Laurie was doing it decades before Kanye.

Seems like an unpopular opinion of sorts, but the vast majority of work Kanye has put out since around 2011 has been SEVERELY lacking in the lyrics and production. Some of his lowest points to me are Watch the Throne, ye, and The Life of Pablo.

Scored a nice copy of Late Registration on vinyl from my local shop today for $18. Listening now, not a bad pull I must say.

For me, not even close to one of his bests of this decade. New Slaves (the first half) is such parody to me. It’s one of many times where it feels like Kanye isn’t actually IN on the joke, and there’s no sarcasm in his voice like there was in older albums. Same with I Am a God. He sounds delusional on most of this album. And then the second half just comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit to me at all. It’s just a collage of sound to me, and it’s not cohesive in the least. A lot of his songs are like that, and he’s done it a lot better than this before. This whole era was just embarrassing. The Zane Lowe interview alone makes me cringe.

Finally scored one of my holy grails yesterday... The "unofficial" ( 😉 ) deluxe Graduation on clear vinyl! It's got all the bonus tracks and uk remixes as well. The most I've ever paid for a record ($40) but well worth it. The guy in the shop gave it a spin and it sounded great, going to give it a proper listen today. 😎👍

Ty Dolla $ign absolutely kills it on FREEEE.

I can see why American's would be narked with him, but I love this Kanye-is-a-Trumper thing.

You can argue all you like about the pros and cons of his musical output, but one thing is for sure: he knows how a pop star should behave--i.e., like a fucking idiot. So fair play to him for that. He's very entertaining. 

I learned what “Kanye” means.

It’s a verb. And it means:
To have a desperate need to be the centre of attention, even if it means having dinner with a tiny-fingered mysogynistic orange racist.

Even the most ardent Republicans know that prison reform would be a good thing... As with most things, I just don't think it is high enough on their list of things to ever get it done.

I'd normally agree with this, and I've generally enjoyed Kanye's antics across his career in the same way that I've enjoyed Liam's - yeah, they're dickhead things to do, but these are rock stars, and they're on top of the world, there's bigger things to worry about so just enjoy the music and the nonsense. Since around 2016, though, we've known that unlike Liam or Noel or whoever, Kanye's outbursts/speeches/rants are at least heavily amplified by his mental illness, so now when I see him shouting about how to fix the world and how the words he's using are bringing love into the universe and talking about slavery or whatever other potentially toxic bullshit he comes out with, it just makes me sad.

I'm also quite disappointed that in 2018, when it seems popular culture is going out of it's way to show how understanding it is of mental illness, the fact that Kanye is diagnosed with bi-polar is just not talked about whenever these rants happen. Don't get me wrong, some of the shit he's been saying is ignorant and toxic and we should condemn it (not all though, he's right about the 13th amendment), and of course such a controversial and meme-able figure lends himself to comedy, but the fact there is zero effort to bring Kanye's illness into the conversation is saddening in my opinion. For me, the worst thing he's said this year is:

"The world is my therapy. I don't need therapy, I'm a superhero".

Because that shows the danger of his attitude to a mental illness which by definition will make him feel invincible in periods. He does need therapy, and the longer he goes without it the more dangerous the situation becomes for him and his loved ones. I would not be surprised to see him hospitalized again in the near future, and that prospect is something that - as someone who still has a lot of love for Ye - is more important than him wearing a hat. I just want happy Kanye back.