytical thoughts on the songs:

I Thought About Killing You

Kanye introduces the main tension underscoring the whole album: Yeezus (egotistical, sex-addicted, hard, God) vs. ye (father, husband, soft, human). Yeezus is barely hanging on after the struggle and evolution on The Life of Pablo. ye talks to Yeezus:

Today I seriously thought about killing you
I contemplated premeditated murder
And I think about killing myself, and I love myself way more than I love you, so...
Today I thought about killing you, premeditated murder
You'd only care enough to kill somebody you love

ye still loves Yeezus, but they are in conflict with each other. Which one will Kanye allow to show? (This is a running theme in Ye's discography - see the "WHICH ONE" motifs of TLOP). Yeezus wants to fuck everything that moves. ye wants to be loyal to Kim, and he wants to be a good dad to his kids. Domesticity has been pushing Yeezus away. Kanye is considering killing off Yeezus altogether. But then he starts to feel uneasy about letting Yeezus fade away completely. He starts to feel like he's not honoring his full self. Now he's feeling the urge to let Yeezus out again. See these lyrics from "Ye vs. the People":

You think I ain't concerned about how I affect the past?
I mean, that hat stayed in my closet like 'bout a year and a half
Then one day I was like, "Fuck it, I'ma do me."
I was in the sunken place and then I found the new me
Not worried about some image that I gotta keep up

So he goes on Twitter and starts the MAGA kerfuffle.

But the whole time, he knew what he was doing. He knew he was going to cause trouble. So he warned some people close to him before he went through with it:

I called up my loved ones, I called up my cousins
I called up the Muslims, said I'm 'bout to go dumb

He knew he was "going dumb." He knew this could destroy him in a lot of ways. Which is why that earlier section is not just ye talking to Yeezus, but it's the opposite as well: premeditated murder. Kanye planned this. He was shooting himself in the foot. "Soon as they like you, make 'em unlike you." He deals with the fallout of this mess later on "Wouldn't Leave".

Which one? Push and pull. Internal conflict. This is Ye's thematic bread and butter, and has been since at least 808s, and even parts of Graduation.

Additionally, the dark, brutal honesty of the lyrics speaks to the "free thought" concepts Kanye has been talking about on Twitter leading up to this album.

Just say it out loud to see how it feels
People say, "don't say this, don't say that"
Just say it out loud, just to see how it feels
Weigh all the options, nothing's off the table

There's a lot more to unpack, but again, I'm trying to keep this condensed.

Yikes

This is the mess caused by the decision made in "I Thought About Killing You" - even the title seems to react to the former title. It also pushes the ye vs. Yeezus schism deeper: now he admits he is legitimately bipolar.

Kanye plays both his Yeezus and ye personas on this song. The chorus is ye - worried, concerned, sad, desperate:

Shit could get menacin', frightenin', find help, sometimes I scare myself

This refers to a lot of things, but in this context, it's referring to Yeezus, who now comes in:

Tweakin', tweakin' off that 2CB, huh?
Is he gon' make it? TBD, huh
Thought I was gon' run, DMC, huh?
I done died and lived again on DMT, huh
See, this a type of high that won't come down
This the type of high that get you gunned down
Yeezy, Yeezy trollin' OD, huh?
Turn TMZ to Smack DVD, huh?
Russell Simmons wanna pray for me too
I'ma pray for him 'cause he got #MeToo'd
Thinkin' what if that happened to me too
Then I'm on E! News

Yeezus is shit-talking, boasting, preening, dissing. But it ends with topical paranoia before melting back into ye's chorus. That "topical" is important, because this album - like all of Kanye's music, to some degree - is using the micro of his personal struggles to explore macro cultural issues (Kanye is said he "isn't political" - that's because he relates to the world through his personal experiences and muses). He's transmuting his bipolar disorder into an analogue for the hostile polarization of the current sociopolitical climate he feels in the US.

The two sides of Kanye are warring with each other here, and it's not clear who's winning. At the end of the song, they are literally talking over each other; ye laments the manic tendencies of Yeezus through the chorus again, while Yeezus gets even crazier:

Shit could get menacin', frightenin', find help
See this is why all the bitches fuck with Ye, fuck what they talk about
Sometimes I scare myself, myself
They take me on meds, off meds ask yourself
Shit could get menacin', frightenin', find help
Ask your homegirl right now, look, you had a shot at Ye
Sometimes I scare myself, myself
You drop everything

And, by the end, while ye is still scared of all this, Yeezus thinks his illness is a straight-up "superpower:"

That's my bipolar shit, nigga what?
That's my superpower, nigga ain't no disability
I'm a superhero! I'm a superhero!

And the song ends with a manic scream, which evokes echoes of "I am a God" - a deeply ironic song in which Yeezus declares his false godhood through pathetic, impotent, petulant demands ("Hurry up with my damn croissants!"), and reveals himself to be trapped in the shallow, isolating prison he's created for himself.

The ultimate takeaway from both songs? Yeezus isn't a God, and he isn't a superhero. And Kanye knows it.




Okay, I think that's enough for now. This is turning out to be longer than I thought.