Yes, Aphex Twin is pretty amazing.

Now hang on...it may be debatable whether or not Kanye West is some kind of artistic "genius" or not.

But musician? A "damn good one"?

Hell no.

Please enlighten me on the musical instruments that Kanye has mastered. The guy can't even sing on pitch.

First thing we had to do in Music Theory class was work on perfect pitch. We had to be able to sight sing music in the correct key and pitch without so much as a starting note to let us know if we were singing the correct pitch.
I still have my old music theory books and the book entitled "Sight Singing And Ear Training".

Dude can't even sing on pitch. Much less be a master of any instrument.

Doesn't mean he's not a "genius".
I think Bob Dylan is a genius, and he can't sing on pitch either lol. (though in fairness...Bob Dylan can actually play guitar, piano, harmonica, drums and several other instruments)

My point is...if Kanye is secretly a musician...he's kept it hidden real well.

I'd love to hear him jam with somebody who really IS a musician and a genius...how about Kanye VS Prince?

I gave it a listen and you are right, and I stand corrected. It is an interesting album and deserves the praise. James Brown once sued David Bowie over "stealing" his music but one would never say that Bowie was just a rip off of Brown or anyone else's music and I won't be saying that about Kanye now either and admit that my opinion before was based on hearsay. My bad and I thank you for opening my mind and setting me straight.

Footnote to Paul's Boutique... I turned Yawk onto shrooms and the lectures of Huxley, McKenna, and some other psychedelic inspired geniuses. (Try listening to the full Tim Leary speech that produced "tune in, turn on, and drop out" sometime). Always felt I helped make a small contribution to that record in my own special way, including that Jerry Garcia riff on Johnny Royale since I turned my buddy onto the Dead and he turned me onto hip hop. :winkwink: The original release had me in the "thanks to" print.

Dylan can actually sing on pitch, he just chooses not to since he is more concerned with imbuing his songs with character than being pitch perfect. Remember when he had that pissing match with Sinatra about singing?

You make a good point. As far as I'm aware, Kanye does not play any 'traditional' instruments but he's an excellent songwriter and producer and he's great about putting it all together to make music. So, maybe he's not a musician in a traditional sense, but he is considered to be a musician in a modern sense. That's a fact.

Whenever new forms of music achieve commercial success, there will always be detractors who say that the new music is not real music. It happened during the first Jazz Revolution when classical music fans who didn't consider it to be 'real music' and considered brass instruments to be beneath them. Rock had a lot of detractors when it became commercially viable. It happened when electric guitars started to become more popular than acoustic guitars. Dylan plugging in is a perfect example. He was heavily booed and some guy yelled "Judas!" because they felt that the electric guitar was not a real instrument and that the sound it produced was just noise. Some people don't consider synthesizer or keyboards to be real instruments.

As far as vocals, I think you're underrating Kanye. Public Enemy was recently inducted until the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. Neither Chuck D nor Flavor Flav were trained vocalists. Far from it. Nor did they play instruments. Yet they are considered as musicians. Kanye's vocals are better than both,

Sorry, but I don't want to be one of those snobby classical music lovers who think that all popular music, from the Beatles to Miles Davis to Led Zeppelin to Prince, is not real music. To me, they sound like idiots. And believe me, they are still out there. I've witnessed it firsthand by talking to people after seeing various performances at the Lincoln Center and I argued on behalf of those artists much in the same way I'm arguing on behalf of Kanye in this stupid thread. It didn't go so well, but whatever. Fuck 'em. As Lou Reed said in the review I posted earlier, "It's all the same shit - it's all music..

A lot of people in this thread don't seem to get that last point and won't ever get it. The only reason I'm even wasting the time to argue about it is because it frustrates me that people whose opinions I respect in this thread (you, Far-L, Damage) know music as well as or better than I know music, but you don't seem to 'get' what is so clearly and plainly obvious to me. If even just one of the three of you listens with an open mind to Twisted Fantasy or Yeezus and tells me about it, even if you don't like one of them, then I'll feel it was worth the hassle to take the time to write these posts and deal with the idiot trolls.

Also, to answer your question about Prince vs. Kanye... No, I don't think Kanye is in the same league as Prince. Nobody really is. He's an excellent guitar player and plays all the instruments on all his albums. He writes all his songs. He produces them. If there is any one musician who I would consider to be a true 'genius', it would be Prince. You know that and I know that and I'm sure Far-L knows that, but there still does exist the perception that Prince is just merely an 80s pop artist. You guys are making that same mistake by saying that Kanye is just another rapper. Anyway, here's some music. That's what it's all about, right?

Now there's someone i truly admire: Tom Petty

well then you should be fully aware of the relativity of one's own reality tunnels and how they can blind one to other aspects of reality ; )

Wow. I'm so happy right now but kind of shocked. It's like when Tom Cruise got Jack Nicholson to admit that he ordered the Code Red. He knew he could do it, but then when it happened, he just kind of stood there for a second like 'Did he really just say that?'. lol! So thanks for giving it a shot.

I'll definitely listen to that Tim Leary speech. That's another fascinating time in pop culture history and I haven't really read about it since reading The Electric-Kool Aid Acid Test in college. It was actually in a history class which, in hindsight, is pretty cool because you wouldn't necessarily think that such a book would be included in the curriculum. The professor who assigned it went to Harvard was very liberal, so I lucked out.

I bet you had a great time hanging with the Beastie Boys. I'm jealous. Yauch was a class act and I'm sure that taking shrooms and learning about those guys had an impact on his life beyond music. He was always very creative and very curious about the world. Loved his speech at the VMA's. Not just his words, but the humble way in which he presented his thoughts.

Haven't really listened to him that much over the years, but had a massive crush on the skater chick in the Free Fallin video. What a hottie.

Tom Petty's new CD Hypnotic Eye is worth a listen.

A couple other ways to find new music are movie soundtracks and music festivals.

Like for music festivals, for example, Metallica played at Glastonbury a few years ago so, if you're a Metallica fan and you're a music fan and you see that organizers booked Metallica to headline, it should be natural to be curious to see who else was playing at the festival and then check Youtube. Make sense? It takes effort but it's fun and if you find one new band that you like amongst five that you don't like, it's worth it.

As an example for movie soundtracks, I finally watched American Hustle the other night and liked a few of the songs in the movie so I went to Youtube and searched the lyrics. One of the songs was Dirty Work who I then found out was by Steely Dan. I was familiar with Steely Dan (mainly the album Aja) but didn't realize that the song was by them because Donald Fagen was not the vocalist. I also really liked the Arab version of White Rabbit. Another example is Darjeeling Limited. A few of the songs on the soundtrack are by The Kinks. I knew of The Kinks, but had never really listened to them until after seeing the movie.

Sweet. I'll check it out along with the Timothy Leary speech that Far-L recommended. Right now, I'm listening to Aphex Twin, which was recommended by a couple of guys earlier in thread, and am really liking it so far. Kind of reminds me of the Hotel Costes albums only maybe a little bit more raw. Good stuff. Really good. I'm not really sold on Asia, though, so probably won't bother with them unless someone more reputable recommends them. lol

Asia was cool - well, not "cool" but listenable - back during their first 2 CDs in the early 1980's. "Heat Of The Moment" I think was the Hit....but if you like Yes albums like 90125 and Drama then you will like Asia. If not....LOL

I'm downloading the entire Beastie Boys discography now. Haven't heard Paul's Boutique in years! Great stuff, so sad one of them is gone now (so young).

No sleep til Brooklyn!!!!!

Asia was sort of a spinoff of Yes with Steve Howe and Geoff Downes. Their music wore itself out fast, but live they were phenomenal.

Speaking of shrooms and Yes, I highly recommend a gram or two and listening to Close To The Edge. Not only will it be one of the best dimensions you ever visited, Jon Anderson's lyrics will actually make sense.

A lot of people judged Leary just based on that catch phrase of "Tune in Turn on Drop out" and assumed a lot without knowing the full context of the meaning held in the lecture. The message was not to drop acid and forget about society by any stretch. Similarly, myself, and perhaps many others have taken Kanye out of context and not given full attention to his artistic oeuvre. As the P Funk declares... free your mind and your ass will follow.

Good shrooms can have a profound and everlasting effect. Yauch went from being the kind of guy that would throw eggs off the top of the Mondrian at innocent bystanders on the streets below to being the kind of guy that would step in the way of an oncoming egg to protect a total stranger. I am pretty sure he eventually will re-incarnate as the next Dali Lama.

Whatever the fuck that means. I'm ignorant because I should go take the time to go learn... what now? That fagne west's music sucks, that he's a belligerent talentless hack and that he sucks big rhinoceros cock. Go on then girl, keep up with the Kartrashians :1orglaugh

Reality is a serotonin induced hallucination. :upsidedow

smells like sarcasm to me

You haven't written a bio have you? Farrell: Tales from Outside the Envelope

OK, you may be right. But again, aside from the Taylor Swift incident I still had no idea who the fuck he was. I don't listen to his music either, that genre isn't my cup of tea.

But regardless, comparing him to McCartney/The Beatles is kinda way off. The chances of Kanye having the same influence on music and leaving a similar legacy to Paul are slim to none.

Idiots like himself...

Sure...

In other words...

You look like I'm tripping...

there is some dope shit out there and you are not going to find it on the radio. find a music website online you respect and check out their best of the year lists.

new eno is great as well.

Problem is...without radio support those artists that are so "dope" aren't going to be able to make a good living.
They will mostly go unnoticed by the masses while Justin Bieber and Kanye and Beyonce make hundreds of millions of dollars and live like Kings and Queens.

Could you imagine if Jimi Hendrix were to be just starting out in 2015?
We would NEVER even know he existed because he wouldn't have any venues to play at that could actually further his career, nowhere on the radio to play his songs to spread them to the masses, and no big concerts to perform at (because he would be unknown) to make him a legend.

Just think about it. :( You can replace "Jimi Hendrix" with any other great musician/legend and it would all be the same outcome.

Hell...Robert Plant, Mick Jagger, etc. wouldn't even make it past the auditions of American Idol because they don't sing according to the "formula". :(

Reality is, the music industry started becoming homogenized over the years and now it's pretty much hit rock bottom.
With the industry pretty much decimated (bands used to sell a MILLION copies of their albums right out the gate on the first day)...there isn't any room for people to take a chance on a guy like Jimi Hendrix, or The Beatles, etc.

They just go with the formula. Does it have a "producer" who comes up with good "beats" and a marketable face on the clown talking and auto-tuning over the "beat"?
Then it's a hit.

Real musicians and real singers who can write songs and know how to actually entertain a crowd without a stage full of "backup dancers" aren't even part of the equation anymore.

Ill Communication is another one of my favorites. I really like last few songs Shambala and Bodhisattva Vow. To The 5 Boroughs is really good too and vastly underrated. They're all good.

You're a funny guy. I can see why you like laughing at yourself. What makes you think I give a shit about the Kardashians? They don't make music. One of them ruined Lamar Odom and one of them ruined Paper Magazine. They are trash.

Well, maybe not popular music as a whole, but he's already had a significant influence in hip hop. A positive influence. Check this out.

West's third studio album, Graduation, garnered major publicity when its release date pitted West in a sales competition against rapper 50 Cent's Curtis.[60] Upon their September 2007 releases, Graduation outsold Curtis by a large margin, debuting at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and selling 957,000 copies in its first week.[61] Graduation once again continued the string of critical and commercial successes by West, and the album's lead single, "Stronger", garnered the rapper his third number-one hit.[62] "Stronger", which samples French house duo Daft Punk, has been accredited to not only encouraging other hip-hop artists to incorporate house and electronica elements into their music, but also for playing a part in the revival of disco and electro-infused music in the late 2000s.[63] Ben Detrick of XXL cited the outcome of the sales competition between 50 Cent's Curtis and West's Graduation as being responsible for altering the direction of hip-hop and paving the way for new rappers who didn't follow the hardcore-gangster mold, writing, "If there was ever a watershed moment to indicate hip-hop's changing direction, it may have come when 50 Cent competed with Kanye in 2007 to see whose album would claim superior sales.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West

If you liked their early stuff, check out "There Was a Time" from the Omega album. Starts out slow...kinda' has a medieval sound - but 3/4s into it Carl Palmer's drums kick in and amps up the song.

Features all four of the original members.

The old school radio airplay payola scam was just as stifling if you ask me to artists and "classic rock" that made it to the radio was not necessarily the best of what there was to listen to by any stretch. Today bands have plenty of social media tools at their disposal to help get fans and sell music and support tours. Plenty of people know the story of Macklemore by now. Vampire Weekend is another band that generated their own success in the beginning through social media and the labels came to them rather than vice versa. Then there are also bands like Pearl Jam that spent time studying the Grateful Dead model so they could exist well beyond the fads and trends of radio's whims.

There is good music out there. Whether we find it or it finds us, great songs will always resonate and find their audience.

Still, for what it is worth, I have to admit that I didn't mind the booty shaking back up dancers at that Katy Perry concert I went to... all the young hotties jumping around while she sang about drunken threesomes wasn't so bad either...

There may be a difference between songwriting and music making but all of it can be entertaining, even if it isn't necessarily inspiring.

Neither does kanye west.


What's interesting is that you seem like a normal guy, coherent in your speech and expression; just all the more bizarre that - what seems to be a grown ass man - is defending a complete jackass. Have you actually listened to that turd speak?

:2 cents:

Love Paul and used to like Kanye's flow. He's a lot easier to ignore nowadays with his shit lyrical content. But hey, since every generation is getting dumber, this is what is needed to make money right? Sell out by appealing to the retarded mass. Oh and catchy beats that repeat 20-30 times a song.

Ever since the Taylor Swift incident, I have no respect for this overgrown child. And no, even if he did this all for publicity to make more money, FUCK him. Don't claim that he's smart or a marketing genius. When you're this disrespectful of a person, you're the scum my my shit, even if you make bank.

not really, there are still many independent, well respected and quite famous young artists..at least in my country...who just found their way and year by year they got more fans

I LOVE Close To The Edge (both 'sides'). I saw a van once - just once - when I was twelve in my hometown. It had the album cover painted on one side and the Yes logo on the other. I will never forget that van. LOL

But when it comes to needing some extra 'help' with listening to a record I vote for Tales From Topographic Oceans. LOL That 2 disc set is one of the best "bad" albums ever made.

Now THIS I want to check out! Thanks! :)

(And, to me, a TOTAL travesty that Jon Anderson is not making music with Yes anymore. Insanity. 'Magnification' is, with the exception of a single song, one of the greatest things Yes ever did. And amazing while stoned, too. LOL I always loved the rock/classical hybrid like Electric Light Orchestra or The Moody Blues and 'Magnification' is like those bands, only Yes. Awesome shit. I will check out the Asia track (and CD) for sure!

(Does anyone under 40 get any of my references AT ALL? LOL)

Another Quote because Robbie has NAILED it - and not just with big-titted pornstars, either (although that too). Your analysis is perfect Robbie. It breaks my heart actually because what you are decribing is a societal loss as well as an entire Industry (music) being devasted.

The saddest thing is while JimmyCooper here is obviously finding the best in what is out there (Katie Perry, Kenye, etc) he also knows the older stuff or is open to it. This makes him in the top 5% out there so congrats to you JC!! :) What breaks MY heart is many today don't even know what they are missing. They don't know they aren't missing out on something, something important that helped shape a culture, influence soceity in a positive way and, yes, changed the world. Fortunately the music will never die and is still out there for people like JimmyCooper to find and appreciate.

http://www.pornnerdnetwork.com/gfy/JohnLennonWall.jpg
The John Lennon Wall in Prague.

I was reminded when I was in Prague recently how it can be argued that The Beatles defeated Communism. Their music was banned but somehow people kept listening to it, smuggling in records, pirate radio, etc. Once the music was inside the people's heads the change followed, the people could not be stopped. Maybe this will happen again in some wonderful future I am praying for. LOL

I think it was actually Far-L who admitted going to a Katy Perry concert. :winkwink: That being said, and seeing as how he had the balls to admit that he went to a Katy Perry concert, I'll go ahead and admit that I too have seen her live. It was at the Victoria's Secret fashion show 4-5 years ago and I was surprisingly impressed with her performance. My opinion on it may be a bit skewed, though, because tickets were free, there were smoking hot girls all over the place (both on and off the catwalk), and I dropped a tab of ecstasy before heading into the Armory (cool venue, btw).

The Beatles may have sown the seed, but I think Metallica may have also had a hand in ending Communism. Check out the crazy energy in the crowd.



...and, of course, no discussion about how music helped end Communism would be complete without mention of the most popular man in Germany for many, many years....the one and the only David Hasselhoff. And If you look closely, you can see a young MaDalton dancing in the crowd.

I saw Katy Perry sing right here in Vegas.

But I still have my "street cred": She was singing on "Beast Of Burden" with The Rolling Stones at The MGM Garden Arena here in Vegas in 2013. :)

And her tits & ass looked awesome. lol :

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Cool pic, btw. It looks like a Basquiat. lol
Prague is fun. Had an internship there for a few months at an ad agency in Vinohrady right near the park. Good times.

Yeah, she's got a great rack.

Yeah, and she was looking pretty thick that night too with a big ass to go along with those big tits (which I like)

Sweet times in Prague! I spent a couple weeks there fucking the most beautiful girls in the world (and I hope you did the same).

That John Lennon Wall is cool because it keeps changing, artists keep adding to it. I've been there 3 times and it was always differant. But you know that having spent months in CZ (jealous!).

:thumbsup

You like bit tits????? I had no idea! :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

And a big ass to even it out. lol

That is soooo possible :helpme, and that just really creeps me out... and you know what... all the talk of "user-friendly", "one-stop shop" "one-click button solution" of this present day marketing environment leads upon this "road to p....."

So we should be looking also in our own backyard, so to speak, and start doing something against this disease called stupidity.

Communism was pretty much out, all over Europe, before '91.

I think there is a big renaissance of song craft in the "Americana" movement.

There is a great roster of so called indie "Jam Bands" that can be incredible, like Umphrey's McGee, which I think are more "new school prog rock" but I agree that the music is out there and live music that involves actual song writing and not just laying down beats but actually playing music with instruments and not just playing back tracks is alive and well.

Lol. :)

Was listening to Queen tonight...I'm sorry, but a guy like Freddie Mercury and the band Queen just aren't out there amongst all these new bands.
Nor is there another Hendrix, or Wilson sisters of Heart, or Beatles, or Rolling Stones, etc.

I know there are some pretty good indy bands (and hell...aren't all rock bands "indy" these days?), but show me a band with the talent to write and record "Bohemian Rhapsody" or have a guitarist as gifted as Hendrix or with the ability to lay down tracks like Jimmy Page did with Zep...or be able to do what The Beatles did.

There's a pretty big difference in the level of talent between the bands I'm referencing and the bands of today.

Of course talent like Hendrix, The Beatles, etc. may only come along once in a lifetime. But the current state of the music industry certainly isn't helping to foster it.