On Sunday, in between his usual ridiculous tweets thanking Julius Caesar for his haircut, explaining why he wouldn’t be successful doing stand-up comedy, and commenting on the Bears and Packers game, Kanye West casually made some exciting (possibly alcohol induced) announcements regarding his multiple upcoming releases. Apparently, a video for “All of the Lights” will drop in a week, Watch the Throne, his collaborative album with Jay-Z, will drop in 2 months, and, most surprisingly of all, an entirely new Yeezy solo album will be dropping this summer. We know ‘Ye is a machine when he gets into work mode, but this seems a bit overzealous. We will, therefore, believe it when we see it.
Supporting our stance of not getting our hopes up too high is the fact that this man has made crazy ass promises like this in the past and then failed to deliver. The most recent example would be his announcement during a New Year’s Eve event that Watch the Throne would be released in just one week. Well, clearly that didn't happen. Looking a little further back, there was last year's G.O.O.D. Fridays series, which was supposed to run until Christmas, but suddenly and inexplicably stopped just after the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. We do not mean to sound like spoiled fans who feel they are somehow entitled to new, free songs on a weekly basis. We loved G.O.O.D. Fridays and are very impressed and extremely grateful that Kanye delivered as much music as he did. We only mention it to point out that it is not uncommon for him to bite off more than he can chew. Perhaps the most relevant example, though, was his statement just after the fall release of 808s and Heartbreaks that his next album would be released the following summer. Whoa... that sounds eerily familiar, right? Well, 808s was released in 2008, and his next album was his latest effort, the aforementioned MBDTF, which came out 2 days short of a full 2 years later.
However, more important than the question of “will it come out this summer” is “should it come out this summer”, and we are leaning towards “no”. First of all, Kanye NEVER drops in the summer! He is a fall man (apart from his debut, which came out in the winter). Albums are like movies, and summer is the time for the big and fun, but ultimately predictable releases. The game changers come in the fall, and ‘Ye is a game changer, dammit! More importantly, though, Kanye doesn’t just make albums, he makes classics, and he creates new sounds. Every one of his albums has had a sound that is dramatically different from the one prior to it. That is what we have come to expect from him, and seemingly what he has come to expect from himself. He makes ground-breaking and near perfect albums, and 6 months just doesn’t seem like enough time to do that (especially considering he will be finishing Watch the Throne for part of that time).
Maybe we are wrong. Maybe 6 months is plenty of time for an artist like ‘Ye to do his thang, and if that is the case we will be overjoyed to hear a new Mr. West masterpiece this summer. The point, however, is that we would much rather wait another 2 years, or even 10 (what up, Dre!), for a new album that lives up to his legacy than to hear a rushed project that taints his otherwise flawless discography just for the sake of having back-to-back releases. One day Kanye may make a sub-par album, and that’s fine. Pitching a perfect game is rare, but if you’re on track to do it you probably shouldn’t suddenly decide to start throwing with the other hand. That’s all we’re saying.
No comments:
Post a Comment