Kanye West The Life of Pablo: A Descent into Insanity

Started by jotnan, Feb 15, 2016, in Kanye West Add to Reading List

  1. jotnan
    Posts: 69
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    Feb 15, 2016
    So here we are. The Life of Pablo has been released, and even though Kanye is telling the world that some changes are to be made, you could say that the album is, if not finished, basically out there for us to take a look at.

    The last couple of weeks made me skeptical to the fact that Kanye actually knows what he's doing artistically. There have been last minute changes, embarassing premieres, multiple versions of the same songs, unclear features and strange vibes surrounding this project. Most fans put their faith in Kanye. He has not disappointed up to this point, so why would he now? Right? Others point to the unclarities and state that this will be a flop, and that Kanye isn't to be trusted and praised the way he once was.

    When The Life of Pablo dropped, I listened to it once, twice, three times and it didn't make me wiser. I was basically stuck with the question: What is this? I browsed discussion threads for answers, just to find out the general feeling was the same as mine: Torn. People thought it to be his weakest project. People thought it was getting better for every listen-through. People thought it was all too fragmented to get your mind around. Even the non-critical praise was toned down and vague.The reviews and articles being written about the album are varied in opinion. And it really felt like everyone on the forums kinda just didn't know what to make of this. Keeping the album on repeat made me realize though.

    I think this album is insanity. This whole period in Kanye's artistry, including the album it produced and the aftermath is a story of insanity. Now, if it's ABOUT insanity, in that Kanye is being insane on purpose as a way to bring Kanye as an artist and the album as a product to a new level, or if he is ACTUALLY becoming an unstable person, in that this album is revealing Kanye to be losing his mind, I don't know. All I know is that The Life of Pablo can be centered around insanity.

    The album opens up with Ultralight Beam, in my opinion one of his very best. It's a colossal song, dark and divine at the same time, with a choir that feels like it's going to open up heaven. It's the song that tells us what Kanye's 'vision' (that he's singing about in FML) feels like. His genius brought him to this place, being able to touch something godly. "This is a God dream. This is everything." Kanye has renewed himself on every single project. From the early soul-inspired albums to the cold and skeletal Yeezus. The Life of Pablo feels in many ways like a distorted melting pot of all his earlier work, often switching tone dramatically between tracks, sometimes during the span of a single track. Ultralight Beam feels like it's outside Kanye's other work, looking down from a higher place on it all. "This is a God dream. This is everything."

    The insane part of the album shines through in that Kanye, or should we say Pablo, is making this fragmented, unstable chaos of an album from his final form, his truest self. He himself calls it the "Album of the life". This is what it's all come down to. And it all feels bizarre. Now, I like this album a lot. The ill-fitted parts and the mood swings is a part of what makes The Life of Pablo what it is: Insane. In I Love Kanye, he breaks the fourth wall: "What if Kanye made a song about Kanye, called "I miss the old Kanye"? That would be so Kanye!" in which he turns himself and his persona inside out and laughs about it all in the end. It's the final form, and once again it feels like madness.

    After a career labeled as genius, The Life of Pablo is about inevitably ascending to divinity, or from our point of view, losing grip of it all. If you want to, you could apply this to his monk-styled clothing line, to his public behavior and his production. And it's all in the album cover.

    [​IMG]

    It's a mess, and at first I hated it. I claimed that it was rubbish and that it probably wasn't relevant to the album as a whole. And I was dead wrong. The cover is a perfect picture of what the album sounds like.
    Which/one, the cover asks us. I claim it's the painting genius Pablo Picasso. "I feel like Pablo when I'm working on my shoes. I feel like Pablo when I see me on the news" he tells us in No More Parties in LA. And more importantly: "Name one genius that ain't crazy" in Feedback.

    The Life of Pablo has not been easy to define and/or make sense of, and I don't think it's actually possible. It's a product of delusion, or unreachable genius. That's a fine line. And that is why The Life of Pablo is perhaps Kanye's, perhaps not best, but his most interesting project to this date.

    Thanks for reading. English is not my native language, so i apologize for any weird sentences appearing. If you got anything supporting this theory, please tell the rest of us!
     
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  2. Jimelej
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    Jimelej Guest

    Feb 16, 2016
    Sexy :dkk:
     
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  3. jotnan
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    Feb 16, 2016
    :kreepykanye:look at this crazy, sexy man
     
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  4. Immy
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    Immy yikes

    Feb 16, 2016
    edit: sorry op
     
    Last edited: Feb 16, 2016
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  5. jotnan
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    Feb 16, 2016
    How come?
     
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  6. Immy
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    Immy yikes

    Feb 16, 2016
    i'll read it inasec
     
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  7. jotnan
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    Feb 16, 2016
    Also he went nuts on twitter immediatly after this was written :khaled:
     
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  8. Narsh
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    Feb 16, 2016
    Cool write up

    But how are you gonna write about kanyes descent into "insanity" and NOT mention freestyle 4 man
     
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  9. jotnan
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    Feb 16, 2016
    Nah that track spooks me out too much to analyze...
     
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