What do we generally think of this now some time has passed?
I’m still quite dissapointed with it. Whether it’s eye rollingly crass (bleached asshole line), misogynist for the sake of it (the Taylor Swift stuff), or where he’s just blabbering about his shoes (Facts), he’s regressed loads lyrically. This isn’t all that dissimilar from what he’s done before, but he’s done so much of that before it’s just quite tiring now.
The tracks that are a little more introspective though, (e.g. Real Friends, FML) are really great. If I edit it down there’s a nine track album in there I can see myself going back to a fair bit. I would have been quite happy if this was the final thing:
Ultralight Beam
Waves
FML
Real Friends
Wolves
Frank’s Track
No More Parties in LA
Fade
Saint Pablo
It’s got some decent tracks but I’ve not listened to it front-to-back since a fortnight or so after it came out. Coloring Book does what TLoP wants to do but with a lot more consistency, quality and fun
It’s pretty good in places, but his weakest album to date by a long shot. I think I prefer the first half even though that often sounds like a series of sketched out tracks rather than anything totally formed. Favourite track is Waves.
An album of great moments as opposed to a great (or even that good) album. Comfortably bottom of the pile (alongside Graduation) for me, very rarely listen to it.
Yeezus just pips MBDTF for me but you can’t really go wrong bar Graduation and most of Pablo.
Pablo could have been so much better with a bit more focus and had he been a bit more judicious. There’s definitely a great 10 song album in there, but that’s no excuse for the filler.
No More Parties in LA is right up there with classic Kanye
Would have been significantly better if it had some quality control, you can easily sheer 6-7 tracks off it.
But even then, the best/condensed version of it isn’t at the same level as His top-tier works.
Think the thing that really gets me down about it is bar a few exceptions (ultralight beam, fade, waves & Wolves) even the good tracks are basically inferior re-runs of things that he’s mastered before
It’s a complete mess (still gets my nut that he chats about 30 Hours being a bonus cut on the track, despite it falling in the middle of the album).
There’s some great moments, but few are identifiably Kanye’s. Feel like he just had a load of people make tracks for him, laid down some vocals completely off the top of his head and voila.
Kanye’s in that lofty position, like Radiohead, where even his misses will be called misunderstood classics in certain corners. But, nah… not for me.
Neither of them come off well from that. It already seemed like she’d milked the Kanye stage invasion for what it’s worth, then she said OK to that lyric, then issued a statement saying said she hadn’t OK’d it and was outraged, then Kim released audio of her OKing it beforehand… or something.
Basically, he comes off a misogynist twit and her as a self-publicising robot.
Does seem like an odd mess. Kind of seems like her agent/her label thought it was best that she decry the lyric. If I remember right Taylor Swift agreed to the gist of it but not the specifics i.e. being called a bitch. She may have expected to be more of a joke as well, but in the song it just comes across a little nasty.
Think there’s a great album in there - genuinely sounds like a total classic to me, for the first 5 or so tracks.
Just too all over the place, and not enough quality control. If it was a cohesive, proper 10/12 track album, even the sketches as they are, it would be as good as any of his others. Though some good moments like 30 Hours and No More Parties couldn’t sound less like album cuts and things he should’ve just left on soundcloud.
not very good, apart from that one where he takes a phone call in the really long extended outro, which is fucking brilliant until he takes a phone call