Toss-Up Thursday: Best of 2010
Dec, 8 2010
With Best of 2010 lists rolling in, we thought we’d summarize the Best of the Best by looking at Amazon.com, Paste, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Spinner.
The Arcade Fire, Deerhunter, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys, and LCD Soundsystem were all well received and appeared on multiple lists.
But there were strong dark horses, too; Swedish electro-pop muse Robyn saw her release Body Talk garner an 8.7 (out of 10) on Pitchfork, and Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons was rated highest by Amazon’s well-versed music team, followed by The Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs.
Spinner liked Beach House’s Teen Dream for No. 1, while Janelle Monae’s The ArchAndroid reached No. 2 on Paste’s list.
Rolling Stone seemed eager to please the widest demographic, rating Elton John and Leon Russell’s The Union at No. 3, and country-crossover Jamey Johnson at No. 5.
But it is outspoken super producer Kanye West and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy reigning in 2010. Pitchfork gave him a perfect 10.0 and he topped Rolling Stone’s list, as well.
Permalink
Kanye's Beautiful Fantasy: Half-A-Milli Sales and a No.1
Dec, 1 2010
Critics have been falling over each other to praise Kanye West's new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and its success with reviewers has been matched by enthusiasm from fans. Fantasy is No.1 this week having sold 519,000 copies, a long way ahead of No.2 Nicki Minaj, whose debut album Pink Friday nevertheless scored an impressive 371,000.
Fantasy's first week sales outstripped those of its predecessor, 808s & Heartbreak, which hit No.1 two years ago, by 69,000, despite the shrinking music market and Kanye's PR disaster at last year's VMAs. But the victim of Kanye's interruption that night, Taylor Swift, sold more than double Fantasy's first-week total with 1,047,000 first week sales of Speak Now. Kanye's tally is impressive, but it emphasizes just how incredible Taylor's first Speak Now week was. Four weeks on, a 71% jump helped Speak Now rebound up to No.3 this week with 256,000, just ahead of Susan Boyle's The Gift on 250,000.
Meanwhile Minaj, who guests on Fantasy, would have been No.1 by a distance most weeks with a total of 371,000. Pink Friday's total is the second highest ever for a debut album by a female hip-hop artist, behind The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which debuted with 423,000 sales on the back of Hill's success with The Fugees.
Permalink
Kanye Responsible For Bush's "All-Time Low"
Nov, 5 2010
In an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer scheduled to air next week, former President George W. Bush responded to Kanye West's Sept. 2, 2005 outburst during A Concert for Hurricane Relief when Kanye claimed “George Bush doesn't care about black people.”
The comment resulted from the President's handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, and left an indelible mark on Bush’s second term.
Although he was in office during the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, Bush was unable to think of a worse moment during his tenure, and told his wife Laura the same at the time, reported Entertainment Weekly. Kanye’s assertion of racism “was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency,” Bush told Lauer. In the President’s soon-to-be-published book, Decision Points, W. writes that the remark “represented an all-time low” of his tenure.
Kanye responded to Bush during an interview with Houston DJ Devi Dev of Hot 97.9 The Boxx, saying he sympathized with the former President. “I can understand the way he feels to be accused of being a racist, in a way, because the same thing happened to me where I got accused of being a racist,” said Kanye of his Taylor Swift interruption at MTV’s 2009 VMAs.
As Bush and Kanye react to one another through the media, ostensibly victimized by their own past behaviors and opinions, it is likely this isn’t the last word from either side.
Permalink
Kanye's Banned Dark Twisted Fantasy
Oct, 19 2010
Kanye West faces a tough decision about whether to stick with his chosen artwork for new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, despite suggestions that major retailers won't stock it. The image is controversial because it depicts a naked figure, thought to be Kanye, being straddled by a nude female, who is armless, winged and tailed. Both have mouths more monster than human.
“Yoooo they banned my album cover!!!!!” Kanye tweeted, “Banned in the USA!!! They don't want me chilling on the couch with my Phoenix!” The cover is inspired by Kanye's song "Runaway" and the accompanying 35 minute video, due to debut this week. In the short film, Phoenix is the name of a female creature that has fallen to earth who Kanye falls in love with. “[It’s] an overall representation of what I dream,” he explained.
In mythology, a Phoenix is a bird that lives for several hundred years and then burns to ashes to be reborn; perhaps a metaphor to Kanye’s past unpredictable behavior and his desired career trajectory.
The album will be Kanye’s fifth studio release and it is not clear if this album art has been fully banned, or whether he might choose an alternative cover for the specific retailers who object to it. The LA Times reported a source at his label Def Jam insisting “If he wanted to do it, the label would stand behind him."
Permalink
Kanye Confesses All To Twitter
Sep, 6 2010
Two weeks ago, Jonah Weiner of Slate magazine published a full-length article about Kanye West with quotes and information taken solely from his Twitter account and recent appearances on UStream and YouTube. Weiner suggested that there was no longer any need for journalists to conduct in-depth interviews with stars, since they bare their souls already on the internet, directly to their fans. The Village Voice responded to the article by declaring that "Kanye West's Twitter killed music magazines."
This weekend Kanye spent over two hours talking on Twitter about his shame over the incident at last year's MTV VMA's when he invaded the stage to tell award-winner Taylor Swift that Beyoncé should've won instead. "With new found humility... who am I to run on stage?" he wrote. "I would never ever again in a million years do that. Sorry to let you down. It is distasteful to cut people off as a general rule. What's the point of dressing tastefully if I'm going to act the complete opposite? Yes I was that guy. A 32 year old child."
"I wrote a song for Taylor Swift" he added "that's so beautiful and I want her to have it." Kanye follows just two people on Twitter: Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.
"Man I love Twitter" he said. "I've always been at the mercy of the press but no more."
Permalink
Kanye Recruits Folk Singer Vernon For New LP
Aug, 14 2010
With its cold synth textures and emotional singing, 2008's 808s & Heartbreak album confirmed Kanye West as the rap star most likely to experiment with styles outwith hip-hop. As Kanye gets ready to release his as-yet-untitled fifth album, reports that he's worked with singer-songwriter Bon Iver suggest it too may include some unconventional sounds.
According to indie blog Stereogum, West flew Bon Iver (real name Justin Vernon) to a studio in Hawaii to work on some new songs, and at the very least a Bon Iver track will form the basis of a new Kanye song. Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago was one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2008, and its follow-up Blood Bank EP broke into the Billboard 200.
The new Kanye album, which has the provisional title of Dark Twisted Fantasy, will be released in November, and includes confirmed collaborations with Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z, Drake and more, as well as production by Q-Tip, RZA, DJ Premier and West himself. How Bon Iver's spectral folk will fit in is anybody's guess.
Permalink
Kanye Tells Us He Is A True Poet
Jan, 5 2010
Kanye West is back in the studio recording his next album, but making music isn’t just about making music these days – you’ve got to blog about it too. Kanye’s latest all-caps missive reasserted his intention to fulfill his destiny of being “a true poet” on the level of “Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone.” Like their work, according to Kanye, his work will continue to improve with time. “They documented what was happening in culture. That is our responsibility as the modern day artists and poets, to accurately represent what is happening now, so when the powers that be try to rewrite history you can always look at our works and find truth and sincerity in a world of processed information... Let us look past headlines and deal with just a bit of reality in this new decade. We have our own outlets now. We don’t have to believe everything anymore.” Kanye concluded with the wry comment that all he has to do now is to “figure out a way to make that rhyme LOL!!!” Whether he will surpass his previous efforts at earnest profundity remains to be seen, but it looks like Kanye remains the rapper to watch this year.
Permalink
Kanye West
Oct, 2 2009
Kanye West's mammoth 34-date arena tour with Lady GaGa, dubbed the Fame Kills Tour, has been canceled before it's even begun. Organizers LiveNation declined to give a reason for the abandonment, but it's widely rumored that poor sales were the cause. If that's the case, it seems likely that it's a direct consequence of Kanye's heavily criticized stage invasion at the MTV VMA Awards two weeks ago, when he interrupted Taylor Swift during an acceptance speech to protest that Beyoncé should've won the award instead. For a few days, everyone in American seemed to turn against him, including the President who allegedly referred to Kanye as a "jackass." On the Jay Leno Show days later, Kanye insisted that he was sorry and that he needed to take some time off to deal with unresolved grief following the death of his mother; only for that need to be forgotten mere days later by the announcement of the tour. Now its cancellation seems to confirm that the public is still to forgive Kanye for his boorish indiscretion; with the silver lining that he will at least now be able to take that much-needed time off.
Permalink
Kanye West
Sep, 14 2009
The biggest news from the MTV Video Music Awards this weekend was not that Beyoncé won 3 of the 17 Moonmen prizes; it was Kanye West’s on-stage assertion that she ought to have won one more. The Best Female Video award went to country darling Taylor Swift for “You Belong With Me,” but her acceptance speech was interrupted by Kanye, who appeared on the stage beside her, took her microphone and announced: “Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you… but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time!” His outburst left “Single Ladies” singer Beyoncé shocked and surprised, and by the time he returned the mic to a stunned Taylor Swift, her allotted time to speak was up. Though some suggested that the whole escapade was a stunt (like when a partially clad Brüno was lowered into an outraged Eminem’s lap at the MTV Movie Awards in May), an all-caps apology appeared on Kanye’s blog within hours. Nonetheless, comment columns across the internet agreed that irrespective of the merits of the two videos, Kanye’s boorish diss of the teenager was selfish and rude. For Swift, the balance was soon redressed when Beyoncé -- duly declared the winner of Best Video of the Year as Kanye predicted -- kindly invited her back on-stage to complete her acceptance speech to a rapturous response from the crowd.
Permalink
Kanye West
May, 21 2009
Kanye has made a career out of his carefully chosen words. As one of the foremost rappers in the world, his albums are assured of huge sales and he has reached the stage of celebrity that every utterance is a potential news story – and what utterances they can be! From unrestricted self-belief: “I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice”; to unexpected politicking: “George Bush doesn’t care about black people…”; and reflections on the pressures of fame: “I wanna make popular music, but I want less fans”. His foray into blogging has unleashed a new avenue for his words of wisdom, including his recent opinion on the parallels between the music stars of today and those of yesteryear. In an all caps entry he bellows that: "I LOOK AT OUR CURRENT SUPERSTARS LIKE LEGENDS IN THE MAKING... LIKE JUSTIN IS THE NEW MIKE , BEYONCE'S THE NEW TINA TURNER, GAGA'S MADONNA, JAY IS SINATRA... WAYNE IS HENDRIX, THOM YORKE IS ROGER WATERS, THESE ARE THE CHAMPIONS AND SHOULD BE DOCUMENTED AS SUCH." Presumably he had to take a lie down after that, leaving the rest of us to ponder whether we’d come up with a different list altogether, and which star from a previous era Kanye himself is most similar to.
Permalink
Kanye West
Jan, 12 2009
Kanye West is hot property, even if critical opinion of his new album 808s & Heartbreak has been somewhat shaky in places, but apparently he’d prefer to be a little less famous. In an interview with Vibe magazine he said, "I made a decision. I wanna make popular music, but I want less fans. I want the freedom of having less fans. It’s like the freedom of having less money. If you have less money, you have less responsibility.” However, though he singled out Beyonce and her hubby Jay-Z for praise, his assertion that he ‘is the greatest entertainer of this generation’ does seem at odds with his ambitions for a humble life. Certainly, his ongoing ability to conjour attention-grabbing soundbites -- such as “I definitely feel like, in the next however many years, if I work out for two months, that I’ll pose naked. I break every rule and mentality of hip-hop, of black culture, of American culture” -- suggests that Kanye is unlikely to fade into selective obscurity anytime soon.
Permalink
Kanye West
Dec, 4 2008
Kanye West has won the most competitive chart battle of the year, batting off the efforts of Guns N Roses, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ludacris and The Killers to top the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 450,000 for 808s and Heartbreak. But it wasn't as tight a race for No.1 as most expected, and the most surprising thing is who finished second: Taylor Swift, not Axl Rose. Swift's second album Fearless was No.1 two weeks ago, but this week jumped up from last week's No.4 to No.2 with sales of 267,000. Chinese Democracy, the Best Buy exclusive which took seventeen years to complete, was actually closer to fourth than second (never mind first), selling 261,000 copies and edging out Beyoncé's I Am… Sasha Fierce by just 4,000. Ludacris' Theater of the Mind debuted in fifth with 213,000, and The Killers' Day & Age arrived in sixth with 193,000 - both figures which could have earned them chart-toppers in other weeks. That's because this week's holiday weekend prompted a 29% increase in sales from the previous week, but it seems all the extra shoppers didn't include the expected army of enthusiastic Guns' fans.
Permalink
Kanye West
Nov, 26 2008
This week sees the release of Kanye West's fourth album, 808s and Heartbreak, but it's proving to be one of the most polarizing releases in years. The superstar rapper has dumped rapping almost completely, releasing a downbeat electro-pop record which is entirely sung and obviously Auto-tuned in a style more closely associated with artists like T-Pain and Lil Wayne. Said to be inspired by his breakup from his fiancée, and the death of his mother, it's a million miles away from the upbeat and super-confident Kanye who earned ten Grammy Awards and millions of record sales since his 2004 debut, The College Dropout. Fans and critics are already divided on whether it's a move that proves his artistic genius or a worrying slide from the heights he once hit, but if there's one thing that nobody can accuse Kanye of, it's of being boring.
Permalink
Kanye West
Sep, 5 2008
It's just over a year since his last album -- the double platinum, triple Grammy-winning Graduation -- but Kanye West is already on the verge of releasing album number four, according to widely circulating rumors. The talk is that a new single, "Love Lockdown", will be digitally released on Monday; meanwhile, Kanye has been added to the bill for the MTV Video Music Awards show on Sunday, where he'll play an unspecified song to close the evening. What better opportunity to perform something like, hmm, a new single? With the accompanying album almost ready to follow, it could yet be a Christmas gift request for those disappointed that the new U2 album has been delayed.
Permalink
Kanye West
Dec, 10 2007
The Grammy nominations have just been announced, and you would be lucky to get odds that Kanye West won’t feature among the winners again this year. With eight nominations for his work, including the double-platinum Graduation, he looks likely to pick up a few more luxury door stops for West Mansions.
Permalink
