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Originally Posted by jimmycooper
Of course I've read the review. I read it when it was published a year and a half ago and I re-read just earlier tonight before posting it. He does mock certain elements of the album but he is also complimentary of other elements. It's a fair, honest, and unbiased review written by a rock legend and it's more positive than it is negative.
As far as album sales go, bear in mind that The Beatles have sold over 600 million albums, which is more than any other band or solo artist. As a solo artist, Paul McCartney has sold an additional 100 Million albums. Who purchased all of those albums? Even after accounting for the amount time it's been since they've been released, I find it hard to believe that all buyers have been highly sophisticated and knowledgeable music fans. All those young girls screaming for the Beatles when they first came to the states back in '64 were no different than the kids who buy the music of Kanye or others in this day and age.
Which of Kanye's songs are 'straight rip offs of pop songs'? The only ones I can think of that heavily sampled are Diamonds Are From Sierra Leone (sampled Diamonds Are Forever by Shirley Bassey) and Gold Digger (which samples from a Ray Charles song). There's two for you but you said that pretty much all of his songs are rip offs, so what are the others? And why is it wrong for an artist to re-present the original in a new way while infusing their own style? The Dead did that of plenty of times. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...cover_versions) |
You make reasonable counterpoints, but allow me to rebuttal...
Google Kanye cover tune rip offs. No more needs be said.
As for the Dead, while I love their takes on covers as much as I say any rapper/producer should be able to sample whatever they like to create their own artistic license of what came before, I don't judge them by those arrangements of standards as much as by the new songs they wrote that are singular and unique and part of a present, past, and future since they are unique. Regardless though, I am not against borrowing, breaking, taking what came before to make now and forever.
My best friend made an album often referred to as "the Sargent Peppers of hip hop" and on many top album of all time lists, "Paul's Boutique". by the Beastie Boys. They used an insane amount of samples since it was done in a time when obtaining rights was like getting the rights to upload studio produced content on Pornhub. The joy of that album is how much they used what came before to create something that was part of the future. The difference is the samples were layered in a fashion that created something original while Kanye gets called out constantly for just rapping over hooks, lines, and sinkers from other songs.