MBDTF

Why do you guys like this? What are the technicalities of the album that make it so amazing?

My friend argues that it's objectively bad and writes it off as typical nigger rap. Is he wrong?

SOME WRONG I HOLD MY HEAD
MJ GONE, OUR NIGGA DEAD
basic struggle bars like that plague this album but people like it for its production

Me:
>"Its production is amazing"
Friend:
>"Justin Beiber's albums are produced well too, must mean they're good albums right"

Can you elaborate on the "production" that people rave about? Is it his use of samples and shit or what?

It's an artistic exercise in the gratuitous indulgence of celebrity culture that reveals the contradictions, delusions of grandeur and narcissism which all lie at the heart of fame. It's like the wolf of wall street of hip-hop - it doesn't glorify the lifestyle, it just goes to extreme lengths to show how a life bloated with wealth and self-worship is ultimately more hollow and dissatisfying than a wholly uneventful life.

So it has a pretty good message/ theme

What about the music itself?

it seems like you're just talking about the lyrics which you're either going to like or you aren't. it seems like your friend is just dead set on not liking the album, which is fine really

Nah I'm talking about the entire music itself, the instrumentals, samples, etc.

>penitentiary chances, the devil dances and eventually answers to the call of autumn, all them falling for the love of balling, got caught with thirty rocks the cop looked like Alec Baldwin
>inter-century anthems based off inner city tantrums based off the way we was branded, face it, Jerome got more time than Brandon, and at the airport they search all through my bags and tell me that it's random
Easily Ye's best album lyrically

The album is very solid all the way through and all the songs belong on it. The album has a message which it conveys firstly of course through the lyrics and such, then through the production. The effects used in the music etc. If production is solid it enhances the experience.
TL;DR
The content of the album is more than solid enhanced by quality content. The overall feel of the album would be nowhere close to where it is now if it was produced with garage instruments and FL studio.

Some albums have an atmosphere which doesn't need high quality production, or high quality production would ruin it, i.g IAOTS.

I rewrote the post so it's much shorter so the TL;DR doesn't belong on there really.

are you kidding me? The music is expertly informed by those themes. Its very rare for a hip-hop album to be so unified in its form and content, but no other rap album has ever pulled it off so well. Its bloated, gratuitously overproduced, features a wide cast of a-list artists, drug references and skits, and Kanye's lyricism (while somewhat basic at times) is superbly consistent in its inconsistencies - his persona is delusional, riddled with anxiety and self-doubt, yet is totally committed to revel in the hedonism and self-destruction we've come to expect from stardom.

The production is pretty epic. Personal taste, I guess, but there's a few moments that stick out and give me chills every time:
>POWER samples
>"CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER?"
>intro and outro of Runaway
>All of the Lights Interlude
>pretty much everything in Hell of a Life

The theme of the album is pretty unique. Kanye's at the very peak of his career, and he knows it. All the fame he talked about wanting in his early albums came true, and it's completely swallowed him. Almost every song is a reflection on how insane his lifestyle has become since becoming a celebrity. One part I particularly love is the outro of POWER, where Kanye (in my interpretation) considers committing suicide since everything from this point in his career forward is meaningless. It's strangely poignant for a hip-hop song, especially for Kanye. Some other lines I love reflecting on his own fame:
>"The plan was to drink until the pain over / But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?"
>"Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it / Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it / I guess every superhero need his theme music"
>"Lost in this plastic life / Let's break free of this fake-ass party / Turn this into a classic night / If we die in each other's arms, still get laid in the afterlife"
>"Not for nothing I’ve foreseen it, I dream it / I can feel it slowly drifting away from me / No more chances if you blow this, you bogus / I will never ever let you live this down"
I guess you gotta actually be interested in Kanye's life in order to enjoy the theme, but so it goes.

Also, I like how most of the songs don't follow verse-chorus-verse. It's kind of a small thing, but it gives most of the songs a stream of consciousness feeling to them. The songs usually don't end when you expect them to and Kanye will sometimes change the instrumentation suddenly and get another idea into the song before it ends.

Sorry for the long comment.

>this album is a glorified, damp, polished shit and kanye's lyricism is superbly consistent in it's shittiness
wrapping a turd differently does not make it anything but a turd

>no other rap album has pulled it off

how about this where all the instrumentals were made with minimal gear and is 10x more bloated and overproduced

great argument senpai

Fair enough, but you're comparing apples and oranges. Madvillainy is an underground hip-hop record, it isn't gonna be confronting the existential hollowness of stardom and it certainly isn't overproduced to the same extent as dark fantasy, which features an absurd number of collaborators, producers, musicians, orchestral arrangements etc.

I suppose you're true in saying they are apple and oranges, but the fact that it is littered with features, both from other producers, rappers etc takes away from how much of it i consider to be Kanye' work.

>he fact that it is littered with features, both from other producers, rappers etc takes away from how much of it i consider to be Kanye' work
its fucking corny to say, but he's the one with vision and determination in the driving seat. You could say the same about Kendrick's involvement in TPAB too. I'm fairly certain a number of Kanye's co-writers have quit in the past because he's such a control-freak lunatic in the studio

You could argue that's a part of celebrity life: even though the focus is entirely on one person, there is always a group of people working around them, either working specifically on Kanye's project, or maybe working on Kanye's brand for the future.

>great argument senpai
Alright let's start with the name, there's nothing dark or twisted about the album. I was actually hype for the album but then runaway dropped.
That's when I realised the title of the album is misleading, the whole thing is just a grandiose "bigger is better" jerk-off session with a megalomaniac at the center bathing in the cum of his peers while he's pity-bragging about how stupid he is

the last three minutes of runaway

i thought it was awesome when it came out

then i didnt listen to it for a little

checked back and it wasnt as good as i first thought

>>"Justin Beiber's albums are produced well too, must mean they're good albums right"
If the final product sounds good then it's good. People who try to make it more complicated than that are usually retarded.

Why are you trying to convince your friend? Or are you trying to rationalize why you yourself like it? If your friend cant see that its not nigger rap then its probably a lost cause

f you have a racist friend
Now is the time, now is the time for your friendship to end

your friend sounds like a retard

>there's nothing dark or twisted about the album
you're reading too literally. Making a dark and twisted album would feel too forced and, frankly, ridiculous - he's a celebrity, not a sadomasicist.

>the whole thing is just a grandiose "bigger is better" jerk-off session with a megalomaniac at the center bathing in the cum of his peers while he's pity-bragging about how stupid he is
But that's exactly what makes it so good tho

Nice explanation. Also:
>I got the power to make your life so exciting
>so exciting
>suicide
>suicide

And
>Now this 'll be a beautiful death
>I'm jumping out the window
>Letting everything go

That's the heart of the album IMO: Kanye having the desire to destroy himself completely.

not an argument

here's your response

>Making a dark and twisted album would feel too forced and, frankly, ridiculous - he's a celebrity, not a sadomasicist.
Why would it feel too forced and ridiculous? He's a celeb, yes, but still human. You can be both a celeb and sadomasochist. He could've expostulated his thoughts but instead you get this trite gasconade which is rebarbative to be frank.

>But that's exactly what makes it so good tho
He could've brought us into his adytum but we're stuck on the firmament of his ego and it's so fucking disappointing, it had potential but Kanye had to panegyrize his conflictions with stardom and it gets boring by the time you've suffered through to So Appaled

It is an important listening experience for the people of our generation. One may have differing opinions than Sup Forums or the mainstream, but as long as you have listened to it you're part of it
.
It is not typical nigger rap because it is widely acclaimed by most music critics and writers and you have PLENTY of people on Sup Forums who do indeed think it a masterpiece. To argue semantics and artistic merit are secondary to it's status as landmark piece of music. Remember that Darkside of the Moon, Remain in Light, and OK computer are decades old.

It's dark and twisted because he then goes on to make the thesis that he is a literal god. To some it seems like autism but to others...

But to others what? Finish your fucking sentence