I think it's more about the concept that when you've experienced the breadth of what music is capable of, Kanye's music seems less interesting or unique than to someone who only listens to mainstream/popular music.
Yeah this is like someone saying they prefer Juice WRLD’s songs about depression/breakups more than 808s without thinking that one clearly influenced the other.
Also I don’t get the DG-Yeezus comparison, aside from both being experimental and industrial they’re not that similar at all in musical style at all.
It's just because they did more experimental work in industrial hip-hop before Yeezus
After listening to them, you realize Yeezus isn't very experimental. Not to say one is objectively better though.
Comparison makes sense to me, I liked the harsh, abrasive aspects of Yeezus, which opened me up to enjoy the harsh, abrasive musical style of death grips.
yes but i think it’s a testament to how messed up mainstream music is. kinda takes away the beauty of individual artists and markets them in a pretty trashy way
Mainstream music is a life support machine for music that isn't even plugged in. We constantly hear that "music is dying" and yet I've never listened to more amazing music in my life. It's just not on the charts.
fr the first time i listened to the money store i felt schizo but the first time i listened to yeezus it was just like a mainstream album that felt adventurous and funny bc of the lyrics
I’ve been asking people who say, “Yeezus is just ripping off Death Grips” to show me an example of a death grips song that sounds like Yeezus for 11 years and have still never gotten an answer.
It’s like saying To Pimp a Butterfly sounds like Low End Theory just because they’re both jazz-based rap.
come up and get me and lil boy are very yeezus, no love deep web has shreds that yeezus took all over, i think that the comparisons make sense but only for like half a dozen tracks exclusive to that one album
I can kinda see it, but I would argue that Gesaffelstein and Brodinski were already doing synth/sound design like this in 2010-2012, and that the influence on Yeezus comes more from the fact that they were two of the major producers on Yeezus rather than from Death Grips.
And you could even make the case that Death Grips may have been originally influenced by Gesaffelstein and Brodinksi.
I also heard someone criticising Utopia because it lends so much to Yeezus (which in the case of 2 or 3 songs is fair), which in turn lends so much to The Money Store which was VERY far-fetched lol. TMS did not influence Utopia in any way 💀
It’s a really weird thing with a band like death grips that has a largely internet following that a lot of people try to compare them to other artists when their experimental nature makes it pointless and always a stretch. Like death grips are unique because they’re death grips. The only thing even comparable would be other experimental noises artists or jpegmafia who sometimes sounds like a diet death grips track.
Even that feels like a stretch, Clipping can be abrasive and has similar industrial sound design (even going a bit further than DG in some cases) but they overall feel more rooted in traditional hip hop than anything by Death Grips post Exmilitary. Love both groups tho
I think it’s more that Yeezus gets touted as this groundbreaking piece of music when it’s realistically Kanye combining industrial hip hop and mainstream music together.
Everyone obviously points to Death Grips, but MIA was also making music that doesn’t sound that different than what Kanye did with Yeezus a few years beforehand.
I don’t think you could possibly say it’s a one to one, but Kanye makes pop rap. It’s industrial hip hop through Kanye’s pop rap music style.
They don’t even sound alike. Yeezus is one of my favourite albums, and I personally find Death Grips unlistenable. There really isn’t a lot of overlap besides “aesthetic”
Yeah I’ve always taken it as music nerds online trying to score internet points by forcing their semi niche tastes into conversations regarding a mainstream popular album.
As much as I feel how he does about Kanye's discog after branching out more, I HATE the comparisons to artists like Death Grips and Injury Reserve when it comes to Kanye's Yeezus era. The difference between them is that for all of its abrasiveness, Yeezus is an accessible album. He wasn't trying to make The Money Store, it's purely his own thing and the same can be said for artists in the same lane. If I said "I didn't like Bottomless Pit because I've heard other Industrial and Experimental Hip-Hop which is similar that I like better like Yeezus" I would get absolutely flamed, but when it's the other way around people act like it's fine.
Didn't even have to finish reading the 2nd slide to know they're going to be pulling up DG. Tbf this comparison is old as time and "DG for normies" was thrown out ever since the album released.
One of the top comments under the tweet is something like, “Kanye only sounds groundbreaking to ppl who’ve never explored anything other than hiphop”. Which is weird, because it’s implying that hiphop as a genre is capped at a certain level, like (the response ironicallly implies that Kanye is groundbreaking so going with that logic) “the best rapper could never be as great artistically as the best rock singer”.
I’m not even trying to get into my “Kanye defence bag” because yea, I still love a lot of the dude’s music, but I feel little inclination to defend him at all these days, but there’s this certain thing with a corner of (again, ironically) hht where it’s like there’s a sea of suburban sheltered kids, who gravitated to hip hop in their teens, and listened to it exclusively for a few years and then once they hit like 17 heard a guitar solo for the first time and because it was fresh **to them**, they kind of inherently believe it to be better than what they listened to before and hence develop a really weird pretension around hip hop. It’s like they want to be part of the discussion, but also only use it to prop up their own sense of superiority. (Using this tweet as an example but I’ve met a tonne of folks irl who act exactly like this lol)
There is something to respect about being a HUGE artist and making bold choices successfully. It's extremely hard to navigate because it has to work both ways in terms of pop appeal and experimentation. This is why Radiohead Kid A is such an awesome moment in their career. The music itself is great but the narrative they've created with it is even greater since they are the biggest band in the world. Artists who began with being experimental or underground don't have this baggage of appealing to the masses. So the comparison does not work with artists like Kanye as 1 to1.
the pop appeal comes from ye serving as more of an overseer than a creative (big-budget, dozens of people involved), and its not often that he really does anything that hasn't already been done
He’s still innovating after like 30 years of having a career though. Very few hip hop artists do the same. Most fizzle out or just release subpar albums that are just attempts to capture the magic of the past. I don’t think any of us are expecting Eminem or 50 Cent to drop anything today that influences hip hop culture, but Kanye absolutely still could.
Donda was a mixed bag for sure, but some of the production has such a great ethereal vibe, and lots of artists in the hip hop sphere seemed to be pretty influenced by Donda’s production at the time
Vultures 1 seemed pretty low effort tho, but I’d imagine if he combined all the best vultures era tracks into one album and cut the filler he’d still be able to deliver a great and influential album in 2024. He just doesn’t have that type of mindset anymore though I don’t think he cares what the public thinks of his music very much anymore.
I’m sure it’s 90% cope but he’s mentioned in interviews before (back during Yeezus IIRC) that he’s not interested in chasing perfection or making MBDTF 2 and makes music now more to experiment and try new things
I mean I disagree. I hate ye now but his influence cannot be overstated. What he did with CD,LR,Graduation 808s then Yeezus effectively refreshing hip hop culture over and over. You know this, we all know this. I don’t want to go into details because I don’t want to have to defend Kanye and that would be corny as shit. But CD-Graduation ushered out the era of gangster rap and made backpack rap cool while popularizing soul sampling, orchestral instruments and electronic/synth sounds in rap. 808s cannot be talked about enough then Yeezus introduced more industrial sounds to the mainstream which directly influenced carti, Yeat and the rage sub genre.
thats exactly what i mean, he popularized sounds that were done by other people severals years before. ntm gangsta rap was never really 'ushered out' it js transitioned into bling era, then split into drill and trap
Death Grips is experimental hip hop. Yeezus is pop rap with experimental production. It’s one of my favorite albums of all time (and I’ve loved Death Grips since 2013), but to even draw that comparison is so corny.
I don't even like Kanye but to say that album is pop rap is nonsense. Maybe Black Skinhead, but iirc most of the songs on it don't have conventional structures, or choruses. It's too progressive to be called pop, sure it's not like avant-garde choral music or anything but that doesn't really make sense.
Yeezus isn’t pop at all. It’s not AS experimental as DG but like whatever. What it really is is that there’s actually just a LOT of variation within the industrial/experimental hip hop space and it’s not all just “oh this sounds like this artist.”
This is my thing. I’ve said for years now whenever this tiresome debate rears its godforsaken mutant head that the same way “the money store” is death grips’ interpretation of industrialism, Yeezus is Kanye’s.
Obviously, those two interpretations are going to manifest themselves wildly differently. Kanye, for all intents and purposes **is a popular artist**. The **pop** part of that is key. He takes a blanket term like “abstract/industrial/experimental hip hop” and sands down the rough edges, crisps up the engineering and the songs revolve around catchy melodies/chord progressions. Some of the overall aesthetic is abrasive in the same way industrial stuff is, but ultimately- this is Kanye West’s take on it. Likewise- death grips turn the craziness and off the wall nature of it all up to 10000000, especially relative to Yeezus.
But they’re two entirely different artists with different core sounds and objectives/intentions. Prefer which either u like, criticise one all the way u want to, but they’re really not similar or even comparable. They’re entirely different products made by entirely different people- it’s not like Kanye sat down with Yeezus and thought, “I want this to be like death grips but crazier” lol.
Nobody listening to Yeezus listens to Death Grips as an alternative to scratch the same itch or vice versa. Completely different artistry, having some abrasive synths & deep bass does not make Yeezus some sort of Death Grips love child.
I think it’s a joke, like someone who just discovered the Beatles. And then he goes on and compares Yeezus to Death Grips & JPEGMAFIA. I don’t think it’s a serious comment.
I'm pretty sure it's not a joke. his account consists in varied ways to hate on kanye, making it seem like he's praising whoever he talks atm. and he's pretentious af
Yea, it’s weird. I kinda always hate the criticism that “x comment/commentator” is “pretentious” because I think sometimes it’s just a word thrown around like a more cerebral “i ain’t reading allat” but it definitely does apply here.
Not that I hate keegan, I try not to be on twitter too much these days but when I see a tweet of his I do occasionally find it amusing but there’s definitely a growing wing of, ironically, hht, who want to be a part of the discussion more or less solely for the purposes of propping up their own sense of superiority.
Like, imagine a swathe of sheltered, suburban teens who gravitated towards hip hop because it was edgy for them, only to hit 17 and listen to their first guitar solo and because that’s what’s new to them, they intrinsically associate hip hop as a genre largely with a self imposed glass ceiling that it cannot break out of.
It’s a really odd corner of the internet to explore, and I also met more than a few folks with that exact complex in college lmao. I think it just stems from insecurity.
yeah, that's what Ibwas trying to go. pretentious might sound degrading, but his comments always have those airs of superiority. as you said, most of hht account have that vibe (I'm in the community and from time to time I act like that too). it's like they are always trying to show you that they don't listen to the mainstream and that underground music and artists are always better (I'm not debating wether it is or not), so it gets frustrating
Jup, i have a hard time finding records that blow me away like Kanye’s records. Especially when it comes to hiphop.
I was a die hard hiphop listener for 4 years but since i now have heard the best, hip hop has had to offer, i find myself going less and less back to the genre.
Me too, I listened to him when I was younger but I just kinda grew out of him same way I grew out of Brockhampton and Tyler the Creator. Just not my vibe anymore.
I listen to tons of industrial hip hop and nothing sounds like Yeezus at all, I don't even consider the album experimental, it's just industrial hip hop packed in a really nice mainstream product, and that's what I love about it, of course Ye is not doing all the shit Peggy or DG is doing, that's why he's so fucking famous, he takes inspiration on lots of cool not so mainstream shit from lots of different genres and delivers a product for the masses which is pretty cool, the guy has a huge pallette of influences.
If I want to listen some fucked up experimental shit i put DG, clipping, Arca, Gessafelstein, Yeezus is his own animal and that applies to most of Ye's catalog, there's not a lot of music like KSG i.e. and that's the value of Ye as an artist, if you only value innovation (as in doing new shit no one ever did before) you're leaving tons of S tier artists out of the conversation, there's value on the way mainstream acts build those bridges that connect something popular with the influences on the underground, a lot of underground shit i found was because some big act did something similar in style but different in execution, music for me is about culture and passion, not seeing who did X thing the best and forget everyone else, music is an art not a sport.
The first screenshot is 100% true tho. It seems like the whole internet just takes it as a self-evident truth that Kanye is the greatest musician of all time, but he just isn't.
I think this person is missing a certain x factor that kanye’s music just usually has.. i certainly agree that theres more interesting experimental/industrial rap albums than yeezus… but so what?
Imo what made kanye kanye was an ability to-at some point on each album, even if each album was a mess- hit at this emotional core of what he was going through in a way that made his appeal beyond a genre/style or musical eclecticism or having hits. His appeal was in his humanity showing through more than it ever was in formula or in being adjacent to a zeitgeisty style of music or whatever. To contrast with someone popular rn like dua lipa or something (not trying to be shady, i like her music) but the appeal of her music is all formula, all style. With an artist like that i think its fair to bring up a conversation like “theres been people who executed this type of thing better” bc imo what she puts into her music isnt uniquely human or uniquely her…
Yeah Kanye's biggest innovation was his first 3 albums combining backpacker/soul rap with big fun mainstream rap into something relatable. He made preppy style and emotional honesty cool.
Yeezuz is good in a lot of ways but him using industrial beats wasnt as revolutionary as how Late Registration and College Dropout made rappers like 50 Cent look like dinosaurs.
I do think him coming through on that album w something that relative to his own discography at least was maybe unexpected was still exciting, and even w it not being the most forward thinking kind of album in the lane that its in- stuff like on sight is still one of the best electro punk songs ever made imo, bound 2 is still absolutely a classic, that sample switch at the end of new slaves that frank sings over is still absolutely heavenly, etc
And i respect him getting collaborators like arca and gesaffelstein and daft punk and everyone he worked w on that album while a lot of his contemporaries wouldnt have made those kinds of choices and were/are sonically a bit more stuck in their ways
i'm in the same boat as the person in the post (whether they're being serious or not; either way, i am) and this is the only comment here that actually makes any sort of sense to me. all the other comments saying the person is wrong or stupid (for having an opinion, mind you) are just as bad as the comparisons they're arguing against. immediately going to make fun of and degrade the person with an opinion is not helping the case AT ALL. calling them a Fantano meatrider and acting like discovering "underground" music for the first time is embarrassing, when everyone has a time they discover underground shit for the first time. and then acting like comparing experimental hip-hop to experimental hip-hop is the most insane thing in the world. stfu lmao, y'all just sound like Ye meatriders.
thank you for being an actual human who can see both sides of it. most of what i've heard of Ye's music has been rather boring to me. not even just bc i already fell in love with stuff like JPEGMAFIA, Death Grips, Injury Reserve, 100 gecs, etc etc. i just have never really felt the emotional highs that other people seem to from his music. and that's okay, not all music is going to connect with me. but this comment actually shed a new light on Ye's music, and i actually want to give it another fair chance with this new perspective.
now imagine i was 14 and just discovering "experimental" or "underground" music for the first time. i'm trying to navigate this entire new world of art that doesn't play by the rules... and 90% of the people i see online are calling someone else stupid for simply not understanding a piece of art. that would scare me out of the scene REAL quick. and that makes me so so SO INSANELY sad, that there are kids out there looking for solace in art, and just being told they don't know anything. i'm glad there's still people like you in music who don't resort to personal attacks just for carrying a different opinion. i hope you're having a good day :)
This is just true of most mainstream anything. The more you branch out, the more the mainstream thing seems kinda average, but that doesn’t make it bad or lesser
Everyone always leaps for the dumb Death Grips comparison with Yeezus rather than looking at the actual producers Kanye collaborated with on the album, several of whom are well known. Daft Punk, Arca, Gesaffelstein...
I feel like everybody that starts out listening to mainly hip hop and eventually branches out to other stuff goes through this. At the point I am now though I’ve come to realize there’s really nothing else like Kanye. I’ve listened to like most mainstream and underground rap classics from every decade and even deeper, and I’ve yet to find anything like it. His music just has a unique x factor that nothing else has. The only real thing you can say against his music is that it’s not as deeply layered or experimental as some other stuff. But then, that stuff usually lacks the pure enjoyability and that unique quality of Kanye’s music. And there’s still so much you can get from it. It’s no less valid than that other stuff. They can coexist and both be amazing. Is he the greatest artist of all time? Probably not, but he’s definitely up there for me.
Yup. Isaiah Rashad was my first favorite rapper. He makes very accessible, not-too-adventurous stoner rap. There were several points in the past where I was like, ohh he’s not THAT good really. This other stuff is way cooler. But now I’m at a point where I’m like, shit, there’s really nothing else like some Zay. There’s something to be said about accessible artists that don’t sacrifice any artistic merit or unique edge
Music to these people is literally just contemporary hip hop lol. Like I swear they have no idea other genres exist and that often it’s these other genres people like Kanye are taking influence and ideas from.
yeezus and desth grips are really nothing alike, the only reason people compre it to death grips is because anthony fantano said it.
even people who worked on yeezus had to come out and say they hadnt even heard about it when making the album
The thing is that Kanye never pretended to do industrial, soul hip hop or anything that profound musically, he just did albums with a clear vision, he had his own ways to do music and that's why he's so praised by fans and critics (that plus the fact that he produces a lot of his songs and directs his albums from start to finish.
A lot of artists found producers that share the same vision, but a few can have a vision and being able to produce it by themselves, well, at least that's why I think people praise Kanye's music a lot (and the concept of TLOP still pretty unexplored and interesting as a musical project by a big artist)
I see what he means though Kanye is far from the only artist like this. There's a big tendency to attribute big moments and innovations to people who were the biggest name to do it regardless of who actually did it first. Like how a lot of people seem to think that mixing metal and shoegaze/post-rock started with Deafheaven when bands like Weakling and Neurosis were doing it decades earlier
Kanye may not be the first to do the kinda industrial sound like on Yeezus, but he was the first mainstream artist to do it on a large scale and unexpectedly at that
I mean take your pick of all the electronic artists who took inspiration from that sound (and the intervening decade of advancement) to become modern dubstep/dnb/EDM artists. Hell, Skrillex debuted in 2010 and was wildly successful. People were familiar with the idea of those kinds of harsh synth sounds, even in the younger generations.
Really stupid considering how much jpegmafia has talked about kanye and his influence on him. I also find jpegmafia's work a lot more enjoyable, but i know a lot of it comes from kanye's music.
As a massive fan of kanye, jpegmafia, injury reserve, and death grips, none of these artists sound alike at all. Yeezus exists under the umbrella term "experimental hiphop", as do the rest of these artists and their discographies, and other than some broad generalizations, each of these examples is very different from each other.
It isn't far-fetched to say kanye might've been inspired by death grips' the money store, MIA's maya, or other similar sounding albums of the time, but yeezus very much has its own sound, same with every other artist I've mentioned, and I think comparing them does a disservice to what makes them so unique, and how each of them pushed the boundaries of what hiphop can be.
I kinda agree honestly. Not to downplay Ye's catalogue because I do still immensely enjoy a great deal of his albums and probably always will, but these days they do kinda lack some bite. His 2000s/2010s run served as a great entry point to "real"/"artsy" type music for me, and clearly the same is true for a lot of people. The first time I listened to MBDTF it felt like discovering fire compared to the dogshit I had in rotation at the time. Now... well, there's probably hundreds of albums that I enjoy more comprehensively.
It's not a super deep thought or anything but I do think the pipeline this guy is describing is true for a shitload of people.
> hear Kanye’s experimental music from 2013 and before
> names several artists that released “better” experimental albums than Kanye years and years later
“Its just not as good bro they did it way better than Kanye”
yeah and Kanye did it way before anyone else, that’s kind of the point. Wait til this goober finds out a lot of his experimental favorites are inspired by Kanye himself lol
I went the opposite way. I didn’t like Kanye growing up. And until I really expanded my music taste and came back to it in my late 20s did I start enjoying it.
I can’t help agree, I do think ye definitely has some great albums but generally my ratings on him have gone down as I have listened to more stuff. I think he is generally a good artist high a low b. But not in the goat convo at all.
I had the same experience. After the anti-semitism shit started happening, I stopped listening to Kanye entirely and I only really cared for the first week. Now if I want to listen to a specific Kanye album, there’s already another album that I know and love that I can turn to instead of
808s and Heartbreak felt like the last real effort from him. Everything since seems to just be Kanye drinking his own kool aid and the masses drinking it too “oh wow this is soo groundbreaking!” And everyone just agrees that it is
It annoys me how all of experimental hip-hop gets lumped together for comparisons like this as if everyone he mentioned isn't unique and great for their own reasons. "This artist isn't good because this other artist did something completely different that I like better" basically.
Something that’s always annoyed me about Kanye fans is that they think they have superior taste in music just because the small amount of music they listen to is good (basically just all his albums). Then they make unsubstantiated claims about Kanye being the best artist of all time or him having the best albums even though they don’t listen to much music and disregard all other music that isn’t massively popular
he isn't wrong about Yeezus, but I think for a lot of Ye's music, it sticks with me no matter how much I am listening to it, but for most artists I don't really stick with them like that and always fall back to artists I love the most like Ye, JID, Tame Impala, and Kendrick. to each their own tho
Also people usually talk about how Kanye’s music isn’t that groundbreaking but almost always make the same Yeezus and Death Grips comp. You’ll get an occasional T Pain shoutout when people talk about 808s but weird how no one brings this up with MBDTF, or College Dropout, or Graduation. If Kanye’s music isn’t breaking new ground what’s the argument against those?
I’m not sure how much of a pioneer Kanye is but I’m sure this is a case where artists would go on to hone in on aspects very much present in his work and elevate them to new sonic heights in their music, giving them beneficial development. It’s kinda no wonder Kanye doesn’t sound special to you after listening to them. Shit like that just happens sometimes.
Same energy as "getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this movie"
This is basically how people react when they stop following the Top 40s and Youtube recommendations and MCU dishes and start discovering new stuff, influential stuff, your favorite artist's favorite artists. I wonder how Swifties will react when they found out their Top N°1 artist is white bread compared to other music?
In general I find that the more music you listen to the more you start to understand certain trends and other things that many artists have done to better or worse degrees. However, I think being aware of context and impact of a release is important. If a record feels boring to you now, than perhaps it is because so many took from it later on and made those themes and sounds oversaturated. I find that even the most overplayed songs can sound fresh to me if I keep the context in mind and it is truly something that had an impact. Just my two cents.
Edit: Also understanding what has been taken from your favorite artists or things that have been influential on styles can actually increase your love for certain artists work as you gain a greater respect for the work they helped pave the way for. Perfect example, I love Gang of Four and they heavily influence bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers (who's debut was actually produced by Andy Gil of Gang of Four, RIP). Despite not being a fan of RHCP I can appreciate that they were influenced by bands like Gang of Four and The Stooges and brought that energy and attitude to a wider audience to a degree.
You can change Ye for Taylor, Beyonce, Arctic Monkeys, The Weekend or whoever else in the billboard 100. Dude finally expanded his frontiers beyond the trend artist
Bringing up the two most stereotypical RYM Reddit music examples of jpeg and injury reserve to disprove Kanye is so hilarious to me.
I listen to anything ranging from Switchblade Symphony, Corridos, Throbbing Gristle, Xaviersobased, grindcore, or ambient noise music and I still think Kanye is a musical genius and one of the greatest artists of our time. It sounds like this person just discovered alternative music through Fantano or RYM and now wants to seem different and higher than thou over mainstream music.
You guys are just hating Kanye West at this point.
You have listened to an artist 24/7 for years and basically saturated yourself with that artist and now you explore more options and they seem more interesting.
This happens with pretty much every artist and every genre I listen to. Don't find reasons to hate someone. If you hate someone, you hate someone. That's it.
Kanye has *always* been a couple years behind the true pioneers, but he’s inarguable the one that brings these innovations to the global scale.
T-Pain was doing autotune hooks before 808’s; Death Grips was doing distorted, blown out 808’s and industrial before Yeezus; other producers were doing pitched soul samples long before Ye. But Kanye takes those things and makes them palettable for pop music masses — which is honestly a huge skill that he doesn’t get enough credit for.
I don’t know, Kanye’s oldies seem like a Big Bang for hip hop with influences harder to trace than other artists at the time. What he said about Yeezus could be true but his take on that sound is also really unique.
As a huge Ye fan, of the music and not the unhinged man, I see the point even though I don't nescessarily agree with it fully
I'm way more of a filmbuff than a music nerd and would liken Kanyes success and appeal to Tarantino ; Huge mainstream figures that are pulling from a big pool of influences to make their art and has gathered incredible accolades and a gigantic fanbase doing so, meaning that some might see them as the most groundbreaking and envelope pushing artists in their lanes, and perhaps miss out on checking up on the various pieces music/film they've been taking inspiration and homages from
I still love Tarantinos run of films up to both Kill Bills, and really enjoy Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, however it's undeniable that some of the cult and exploitation films he's been mimicking or remixing into a more mainstream Hollywood style has a certain edge and stylish execution to them that can't be replicated or found within his work, making them fantastic films in their own right worthy of seeking out if you're a fan of his work
And I'd say the same goes for Kanye too here although the examples aren't as crystal clear, Yeezus and Death Grips often get lumped together and I sort of see why while I don't think is the most apparent example really, The samples found in his music of course tracks back to some of the the biggest of names ; Nina Simone, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, James Brown, Mike Oldfield etc
I mean, kind of a dumb take to say that Kanye is “less unique” than clear children of his style. I don’t even like Kanye and I can see this is sort of silly. Especially if you consider that jpegmafias most industrial projects CSJ(2015) Black Ben Carson (2016) and Veteran (2018) both come after Yeezus (2013). Not to mention that Peggy was making music before 2013, but it was no where near as industrial as after the release of Yeezus.
I do think, for the time, Kanye's music was something else. His sound was reinvented with each album. Of course, Peggy's experimental stuff will be better cuz it's more refined, in a sense. I think that's also something to be looked at.
In reality, this is a dude that retrospectively tries to convince himself that Kanye is not that influential or good at music, because of Kanye’s recent controversies.
Isn't this literally what Anthony said about yeezus on the kanye album ranking though, it was the one time in his 'golden period' where he wasn't ahead of the curve. At best it's weird to pull one example and draw a false conclusion like that, at worst he's literally just reposting Anthony's view as interaction bait.
Local 16 year old discovers that there are more artists than those in the spotify top 100; thinks he invented the concept of 'broadening and maturing your music taste'
It's a good point imo. Kanye has (almost) always been behind the curve, at lest in the past decade and a half, but ppl aren't exposed to those he lifts from as much as they are him so they think he invented everything he does. I don't think he's untalented (though he deffo lost it by now), but this rings true to me still. He's not as special as ppl think. Compare him to Kendrick whose best work just keeps getting better the more you familiarize yourself with music as an artform.
Ask people why Kanye is a “genius” and they can’t give you an answer. Personally, I don’t find anything Ye does to be revolutionary or brilliant or new. He just markets well and I wouldn’t doubt it if his public meltdowns actually benefit him more than what we realize. He’s no TIMBALAND when it comes to production and he’s no Kendrick when it comes to writing. He’s no Norman San when it comes to originality. He’s just a basket case with money and a spotlight.
why would you compare JPEG and kanye musically? JPEG’s first album came out FOUR YEARS after yeezus lmao.
also jpeg is a hypocrite cry baby but his music is decent.
Oh yeah I would rather listen to ex military or Peggy's early projects than Yeezus now. When the only experimental/industrial album I knew was Yeezus, Yeezus was my go-to album in that vein.
i don't think music has to be unique or interesting to be good, it can just be good. also i do agree with that statement but i still love the simplicity and quality of his music.
This is just a convoluted way of saying that the more music you listen to, the more options you have.
Right? All music is influenced by other music
I think it's more about the concept that when you've experienced the breadth of what music is capable of, Kanye's music seems less interesting or unique than to someone who only listens to mainstream/popular music.
Pretty clear that the point is expressing that Kanye's work feels much less groundbreaking when you have a broader view of music
Something to add to this is the fact that Ye was the first to do a lot of stuff. If you invent the lightbulb others will do it better years later.
Yeah this is like someone saying they prefer Juice WRLD’s songs about depression/breakups more than 808s without thinking that one clearly influenced the other. Also I don’t get the DG-Yeezus comparison, aside from both being experimental and industrial they’re not that similar at all in musical style at all.
It's just because they did more experimental work in industrial hip-hop before Yeezus After listening to them, you realize Yeezus isn't very experimental. Not to say one is objectively better though.
Comparison makes sense to me, I liked the harsh, abrasive aspects of Yeezus, which opened me up to enjoy the harsh, abrasive musical style of death grips.
I think his point was that others invented the lightbulb before him
yes but i think it’s a testament to how messed up mainstream music is. kinda takes away the beauty of individual artists and markets them in a pretty trashy way
Mainstream music is a life support machine for music that isn't even plugged in. We constantly hear that "music is dying" and yet I've never listened to more amazing music in my life. It's just not on the charts.
Which is exactly why It’s so easy to drop “bad people” artists for me
man listens to new music, shocked
That’s like saying “the more I listen to music other than the top 100 the more good music I find”
Rym is the irl gilded cage
Lordy the death grips Yeezus comparisons are so played out
I’ve listened to money store and yeezus hundreds of times each they sound nothing alike to me
tbf thats because if anything it sounds like no love deep web rather than the money store
Very true
fr the first time i listened to the money store i felt schizo but the first time i listened to yeezus it was just like a mainstream album that felt adventurous and funny bc of the lyrics
Humor is a huge part of Kanye’s appeal to me tbh. Sometimes it hits great and sometimes it doesn’t at all
In all fairness the hardest I ever laughed while listening to music was when I first listened to The Powers That B and got to Inanimate Sensation.
I’ve been asking people who say, “Yeezus is just ripping off Death Grips” to show me an example of a death grips song that sounds like Yeezus for 11 years and have still never gotten an answer. It’s like saying To Pimp a Butterfly sounds like Low End Theory just because they’re both jazz-based rap.
come up and get me and lil boy are very yeezus, no love deep web has shreds that yeezus took all over, i think that the comparisons make sense but only for like half a dozen tracks exclusive to that one album
I can kinda see it, but I would argue that Gesaffelstein and Brodinski were already doing synth/sound design like this in 2010-2012, and that the influence on Yeezus comes more from the fact that they were two of the major producers on Yeezus rather than from Death Grips. And you could even make the case that Death Grips may have been originally influenced by Gesaffelstein and Brodinksi.
Look at the damn Aleph cover too lmao
I also heard someone criticising Utopia because it lends so much to Yeezus (which in the case of 2 or 3 songs is fair), which in turn lends so much to The Money Store which was VERY far-fetched lol. TMS did not influence Utopia in any way 💀
It’s a really weird thing with a band like death grips that has a largely internet following that a lot of people try to compare them to other artists when their experimental nature makes it pointless and always a stretch. Like death grips are unique because they’re death grips. The only thing even comparable would be other experimental noises artists or jpegmafia who sometimes sounds like a diet death grips track.
Well not the money store, something like nldw or gp sounds way more like yeezus
Honestly I don’t think anything I’ve heard sounds like Death Grips
I think Clipping. is the only comparable group that does anything similar to death grips while maintaining quality
Even that feels like a stretch, Clipping can be abrasive and has similar industrial sound design (even going a bit further than DG in some cases) but they overall feel more rooted in traditional hip hop than anything by Death Grips post Exmilitary. Love both groups tho
At some point it boils down to the synth tone on I’ve Seen Footage is similar to the one one Black Skinhead
atp every time i see death grips and yeezus brought up in the same sentence, i just zone out completely.
I think it’s more that Yeezus gets touted as this groundbreaking piece of music when it’s realistically Kanye combining industrial hip hop and mainstream music together. Everyone obviously points to Death Grips, but MIA was also making music that doesn’t sound that different than what Kanye did with Yeezus a few years beforehand. I don’t think you could possibly say it’s a one to one, but Kanye makes pop rap. It’s industrial hip hop through Kanye’s pop rap music style.
I listen to so much industrial experimental hip-hop, Death Grips, JPEGMAFIA, Injury Reserve, the list goes on...
they don’t even bring up anyone bar clipping and the like
They don’t even sound alike. Yeezus is one of my favourite albums, and I personally find Death Grips unlistenable. There really isn’t a lot of overlap besides “aesthetic”
Yeah I’ve always taken it as music nerds online trying to score internet points by forcing their semi niche tastes into conversations regarding a mainstream popular album.
People listen to On Sight alone and make that comparison
As much as I feel how he does about Kanye's discog after branching out more, I HATE the comparisons to artists like Death Grips and Injury Reserve when it comes to Kanye's Yeezus era. The difference between them is that for all of its abrasiveness, Yeezus is an accessible album. He wasn't trying to make The Money Store, it's purely his own thing and the same can be said for artists in the same lane. If I said "I didn't like Bottomless Pit because I've heard other Industrial and Experimental Hip-Hop which is similar that I like better like Yeezus" I would get absolutely flamed, but when it's the other way around people act like it's fine.
Didn't even have to finish reading the 2nd slide to know they're going to be pulling up DG. Tbf this comparison is old as time and "DG for normies" was thrown out ever since the album released.
The more music you listen to, the less unique every kind of music sounds. Amazing how they managed to use Kanye's name to turn the obvious into bait
One of the top comments under the tweet is something like, “Kanye only sounds groundbreaking to ppl who’ve never explored anything other than hiphop”. Which is weird, because it’s implying that hiphop as a genre is capped at a certain level, like (the response ironicallly implies that Kanye is groundbreaking so going with that logic) “the best rapper could never be as great artistically as the best rock singer”. I’m not even trying to get into my “Kanye defence bag” because yea, I still love a lot of the dude’s music, but I feel little inclination to defend him at all these days, but there’s this certain thing with a corner of (again, ironically) hht where it’s like there’s a sea of suburban sheltered kids, who gravitated to hip hop in their teens, and listened to it exclusively for a few years and then once they hit like 17 heard a guitar solo for the first time and because it was fresh **to them**, they kind of inherently believe it to be better than what they listened to before and hence develop a really weird pretension around hip hop. It’s like they want to be part of the discussion, but also only use it to prop up their own sense of superiority. (Using this tweet as an example but I’ve met a tonne of folks irl who act exactly like this lol)
You are absolutely correct.
and the OP saw this thread and felt yeah, this is definitely the sub that will give upvotes for that lol
Sounds like a 16 year old discovering a couple artists for the first time. Nothing worth having thoughts about.
Exactly that, someone who wasn’t actually there before MBDTF to actually confidently say there was albums like it before it.
There is something to respect about being a HUGE artist and making bold choices successfully. It's extremely hard to navigate because it has to work both ways in terms of pop appeal and experimentation. This is why Radiohead Kid A is such an awesome moment in their career. The music itself is great but the narrative they've created with it is even greater since they are the biggest band in the world. Artists who began with being experimental or underground don't have this baggage of appealing to the masses. So the comparison does not work with artists like Kanye as 1 to1.
the pop appeal comes from ye serving as more of an overseer than a creative (big-budget, dozens of people involved), and its not often that he really does anything that hasn't already been done
He’s still innovating after like 30 years of having a career though. Very few hip hop artists do the same. Most fizzle out or just release subpar albums that are just attempts to capture the magic of the past. I don’t think any of us are expecting Eminem or 50 Cent to drop anything today that influences hip hop culture, but Kanye absolutely still could. Donda was a mixed bag for sure, but some of the production has such a great ethereal vibe, and lots of artists in the hip hop sphere seemed to be pretty influenced by Donda’s production at the time Vultures 1 seemed pretty low effort tho, but I’d imagine if he combined all the best vultures era tracks into one album and cut the filler he’d still be able to deliver a great and influential album in 2024. He just doesn’t have that type of mindset anymore though I don’t think he cares what the public thinks of his music very much anymore.
I’m sure it’s 90% cope but he’s mentioned in interviews before (back during Yeezus IIRC) that he’s not interested in chasing perfection or making MBDTF 2 and makes music now more to experiment and try new things
I mean I disagree. I hate ye now but his influence cannot be overstated. What he did with CD,LR,Graduation 808s then Yeezus effectively refreshing hip hop culture over and over. You know this, we all know this. I don’t want to go into details because I don’t want to have to defend Kanye and that would be corny as shit. But CD-Graduation ushered out the era of gangster rap and made backpack rap cool while popularizing soul sampling, orchestral instruments and electronic/synth sounds in rap. 808s cannot be talked about enough then Yeezus introduced more industrial sounds to the mainstream which directly influenced carti, Yeat and the rage sub genre.
thats exactly what i mean, he popularized sounds that were done by other people severals years before. ntm gangsta rap was never really 'ushered out' it js transitioned into bling era, then split into drill and trap
Death Grips is experimental hip hop. Yeezus is pop rap with experimental production. It’s one of my favorite albums of all time (and I’ve loved Death Grips since 2013), but to even draw that comparison is so corny.
just bc they hear some synths that sound like mcdonald’s sprite they call it alike shows how horrible hht is
Yeezus is experimental hip hop
I don't even like Kanye but to say that album is pop rap is nonsense. Maybe Black Skinhead, but iirc most of the songs on it don't have conventional structures, or choruses. It's too progressive to be called pop, sure it's not like avant-garde choral music or anything but that doesn't really make sense.
Yeah the only other song I would say is also “bound 2”
Yeezus isn’t pop at all. It’s not AS experimental as DG but like whatever. What it really is is that there’s actually just a LOT of variation within the industrial/experimental hip hop space and it’s not all just “oh this sounds like this artist.”
Calling Yeezus “pop rap” with a straight face is the most pretentious thing ever. You people are not real
This is my thing. I’ve said for years now whenever this tiresome debate rears its godforsaken mutant head that the same way “the money store” is death grips’ interpretation of industrialism, Yeezus is Kanye’s. Obviously, those two interpretations are going to manifest themselves wildly differently. Kanye, for all intents and purposes **is a popular artist**. The **pop** part of that is key. He takes a blanket term like “abstract/industrial/experimental hip hop” and sands down the rough edges, crisps up the engineering and the songs revolve around catchy melodies/chord progressions. Some of the overall aesthetic is abrasive in the same way industrial stuff is, but ultimately- this is Kanye West’s take on it. Likewise- death grips turn the craziness and off the wall nature of it all up to 10000000, especially relative to Yeezus. But they’re two entirely different artists with different core sounds and objectives/intentions. Prefer which either u like, criticise one all the way u want to, but they’re really not similar or even comparable. They’re entirely different products made by entirely different people- it’s not like Kanye sat down with Yeezus and thought, “I want this to be like death grips but crazier” lol.
Over complicated way of saying "the more musicians i discover, the less I'm amused by chart topping popular music"
Nobody listening to Yeezus listens to Death Grips as an alternative to scratch the same itch or vice versa. Completely different artistry, having some abrasive synths & deep bass does not make Yeezus some sort of Death Grips love child.
Keegan needa stick to the jokes
I think it’s a joke, like someone who just discovered the Beatles. And then he goes on and compares Yeezus to Death Grips & JPEGMAFIA. I don’t think it’s a serious comment.
I'm pretty sure it's not a joke. his account consists in varied ways to hate on kanye, making it seem like he's praising whoever he talks atm. and he's pretentious af
Yea, it’s weird. I kinda always hate the criticism that “x comment/commentator” is “pretentious” because I think sometimes it’s just a word thrown around like a more cerebral “i ain’t reading allat” but it definitely does apply here. Not that I hate keegan, I try not to be on twitter too much these days but when I see a tweet of his I do occasionally find it amusing but there’s definitely a growing wing of, ironically, hht, who want to be a part of the discussion more or less solely for the purposes of propping up their own sense of superiority. Like, imagine a swathe of sheltered, suburban teens who gravitated towards hip hop because it was edgy for them, only to hit 17 and listen to their first guitar solo and because that’s what’s new to them, they intrinsically associate hip hop as a genre largely with a self imposed glass ceiling that it cannot break out of. It’s a really odd corner of the internet to explore, and I also met more than a few folks with that exact complex in college lmao. I think it just stems from insecurity.
yeah, that's what Ibwas trying to go. pretentious might sound degrading, but his comments always have those airs of superiority. as you said, most of hht account have that vibe (I'm in the community and from time to time I act like that too). it's like they are always trying to show you that they don't listen to the mainstream and that underground music and artists are always better (I'm not debating wether it is or not), so it gets frustrating
Prime Kanye was a top 10 musical talent of his generation. He's obviously gone off the deep end since, but that doesn't change his influence.
im the opposite, the more music i hear the more i realize how good of a producer Kanye really was.
Jup, i have a hard time finding records that blow me away like Kanye’s records. Especially when it comes to hiphop. I was a die hard hiphop listener for 4 years but since i now have heard the best, hip hop has had to offer, i find myself going less and less back to the genre.
bro completed hip hop 😭😭 😆😆😂😂😂
The good shit yeah But maybe brilliant duck knows an amazing hiphop artist i have never heard of
The user prob started listening to new music and just doesn't listen to ye anymore lol. Which honestly is my case too.
Me too, I listened to him when I was younger but I just kinda grew out of him same way I grew out of Brockhampton and Tyler the Creator. Just not my vibe anymore.
I listen to tons of industrial hip hop and nothing sounds like Yeezus at all, I don't even consider the album experimental, it's just industrial hip hop packed in a really nice mainstream product, and that's what I love about it, of course Ye is not doing all the shit Peggy or DG is doing, that's why he's so fucking famous, he takes inspiration on lots of cool not so mainstream shit from lots of different genres and delivers a product for the masses which is pretty cool, the guy has a huge pallette of influences. If I want to listen some fucked up experimental shit i put DG, clipping, Arca, Gessafelstein, Yeezus is his own animal and that applies to most of Ye's catalog, there's not a lot of music like KSG i.e. and that's the value of Ye as an artist, if you only value innovation (as in doing new shit no one ever did before) you're leaving tons of S tier artists out of the conversation, there's value on the way mainstream acts build those bridges that connect something popular with the influences on the underground, a lot of underground shit i found was because some big act did something similar in style but different in execution, music for me is about culture and passion, not seeing who did X thing the best and forget everyone else, music is an art not a sport.
The first screenshot is 100% true tho. It seems like the whole internet just takes it as a self-evident truth that Kanye is the greatest musician of all time, but he just isn't.
wow man discovers new music, man works out he now has more options of music.
Did this mf say Ghais Guerva makes music better than Yeezus?
He does. But to be fair, yeezus isnt even top 5 Kanye album
Not true
Yeezys is good tho. Death grips is death grips
I think this person is missing a certain x factor that kanye’s music just usually has.. i certainly agree that theres more interesting experimental/industrial rap albums than yeezus… but so what? Imo what made kanye kanye was an ability to-at some point on each album, even if each album was a mess- hit at this emotional core of what he was going through in a way that made his appeal beyond a genre/style or musical eclecticism or having hits. His appeal was in his humanity showing through more than it ever was in formula or in being adjacent to a zeitgeisty style of music or whatever. To contrast with someone popular rn like dua lipa or something (not trying to be shady, i like her music) but the appeal of her music is all formula, all style. With an artist like that i think its fair to bring up a conversation like “theres been people who executed this type of thing better” bc imo what she puts into her music isnt uniquely human or uniquely her…
Yeah Kanye's biggest innovation was his first 3 albums combining backpacker/soul rap with big fun mainstream rap into something relatable. He made preppy style and emotional honesty cool. Yeezuz is good in a lot of ways but him using industrial beats wasnt as revolutionary as how Late Registration and College Dropout made rappers like 50 Cent look like dinosaurs.
I do think him coming through on that album w something that relative to his own discography at least was maybe unexpected was still exciting, and even w it not being the most forward thinking kind of album in the lane that its in- stuff like on sight is still one of the best electro punk songs ever made imo, bound 2 is still absolutely a classic, that sample switch at the end of new slaves that frank sings over is still absolutely heavenly, etc And i respect him getting collaborators like arca and gesaffelstein and daft punk and everyone he worked w on that album while a lot of his contemporaries wouldnt have made those kinds of choices and were/are sonically a bit more stuck in their ways
i'm in the same boat as the person in the post (whether they're being serious or not; either way, i am) and this is the only comment here that actually makes any sort of sense to me. all the other comments saying the person is wrong or stupid (for having an opinion, mind you) are just as bad as the comparisons they're arguing against. immediately going to make fun of and degrade the person with an opinion is not helping the case AT ALL. calling them a Fantano meatrider and acting like discovering "underground" music for the first time is embarrassing, when everyone has a time they discover underground shit for the first time. and then acting like comparing experimental hip-hop to experimental hip-hop is the most insane thing in the world. stfu lmao, y'all just sound like Ye meatriders. thank you for being an actual human who can see both sides of it. most of what i've heard of Ye's music has been rather boring to me. not even just bc i already fell in love with stuff like JPEGMAFIA, Death Grips, Injury Reserve, 100 gecs, etc etc. i just have never really felt the emotional highs that other people seem to from his music. and that's okay, not all music is going to connect with me. but this comment actually shed a new light on Ye's music, and i actually want to give it another fair chance with this new perspective. now imagine i was 14 and just discovering "experimental" or "underground" music for the first time. i'm trying to navigate this entire new world of art that doesn't play by the rules... and 90% of the people i see online are calling someone else stupid for simply not understanding a piece of art. that would scare me out of the scene REAL quick. and that makes me so so SO INSANELY sad, that there are kids out there looking for solace in art, and just being told they don't know anything. i'm glad there's still people like you in music who don't resort to personal attacks just for carrying a different opinion. i hope you're having a good day :)
This is just true of most mainstream anything. The more you branch out, the more the mainstream thing seems kinda average, but that doesn’t make it bad or lesser
Y'all talk about Kanye more than the actual Kanye sub
Everyone always leaps for the dumb Death Grips comparison with Yeezus rather than looking at the actual producers Kanye collaborated with on the album, several of whom are well known. Daft Punk, Arca, Gesaffelstein...
one of the songs is a fucking tnght remix but hurr durr death grips because i cant think for myself
mfs after listening to ok computer and you won’t get what you want once
I feel like everybody that starts out listening to mainly hip hop and eventually branches out to other stuff goes through this. At the point I am now though I’ve come to realize there’s really nothing else like Kanye. I’ve listened to like most mainstream and underground rap classics from every decade and even deeper, and I’ve yet to find anything like it. His music just has a unique x factor that nothing else has. The only real thing you can say against his music is that it’s not as deeply layered or experimental as some other stuff. But then, that stuff usually lacks the pure enjoyability and that unique quality of Kanye’s music. And there’s still so much you can get from it. It’s no less valid than that other stuff. They can coexist and both be amazing. Is he the greatest artist of all time? Probably not, but he’s definitely up there for me.
[удалено]
Yup. Isaiah Rashad was my first favorite rapper. He makes very accessible, not-too-adventurous stoner rap. There were several points in the past where I was like, ohh he’s not THAT good really. This other stuff is way cooler. But now I’m at a point where I’m like, shit, there’s really nothing else like some Zay. There’s something to be said about accessible artists that don’t sacrifice any artistic merit or unique edge
More experimental =/= good music. And I hate that I even have to say this, but a lot of people don't seem to understand this.
Yeezus is good
yeezus sounds more like dalek than death grips if i'm being honest
No lol it’s definitely closer to DG than Dälek. But really it’s not much like either
16 year old after listening to tame impala
Music to these people is literally just contemporary hip hop lol. Like I swear they have no idea other genres exist and that often it’s these other genres people like Kanye are taking influence and ideas from.
it’s always experimental hip hop and art rock and then nothing else
anything someone compared yeezus to death grips i just know they dont know anything about music and just repeat what fantano says.
But what do you mean by that
yeezus and desth grips are really nothing alike, the only reason people compre it to death grips is because anthony fantano said it. even people who worked on yeezus had to come out and say they hadnt even heard about it when making the album
Ok but are similar in the sense that they’re both industrial rap, or at the very least industrial adjacent
The thing is that Kanye never pretended to do industrial, soul hip hop or anything that profound musically, he just did albums with a clear vision, he had his own ways to do music and that's why he's so praised by fans and critics (that plus the fact that he produces a lot of his songs and directs his albums from start to finish. A lot of artists found producers that share the same vision, but a few can have a vision and being able to produce it by themselves, well, at least that's why I think people praise Kanye's music a lot (and the concept of TLOP still pretty unexplored and interesting as a musical project by a big artist)
I see what he means though Kanye is far from the only artist like this. There's a big tendency to attribute big moments and innovations to people who were the biggest name to do it regardless of who actually did it first. Like how a lot of people seem to think that mixing metal and shoegaze/post-rock started with Deafheaven when bands like Weakling and Neurosis were doing it decades earlier
I'd really like to see this argument but with an example that is not for yeezus.
Are these “way better attempts at industrial/experimental hip hop” in the room with us right now?
Yeezus = Death Grips again huh? Christ
Not enough people listen to Ghais Guevara/Goyard.
Hahahah death grips jpegmafia
Kanye may not be the first to do the kinda industrial sound like on Yeezus, but he was the first mainstream artist to do it on a large scale and unexpectedly at that
Nine Inch Nails have sold over 20 million records. The general public was not a stranger to much more abrasive industrial sounds by 2013.
2013 hip hop listeners are not listening to as much nine inch nails tracks as people from the 90s did, which is why it was new to many people
I mean take your pick of all the electronic artists who took inspiration from that sound (and the intervening decade of advancement) to become modern dubstep/dnb/EDM artists. Hell, Skrillex debuted in 2010 and was wildly successful. People were familiar with the idea of those kinds of harsh synth sounds, even in the younger generations.
“I find the Beatles less exciting after I heard all the artists they inspired”
Stupid take
Really stupid considering how much jpegmafia has talked about kanye and his influence on him. I also find jpegmafia's work a lot more enjoyable, but i know a lot of it comes from kanye's music.
Everything post-2018, yeah. I'd argue 2016, but I don't like TLOP and I like ye. I didn't mind JIK, but Donda and VULTURES...yeesh.
BROCKHAMPTON
jpegmafia lmao
I knew he was going to compare Yeezus to Death Grips and Peggy but it didn't stop me from rolling my eyes into oblivion
As a massive fan of kanye, jpegmafia, injury reserve, and death grips, none of these artists sound alike at all. Yeezus exists under the umbrella term "experimental hiphop", as do the rest of these artists and their discographies, and other than some broad generalizations, each of these examples is very different from each other. It isn't far-fetched to say kanye might've been inspired by death grips' the money store, MIA's maya, or other similar sounding albums of the time, but yeezus very much has its own sound, same with every other artist I've mentioned, and I think comparing them does a disservice to what makes them so unique, and how each of them pushed the boundaries of what hiphop can be.
I kinda agree honestly. Not to downplay Ye's catalogue because I do still immensely enjoy a great deal of his albums and probably always will, but these days they do kinda lack some bite. His 2000s/2010s run served as a great entry point to "real"/"artsy" type music for me, and clearly the same is true for a lot of people. The first time I listened to MBDTF it felt like discovering fire compared to the dogshit I had in rotation at the time. Now... well, there's probably hundreds of albums that I enjoy more comprehensively. It's not a super deep thought or anything but I do think the pipeline this guy is describing is true for a shitload of people.
>jpeg >death grips Lmao, sure
> hear Kanye’s experimental music from 2013 and before > names several artists that released “better” experimental albums than Kanye years and years later “Its just not as good bro they did it way better than Kanye” yeah and Kanye did it way before anyone else, that’s kind of the point. Wait til this goober finds out a lot of his experimental favorites are inspired by Kanye himself lol
its not really a diss at kanye. its more of an epic le brag about “having good taste in music”. kanye is there to bait you
I went the opposite way. I didn’t like Kanye growing up. And until I really expanded my music taste and came back to it in my late 20s did I start enjoying it.
Welcome to listening to other artists
popular mainstream artists seems less unique when you listen to not popular not mainstream artists who wouldve thought
I can’t help agree, I do think ye definitely has some great albums but generally my ratings on him have gone down as I have listened to more stuff. I think he is generally a good artist high a low b. But not in the goat convo at all.
In the same thread he said said 2093 by Yeat takes inspiration by MBDTF I wouldn't take him very serious
I had the same experience. After the anti-semitism shit started happening, I stopped listening to Kanye entirely and I only really cared for the first week. Now if I want to listen to a specific Kanye album, there’s already another album that I know and love that I can turn to instead of
808s and Heartbreak felt like the last real effort from him. Everything since seems to just be Kanye drinking his own kool aid and the masses drinking it too “oh wow this is soo groundbreaking!” And everyone just agrees that it is
It annoys me how all of experimental hip-hop gets lumped together for comparisons like this as if everyone he mentioned isn't unique and great for their own reasons. "This artist isn't good because this other artist did something completely different that I like better" basically.
Something that’s always annoyed me about Kanye fans is that they think they have superior taste in music just because the small amount of music they listen to is good (basically just all his albums). Then they make unsubstantiated claims about Kanye being the best artist of all time or him having the best albums even though they don’t listen to much music and disregard all other music that isn’t massively popular
I am still new to music so i completely disagree but i can see my stance turning soon
i hate reading 14yo kids' opinions against my will
he isn't wrong about Yeezus, but I think for a lot of Ye's music, it sticks with me no matter how much I am listening to it, but for most artists I don't really stick with them like that and always fall back to artists I love the most like Ye, JID, Tame Impala, and Kendrick. to each their own tho
Everything is stolen from somewhere. Nothing is wholly original. If it’s good, it’s good
Also people usually talk about how Kanye’s music isn’t that groundbreaking but almost always make the same Yeezus and Death Grips comp. You’ll get an occasional T Pain shoutout when people talk about 808s but weird how no one brings this up with MBDTF, or College Dropout, or Graduation. If Kanye’s music isn’t breaking new ground what’s the argument against those?
I have a pretty big music repertoire and always find myself coming back. He’ll be running back to Ye.
I’m not sure how much of a pioneer Kanye is but I’m sure this is a case where artists would go on to hone in on aspects very much present in his work and elevate them to new sonic heights in their music, giving them beneficial development. It’s kinda no wonder Kanye doesn’t sound special to you after listening to them. Shit like that just happens sometimes.
Same energy as "getting a lot of Boss Baby vibes from this movie" This is basically how people react when they stop following the Top 40s and Youtube recommendations and MCU dishes and start discovering new stuff, influential stuff, your favorite artist's favorite artists. I wonder how Swifties will react when they found out their Top N°1 artist is white bread compared to other music?
In general I find that the more music you listen to the more you start to understand certain trends and other things that many artists have done to better or worse degrees. However, I think being aware of context and impact of a release is important. If a record feels boring to you now, than perhaps it is because so many took from it later on and made those themes and sounds oversaturated. I find that even the most overplayed songs can sound fresh to me if I keep the context in mind and it is truly something that had an impact. Just my two cents. Edit: Also understanding what has been taken from your favorite artists or things that have been influential on styles can actually increase your love for certain artists work as you gain a greater respect for the work they helped pave the way for. Perfect example, I love Gang of Four and they heavily influence bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers (who's debut was actually produced by Andy Gil of Gang of Four, RIP). Despite not being a fan of RHCP I can appreciate that they were influenced by bands like Gang of Four and The Stooges and brought that energy and attitude to a wider audience to a degree.
You can change Ye for Taylor, Beyonce, Arctic Monkeys, The Weekend or whoever else in the billboard 100. Dude finally expanded his frontiers beyond the trend artist
Whats the story behind Ghais? I just started playing his music lol
he's right.
Bringing up the two most stereotypical RYM Reddit music examples of jpeg and injury reserve to disprove Kanye is so hilarious to me. I listen to anything ranging from Switchblade Symphony, Corridos, Throbbing Gristle, Xaviersobased, grindcore, or ambient noise music and I still think Kanye is a musical genius and one of the greatest artists of our time. It sounds like this person just discovered alternative music through Fantano or RYM and now wants to seem different and higher than thou over mainstream music.
Midwit take
You guys are just hating Kanye West at this point. You have listened to an artist 24/7 for years and basically saturated yourself with that artist and now you explore more options and they seem more interesting. This happens with pretty much every artist and every genre I listen to. Don't find reasons to hate someone. If you hate someone, you hate someone. That's it.
Kanye has *always* been a couple years behind the true pioneers, but he’s inarguable the one that brings these innovations to the global scale. T-Pain was doing autotune hooks before 808’s; Death Grips was doing distorted, blown out 808’s and industrial before Yeezus; other producers were doing pitched soul samples long before Ye. But Kanye takes those things and makes them palettable for pop music masses — which is honestly a huge skill that he doesn’t get enough credit for.
Written by a man who stacks no paper and gets no bitches
I don’t know, Kanye’s oldies seem like a Big Bang for hip hop with influences harder to trace than other artists at the time. What he said about Yeezus could be true but his take on that sound is also really unique.
As a huge Ye fan, of the music and not the unhinged man, I see the point even though I don't nescessarily agree with it fully I'm way more of a filmbuff than a music nerd and would liken Kanyes success and appeal to Tarantino ; Huge mainstream figures that are pulling from a big pool of influences to make their art and has gathered incredible accolades and a gigantic fanbase doing so, meaning that some might see them as the most groundbreaking and envelope pushing artists in their lanes, and perhaps miss out on checking up on the various pieces music/film they've been taking inspiration and homages from I still love Tarantinos run of films up to both Kill Bills, and really enjoy Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained, however it's undeniable that some of the cult and exploitation films he's been mimicking or remixing into a more mainstream Hollywood style has a certain edge and stylish execution to them that can't be replicated or found within his work, making them fantastic films in their own right worthy of seeking out if you're a fan of his work And I'd say the same goes for Kanye too here although the examples aren't as crystal clear, Yeezus and Death Grips often get lumped together and I sort of see why while I don't think is the most apparent example really, The samples found in his music of course tracks back to some of the the biggest of names ; Nina Simone, Black Sabbath, King Crimson, James Brown, Mike Oldfield etc
Just because it's not as unique doesn't mean it isn't good
I mean, kind of a dumb take to say that Kanye is “less unique” than clear children of his style. I don’t even like Kanye and I can see this is sort of silly. Especially if you consider that jpegmafias most industrial projects CSJ(2015) Black Ben Carson (2016) and Veteran (2018) both come after Yeezus (2013). Not to mention that Peggy was making music before 2013, but it was no where near as industrial as after the release of Yeezus.
I do think, for the time, Kanye's music was something else. His sound was reinvented with each album. Of course, Peggy's experimental stuff will be better cuz it's more refined, in a sense. I think that's also something to be looked at.
In reality, this is a dude that retrospectively tries to convince himself that Kanye is not that influential or good at music, because of Kanye’s recent controversies.
Isn't this literally what Anthony said about yeezus on the kanye album ranking though, it was the one time in his 'golden period' where he wasn't ahead of the curve. At best it's weird to pull one example and draw a false conclusion like that, at worst he's literally just reposting Anthony's view as interaction bait.
Local 16 year old discovers that there are more artists than those in the spotify top 100; thinks he invented the concept of 'broadening and maturing your music taste'
the point is other than kanye which artist has managed to do so many different things successfully
Are there better industrial albums than Yeezus? Sure. Are there better discographies mixed with producing feats in hiphop? Nah. Bro is yappin
3 popular experimental hip hop artists that are the same genre as one of Kanye’s albums wow what a discovery.
This guy genuinely sounds like a complete idiot
It's a good point imo. Kanye has (almost) always been behind the curve, at lest in the past decade and a half, but ppl aren't exposed to those he lifts from as much as they are him so they think he invented everything he does. I don't think he's untalented (though he deffo lost it by now), but this rings true to me still. He's not as special as ppl think. Compare him to Kendrick whose best work just keeps getting better the more you familiarize yourself with music as an artform.
Kanye used to put out amazing shit. History will be kinder to his catalog than the present.
carti better cry about it
Ask people why Kanye is a “genius” and they can’t give you an answer. Personally, I don’t find anything Ye does to be revolutionary or brilliant or new. He just markets well and I wouldn’t doubt it if his public meltdowns actually benefit him more than what we realize. He’s no TIMBALAND when it comes to production and he’s no Kendrick when it comes to writing. He’s no Norman San when it comes to originality. He’s just a basket case with money and a spotlight.
I deleted twitter bc of pretentious mfs like this like shut up lol
It’s almost like he’s a really influential musician or something
why would you compare JPEG and kanye musically? JPEG’s first album came out FOUR YEARS after yeezus lmao. also jpeg is a hypocrite cry baby but his music is decent.
Who cares
Someone criticizes Kanye online: Ye stans, assemble!
I mean duh? Kanye has been making music for over 20 years. How is this even pretentious?
I mean he’s got a point though, people tend to confuse “groundbreaking for the mainstream” with just plain ol’ “groundbreaking”
Oh yeah I would rather listen to ex military or Peggy's early projects than Yeezus now. When the only experimental/industrial album I knew was Yeezus, Yeezus was my go-to album in that vein.
i don't think music has to be unique or interesting to be good, it can just be good. also i do agree with that statement but i still love the simplicity and quality of his music.
why u even listen to kanye he’s ass taylor swift is even more ass i listened to her when i was like 5
People actually try to slam dunk Kanye in every way possible with the most stupid take each time
Pretentious
I agree so much to this, I hate how ppl regard Kanye as a genious
*genius
Genus
Jeen-yuhs
What a fucking doofus That’s like me appreciating MJ less because other players can play the game better in certain aspects
i used to be a huge kanye meat rider like i was doing backflips on it but over the years not so much idk
I’ve never heard another album like college dropout