Yo yo yo.

The studio version of "Champpions" by Kanye West and company, first single from Cruel Winter, is fucking out and it's on sale as an actual goddamn single this time! Bought it last night on iTunes. Dope as hell.

Lol it's cool. That's my favorite song on the album as well. I wouldn't've been mad if it was the closing track, but Formation is alright.

Listening to Redman all day today. Muddy Waters and Dare Is a Darkside are his best in my opinion. :) Pretty excited for Muddy Waters 2 that's coming out this year.

You like "Champions"?

I don't think I made it through the full track, simply because it's so long. I thought it was cool but Ye could've trimmed some of the features. I'll listen again soon though.

Has a definite "Cruel Summer" feel to it though, don't you think?

Btw: what the fuck happened to Turbo Grafx 16? Dead before arrival-- or, rather, immediately after announcement-- like I thought?

Yeah definitely.

I'm excited. Part of me is always concerned that GOOD is going to end up being kind of a facade for mining talent, like OVO, without ever having a true roster of integral artists that aren't just being taken advantage of. But with Pusha at the helm, I think it's likely to succeed, and while I have no interest in a whole series of godforsakenly boring label comps like MMG's Self-Made, I think a high profile sequel to Cruel Summer with a similar approach, only, perhaps, less radio-ready, is just what the doctor ordered.

I can't say I'm as excited as you, but I'm definitely gonna be here for it when it drops.

I sense an impending flirtation with the Dark Side in you, child. ;)

Oh HEY! Kanye's going on tour (finally) to support Pablo.

That means my ass is going to see him live. Pumped.

Kanye has released a new track, titled "Saint Pablo" and added it to the end of TLOP.

So I guess I was wrong about the album being "done." But whatever.

It's a really ducking good song, and I haven't even heard the entire thing yet. Sampha does guest vocals. Jay Z had a song writing credit.

I never heard "Closest thing to Einstein" but he utters that phrase in this song. So maybe this is the final version of that?

http://pitchfork.com/news/66109-kany...ablo-in-tidal/

#annoying

whatever. It's a "bonus track" in my head.

@Kayne: Just release the fucking thing on CD and end it already.

Lol. I'm really not that interested in Kanye these days..

Aye, that's what's up. He was awesome when I saw him last year. You're gonna have a blast.

:(

Well, it's a good song.
But it's true that for me, TLOP ends with the nuclear winter that is "Fade." And while I think "Saint Pablo" is the kind of Kanye track that fans (ex-fans?) like louder will be able to get behind, I think it's a bit silly to still add shit to the album.

But at the same time, this has become a pretty unprecedented thing. You mentioned early on that Weezer had been there/done that with Maladroit, but what they did was simply focus group early songs in an attempt to maximize fan reaction (and payout).

This has been a large scale experiment with the album format. It's going to make for some interesting discussions at the end of the year. How are the Grammys going to react to this, for instance? Probably by not nominating TLOP for anything, because the Grammys suck. But what about pitchfork? Well... Pitchfork sucks and is awful too, but their year end lists are consistently better than the Grammys. So, do the changes alter the album's rating? Which version of the album is the "true" version? Ultimately, I think TLOP is whatever each fab wants it to be, while also being a bunch of other things. For better or worse, he's still playing to the beat of his own drum.

EDIT: I think Pitchfork should actually re-review the album because their 9.0 rating came right after the album's 17 track TIDAL release. Therefore, it reviews an embryonic mastering, incomplete lyrical content, and a tracklist that's three songs too short.

Kanye has some issues with the music journalism industry, and I've gotta say, what he's done with Pablo is a pretty effective way of making those trend-setting word of God websites scramble and wonder what the fuck to do. It's pretty funny, really. At the end of the day, this is by far the most unconventional and, indeed, anti-traditional thing Kanye West has ever done, and that's saying a lot. I like the fact that it takes some of the focus off of his private life and public bumfuckery and places it back on the music, which is where it should have been all along.

Also, since TLOP dropped, Pitchfork has made the utterly silly mistake of ranking two albums above it. Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, which is nice and all, but is no work of genius.... And Chance's Coloring Book, which exists in part because of TLOP, and despite being a brilliant album, it's got a few moments that make that 0.1 point higher than Pablo rating seem quite stupid indeed. (See Justin Bieber. Yuck.) But really, who gives a shit? It makes for intersting conversation and that's a good thing.

I do not think any physical releases of TLOP will come out until the end of the year, if ever. That's a natural conclusion to the whole thing. Make it a year-long fuckaround and drop a cd just in time for Kanye to be the first news story of 2017.

Though he seems to be sticking to his guns about not releasing the album on CD ever, I've heard some rumblings from Def Jam on the matter.

Part of the reason for the added track might be to decrease demand for bootleg vinyl prints like the ones that showed up on Record Store Day.

I don't know. I don't really care either. More Kanye music, as long as it's bad as hell, is never going to upset me. And in this era of playlists and streaming service bullshit, we — the listeners — have more control over what constitutes an "album" in practice than ever before.

I "get" the experiment. I even appreciate it. But I don't like it.

I don't want the album as a format to be redefined. I want it to be what it always has been.

I'm an old man. IDGAF.

This is an actual ALBUM, a collection of 78's in an album format.

Kanye west sucks.

speaking of playlists, I have this one I made that I love and am always tweaking called ASAP ETC... it's all A$AP Mob stuff and then stuff that feels like it influenced them; some Three 6, Bone Thugs, Cypress Hill and then some related stuff like SpaceGhost... such good evil chillout music.

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