Kanye West's new album is both one of the better albums of the year, and one of the most overhyped albums of all time. It's amazing what kind of superlatives critics are throwing at this album. It's 5 star rating from Rolling Stone was rather predictable, but it's getting lots of perfect ratings from publications that don't give out a lot of them. And most of the reviews that accompany these perfect ratings barely mention the actual music. They talk for paragraphs about the lyrics, and barely mention the music, but I find the lyrics to be a weakness of the album. Kanye talks about himself -- a lot. This is nothing not to be expected from Mr. West, of course. But they talk about his self-obsession like it's edgy, revolutionary, and brilliant. I find it tedious and self-indulgent. The strength of the album is the least discussed aspect of the album: The music.
Kanye's greatest strength, to me, has always been his ability to mix and match samples. It's obvious the amount of hard work and polish he put into his backing music. His wordplay has also improved dramatically since the last album of his I heard, which is Graduation. In previous efforts he's relied a lot on recognizable samples from other groups. He's broken away from his tendency, mostly using complex layerings of cherry-picked atmospheric loops. My favorite song on the album, 'Power', which I consider one of the best singles of the year, has one of the most invigorating loops I've ever heard in a rap song. That and other singles on the album grab your attention, stick in your brain, and tread that line of being polished without seeming labored. The only time the album loses steam is toward the end with 'Blame Game'. The song itself is a little weak, and it's followed by an egotistical skit voiced by Chris Rock in which a woman credits Kanye for giving her sexual training. This overly long back and forth derails the pacing of the album established by the mostly strong first ten tracks.
I consider 2010 to be the best year for new releases possibly since 1991, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a good addition to a great year. But it'll be a shame if it is remembered as the standout of the year over such gems as The Archandroid by Janelle Monae, or Big Boi's superior rap album.
Technical skill: 10
Songwriting: 5
Overall: 9
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
White Material
Film: White Material
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France
Claire Denis is a french woman who spent much of her childhood in coastal Africa in periods of racial conflict. White Material revisits Africa, following a French woman who runs a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country. At the beginning of the film, the french army is pulling out, and pleading with her from a helicopter to leave for her safety. She doesn't want to leave because, she says, the coffee crop is only a week away from being ripe. Later on it's subtly revealed that her real reason for not wanting to leave is that she just doesn't want to lose a place she considers home. But, all her African workers are leaving for their own safety. In this African country there's a civil war going on, lead by demagogues calling for the expulsion of 'White material', which is a phrase they use in general to describe imported wealth. She still tries to hire more workers and finish her crop in the face of obvious pending danger.
The only white characters in the movie are the main character and her family. Her son has been raised on this plantation and has become lazy and inept. We often see one white woman standing out on a bus full of black Africans. We also get the contrast of the luxurious mansion within the plantation against the more naturalistic settings of the rest of the film. She considers this African country her home, but she's isolated by her race and resented for her wealth. Her son, with no peers, has been born into this hostility. When he's attacked and robbed by kids who came onto the plantation through a hole in the fence, he goes wild and runs off looking for violence.
The film highlights the tension between the European world and the colonized third world, and their feeling of anger and helplessness against foreign wealth. As the film moves toward it's self-prophecized conclusion, and the violence gets closer to her as she runs out of funds to protect herself, we see that the main character knows she's in danger, but feels like nothing can happen to her on the land she considers her home. A lot of films that take place in third world countries are white guilt oriented or have very primitive portrayals of the locals. White Material doesn't have either of these issues. Both the white plantation owners and the black villagers and workers come off as being caught in the middle of a violent conflict they can't control, just trying to look after their own safety and welfare.
One complaint I have about the particular version of the film being shown in American theaters is they used all white subtitles, which are often hard to read against light backgrounds.
Style: 8
Substance: 9
Overall: 8
Accessibility: 4
Director: Claire Denis
Country: France
Claire Denis is a french woman who spent much of her childhood in coastal Africa in periods of racial conflict. White Material revisits Africa, following a French woman who runs a coffee plantation in an unnamed African country. At the beginning of the film, the french army is pulling out, and pleading with her from a helicopter to leave for her safety. She doesn't want to leave because, she says, the coffee crop is only a week away from being ripe. Later on it's subtly revealed that her real reason for not wanting to leave is that she just doesn't want to lose a place she considers home. But, all her African workers are leaving for their own safety. In this African country there's a civil war going on, lead by demagogues calling for the expulsion of 'White material', which is a phrase they use in general to describe imported wealth. She still tries to hire more workers and finish her crop in the face of obvious pending danger.
The only white characters in the movie are the main character and her family. Her son has been raised on this plantation and has become lazy and inept. We often see one white woman standing out on a bus full of black Africans. We also get the contrast of the luxurious mansion within the plantation against the more naturalistic settings of the rest of the film. She considers this African country her home, but she's isolated by her race and resented for her wealth. Her son, with no peers, has been born into this hostility. When he's attacked and robbed by kids who came onto the plantation through a hole in the fence, he goes wild and runs off looking for violence.
The film highlights the tension between the European world and the colonized third world, and their feeling of anger and helplessness against foreign wealth. As the film moves toward it's self-prophecized conclusion, and the violence gets closer to her as she runs out of funds to protect herself, we see that the main character knows she's in danger, but feels like nothing can happen to her on the land she considers her home. A lot of films that take place in third world countries are white guilt oriented or have very primitive portrayals of the locals. White Material doesn't have either of these issues. Both the white plantation owners and the black villagers and workers come off as being caught in the middle of a violent conflict they can't control, just trying to look after their own safety and welfare.
One complaint I have about the particular version of the film being shown in American theaters is they used all white subtitles, which are often hard to read against light backgrounds.
Style: 8
Substance: 9
Overall: 8
Accessibility: 4
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Great new music and films, popular or obscure
A lot of sites that talk about new music and new films go in one of two directions. Either they only cover what's popular and mainstream and act like if it's not well known it doesn't exist, or they're hipster sites that trash everything popular and mainstream and insult your intelligence if you don't like every weird niche title hat comes out. With this blog I want to talk about new music and new films in a way that's neutral to popularity. I'll be equally fair to popular titles and niche titles.
I'll rate on a scale of one to ten on the following criteria:
For films:
Style: How good is the camerawork, the cinematography, the story structure, etc?
Substance: How good is the main plot, the characters, and the acting?
Overall: My overall impression of the film.
Accessibility: How accessible is the film? This scale should be considered independent to the quality of the film, and should be read as an indication of whether the movie is your sort of thing. Mainstream films like Toy Story 3 will get very high accessibility scores, and weird nichey 'form before content' films like Enter The Void will get very low accessibility scores.
For music:
Technical skill: How good are they at playing their instruments?
Songwriting: How good are the melody and the lyrics?
Overall: My overall impression of the album.
Accessibility: Same as for films.
I'll try to write something about most of the new albums I get and most of the new films I see, but I'll also mention older films and albums that I see for the first time if they really stand out to me.
I'll get started over the weekend with the film White Material and Kanye West's new album.
First, to give you an impression of whether my opinion has anything to do with yours, here's my top ten albums and films of 2010 so far:
Films:
1. A Prophet
2. Winter's Bone
3. Toy Story 3
4. I Am Love
5. Enter The Void
6. Last Train Home
7. Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
8. Kick-Ass
9. Please Give
10. Machete
Albums:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. The National - High Violet
3. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
4. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
6. Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot
7. Shining - Blackjazz
8. Lindstrom & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
9. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
I'll rate on a scale of one to ten on the following criteria:
For films:
Style: How good is the camerawork, the cinematography, the story structure, etc?
Substance: How good is the main plot, the characters, and the acting?
Overall: My overall impression of the film.
Accessibility: How accessible is the film? This scale should be considered independent to the quality of the film, and should be read as an indication of whether the movie is your sort of thing. Mainstream films like Toy Story 3 will get very high accessibility scores, and weird nichey 'form before content' films like Enter The Void will get very low accessibility scores.
For music:
Technical skill: How good are they at playing their instruments?
Songwriting: How good are the melody and the lyrics?
Overall: My overall impression of the album.
Accessibility: Same as for films.
I'll try to write something about most of the new albums I get and most of the new films I see, but I'll also mention older films and albums that I see for the first time if they really stand out to me.
I'll get started over the weekend with the film White Material and Kanye West's new album.
First, to give you an impression of whether my opinion has anything to do with yours, here's my top ten albums and films of 2010 so far:
Films:
1. A Prophet
2. Winter's Bone
3. Toy Story 3
4. I Am Love
5. Enter The Void
6. Last Train Home
7. Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
8. Kick-Ass
9. Please Give
10. Machete
Albums:
1. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid
2. The National - High Violet
3. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
4. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening
5. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
6. Big Boi - Sir Luscious Left Foot
7. Shining - Blackjazz
8. Lindstrom & Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
9. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part Two
10. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
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