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Originally Posted by noisereductions
I can't help but pick up some of those 33 1/3 books because they're about albums I love... I've yet to read one that I thought was really good though.
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Maybe I will write one.
Seriously, if all they require of their authors is some (apparently minimal) experience, a college degree, very little talent, and a near-clinically-obsessive lov of music then... shit, I'm simply THE guy.
Honestly I think MBDTF is a bad choice for a book like this. It's too obvious, for one thing... the best music journalism explores the most interesting qualities of music and recording in an environmental and cultural context. I LOVE MBDTF, but that album isn't great because of its relevance to anything outside of the musical realm, nor is it great in spite of the odds being stacked against it. It's great because it is Kanye West drilling deep into, and doubling down on, everything about him that was over-the-top and decadent. It's great as a singular document... it represents Kanye turning all elements of Kanye up to 11, and making music that was big and audacious enough to go with the ego. And because despite how awful all of that sounds in theory, the music itself is just so goddamn good.
It almost feels like a cop-out that, in 2014, there was a book about one single Kanye album, and that album was MBDTF, the one that set the bar impossibly high and kind of put Ye's future in jeopardy for a bit.
I think the story behind Late Registration would be MUCH more interesting. When MBDTF came out, it was basically just the biggest musician in the world throwing a huge party and making the biggest album of that year. Not really much of a story there.
I think the story behind Late Registration is much more intersting. Rocafella hit-boy overcomes sophomore slump by ditching virtually every aspect of modern hip-hop, hiring a George Martin figure (Jon Brion), and making an album based on the the Beatles' chamber-pop experimentation on Rubbrr Soul. Now THAT album was an against-all-odds success, and there's something marvelous about the production and recording decisions made by West and Brion throughout the record.
808s & Heartbreak would also be an excellent story, for obvious reasons.
Writing about MBDTF is awesome, but who the fuck would choose to write about Thriller over the world-beating, epoch-making Off the Wall? Who would choose to start writing about the Beatles with Sgt. Pepper? I don't know... seems like a missed opportunity. MBDTF is my favorite Kanye album, but I think I'd rather read about pretty much any of the others.