I do the same with Wikipedia.

Sometimes I get surprised by an old band - finding out they'd had 3-4 more albums since the last one I knew about (usually with different lead vocalists or other band members). Asia was like that - I thought they'd split up a few decades ago...but they kept putting out new material with a variety of band configurations. Canadian band Saga was another.

"Asia" LOL

Get a load of all these old people getting bent outta shape.

I've often wondered who exactly is listening to and buying that dildo's 'music', who'd actually be ignorant enough to give any attention to a talentless, incoherent, and generally repulsive imbecile as fagnye west.... well it seems that's been answered. Defending that douchebag and actually giving credence to a comparison with the Beatles... hehe delusional.

hehehe superb :) Anyone that would publically defend a certifiable retard like this should immediately begin self-medication.

Get a load of all these clueless teens whose only real life experience is a video game.

I was at a family gathering yesterday and was talking to a 20 year old about music. She had never heard of Nirvana or any 90's rock band I named. It was sad.

But I also have a 12 year old niece who (on her own) discovered Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Soundgarden. And she's growing up in a household that would definitely not expose her to that. So maybe it depends on the person.

If you are a fan of guitar centered rock music...it is difficult to find it on the radio, unless you want to listen to nothing BUT old stuff.

ZZ Top put out a really good song a couple of years ago. I listened to it on Vimeo and only found it because someone had posted it on social media.

It had nowhere to be played on the radio. And the radio is still a place where people listen to a lot of music while driving.

It's kinda puzzling to me. These bands have huge fan bases. And whenever they put out a new release...there is not much publicity and absolutely nowhere on the radio to hear their newest stuff.

Van Halen put out a new album with David Lee Roth a couple of years back. I got the CD and really liked it.
The local "rock" station here in Vegas played the song "Tattoo" off of it a few times the first day it came out.
Then the next day...it was back to playing "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and "You Really Got Me" every other hour and I never heard any of that CD on the radio again.

Not saying to only listen to "old" bands. Just saying that when they do put out new stuff...you can't find it on the radio. Which sucks.

Mods please put this thread in the 5 year time machine so we can all come back and check on whether Kanye and Paul have held up in public opinion, if all of us haven't died of bad luck cancer or heart attacks. The box with the bitcoin predictions and the threads about whether porn production would move out of LA please.

Q107 in Toronto did the same - they played "Tattoo" for a short while when ADKOT was released - then...nothing. Being a diehard VH fan - I went out and bought it anyway, and found several tracks that would've been great for radio play (Stay Frosty, She's the Woman).

A few weeks later they were back to playin' the old VH standards.

I just don't know what's wrong with radio these days.

The reason is that radio has now become so corporate it is a joke. If a Van Halen song is playing on your local rock station in Las Vegas at 2:14 pm then that same exact song is being played on EVERY local rock station at the same exact time all across the country. This is why "DJs" (what a joke) cannot play what they want to play, like they used to do back in he day. Now, they get a memo from Corporate (usually based in another city) that tells them they MUST play "Hot For Teacher" rather than the new Van Halen song or they will get fired. Seriously, this is what happens.

Why? Because Corporate has determined that more people like 'Hot For Teacher' and will thus listen to their station longer thus better satisfying their advertisers. End of story, end of game, end of new music being played.

And today, with so much fragmentation and people digging their own playlists and such, there isn't a movement in society to demand new music be played on radio stations so nothing changes. It's sad. Why can't radio stations play something like 'The Ocean" by Zeppelin instead of "Stairway To Heaven'? Oh right, see my reason above. Sigh.

Reed also said 'the guy is really, really, really talented', 'At so many points in this album, the music breaks into this melody, and it's glorious - I mean, glorious and 'If you like sound, listen to what he's giving you. Majestic and inspiring."

I understand what you're saying about Reed's acid wit, but I don't think that was the case in any of those comments and I'm very familiar with his music as well as much of his social commentary and pop culture criticism.

I first started listening to Velvet Underground back in college. In '98, I went to Vegas on Halloween for a Phish concert. At the time, every year on Halloween, they would play 3 sets and in the 2nd set, they would take on a 'musical costume' and cover an entire album. That year they played Velvet Underground's Loaded. It was a great show. Naturally, when I got back to Austin one of the first things I did was buy Loaded and The Velvet Underground & Nico. I listened to both of them quite a bit.

When I moved to NYC a year or so later, I became fascinated with the 'Silver era' with Warhol and The Factory and whatnot. Lou Reed was very much a part of that era, so in the process of researching and reading about that time period, I learned a lot about him. Then, I think it was in 2005 or 2006, I was a member of the Whitney (as well as several other museums) and went to a members viewing of his photography exhibit at the Hermes gallery. I actually met him and talked to him about his photography for about a minute. So then, naturally, I went through another Velvet Underground phase.

So, I'm not coming out of nowhere when I say I'm pretty familiar with him and his style of writing and certainly have a grasp of what he was saying.

people actually listen to corny over the air radio stations still? there is plenty of new rock bands and music on satellite which is what i hear wherever i go.

That and southpark. Otherwise I'd have no clue who he was.

Kanye does not fit into the stereotype you have of American rappers.

He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, he got good grades in school, and his mom was a college English professor. When he was young, kids made fun of him because he preferred to wear polo shirts instead of whatever the popular urban type clothing was at the time. He grew up in a better environment than most people in this thread.

He doesn't rap about gangster stuff or selling drugs and he never has. He resonates more with the fashion scene than he does with the urban ghetto scene.

As far as him 'being just another rapper', well he came out with his first album over 10 years ago after being a successful producer for years. He's already not 'just another rapper'.

Yes, local radio stations are a huge market.
Not sure why they are "corny" lol

But yeah, get in touch with one of your big local radio stations to buy some ad time and you'll quickly find out how many people definitely listen to local stations.

I had XM and then Sirius for about 10 years. But I finally dropped it about 4 years ago because I found myself constantly checking the local stations to hear the traffic reports and ads for the local shows and bands in town.

Plus I just like the local "flavor" of the stations right here in Vegas.

I liked having satellite radio too. Especially when I lived on the East Coast and drove all over the place.
But now that I live in Vegas...I don't drive out of town that much (usually fly out). So the advantage of never losing the signal from Sirius just didn't mean much anymore.

I googled it verbatim and all I found was something about how he ripped off some guy named Aphex Twin on one of his songs. Big deal. Did you actually Google it yourself or did you just assume that the results would support your preconceived stereotype?

Paul's Boutique is one of my favorite albums of all time. I pretty much wore the tape out listening to it again and again and again when it was released. When I bought a record player a few years ago, I immediately bought 10-15 albums. Paul's Boutique was one of them along with Abbey Road, The White Album, Exile On Main Street, Enter The Wu Tang, A Low End Theory by Tribe Called Quest, Rumours by Fleetwood Mac, The Bends and Kid A by Radiohead, Back To Black by Amy Winehouse, Stop Making Sense by Talking Heads, Superfly, a few others, and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West. I listened all of them repeatedly until going to buy my next batch a couple months later. In terms of quality, there was no drop off when listening to Twisted Fantasy. It fit right in with the others and much like Pauls Boutique, it was not a commercial success when it was released and it gets better with time.

Also, on Yeezus, Kanye brought in a lot of producers to make it where it was more of a collaborative effort than he had in the past. Rick Rubin, who produced the first Beastie Boys album, was there as was Rza.

Kanye is not just 'another rapper', he is a musician and a damn good one at that.

aphex twin actually IS a a genius.

The difference between me and you is that when I 'wonder something', I actually take the time to go learn about it rather than make assumptions based on blind ignorance. Especially when I 'often wonder something'. You should try it sometime. Maybe then you won't be so confused.

Really? I haven't heard of him before. Will have to check him out.

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.