ok Farren. Kanye sucks. It's like OK for DRUNK NIGHT CLUB MUSICS because you're too busy grinding against some girl to care what's going over the beat, but as far as appreciating music goes, he sucks.

i would rather listen to kanye and actually enjoy myself and have a good time instead of sitting around brooding to steve vai guitar solos in bb phyrigian

also his new album is fantastic but even if you don't like it it's absolutely not 'night club music,' (have you ever been to a nightclub with black people? probably not) and i think the point of this album was specifically to not be just dance tracks

That's all well and good if the artist is an interesting person or has interesting things to say, but other than the frequent clever rhyme(he's good at that) Kanye west is boring as fuck

his old stuff had plenty of worthwhile shit to say. yes all this mbdtf stuff is about fuckin and lambos, but his old stuff was good. hardly club music. he legitimately had a very interesting persona through his rap music.

We don't care? Spaceship? Jesus Walks (woiop woop)? Never let me down? Through the wire?

these are just off his first record, but how can you listen to these track and claim hes nothing more then drunk club rapper?

jesus walks was a HIT and its touching on a lot. not many rappers can do that. express a message AND be successful in the mainstream

his old stuff had plenty of worthwhile shit to say. yes all this mbdtf stuff is about fuckin and lambos, but his old stuff was good. hardly club music. he legitimately had a very interesting persona through his rap music.

idk i've heard his first couple albums a lot and it's really not that interesting. he's definitely got the skillz and delivery but some of the shit he spits is so ham fisted and boring.

Take Jesus Walks for instance, I get the whole "yeah im going to break the mold of not talking about religion in rap" thing, but what's he actually doing here? He's proudly proclaiming the importance of jesus in his life to a predominantly christian audience/customer base... that's not really risky, challenging, or thought provoking at all.

dunno if anyone noted them yet but I got mumford and sons and they're pretty good also the new murder by death album "good morning, magpie" is good so far.

I am in Afura's camp re: recent Kanye. Don't really like the guy. Don't like much of his previous work (there's a couple exceptions) but I struggle to find much to hate about this one. Lyrically he's about as good as a Kanye can be (mostly passable, some bright moments) but the production is incredible. Features a lot of good rappers too, although I don't remember hearing anything stellar from them on my initial skim though the tracks.

I don't really see any point in listening to rappers who get mainstream radio play for their lyrics really though. It's all about flow, styles and cheap puns. The biggest thing happening over the last decade (says Biggles who became a hiphop listener halfway through it) was the shift of imagery from the party to the club. (And the street to uh, twitter?) And that was significant. I don't expect popular rap music to venture outside of stylistic experiments using usual themes. Maybe I'm being ignorant. I guess that you could say that even on boring themes, you can still be a lyrical mastermind and I guess that's true to a certain extent, but does it really feel fresh? Open Mike Eagle's rejection of typical hiphop themes (thought not necessarily subject matter) is, I think, what makes him interesting. I don't see a place for that in mainstream rap, even as the underground is dissolving into the internet.

I recently discovered BT's "These Hopeful Machines" which came out in February 2010. I was hoping it would be similar to "This Binary Universe", which I consider a modern masterpiece, but it really isn't. However, I do love a good dance/club CD with some depth and unifying vision and Brian Transeau knows how to deliver in that regard. Check it out.

I wish he was more popular and well known because he deserves it for his work.