Kanye West fascinates me like no other figure in pop culture. I am always curious about his incredibly strong design sensibility, which pervades his ALL-CAPS RANTS on his blog (currently featuring only art and captions since its reboot), and which frankly led to his inability to keep his mouth shut about the brilliance of Beyonce's video during the Taylor Swift "Imma let you finish" incident. Equally captivating is his sense of self and sense of faith, which show up in his public life and image ("I am not a gay fish!") and in the inner conflict he reveals in his music. Most of all, though, I am enthralled by his artistic sensibility, which merges the two, joining deliberate design with raging ego. Kanye is pretty sure it is his job to be the voice of a generation, and he is creating art to serve that purpose. In stark contrast, Coldplay's Chris Martin is noted for his desire to be the leader of the biggest band in the world, and writes music in a calculated manner in order to broadly pull in fans until his band is the new Beatles or U2. Kanye isn't writing the music he thinks will make people love him - he is writing the music he feels called to make, and he knows that the generation he represents will love him for it. In this sense, his confidence and ego are what prevent him from falling into the trap of crowd-pleasing, and allow him to create honest music, music that is emotional without being emotionally manipulative.
As such, I was fascinated when given a glance, of a sort, into Kanye's head. The above picture was part of a series commissioned by the Grammys to promote their 2009 lame-fest. The idea of the series was simple: create the artist's portrait out of the titles of songs that have influenced their lives and artistic careers. Kanye's display obviously has significant breadth and depth, but I am going to perform a highly scientific analysis of it based on statistical breakdowns involving two primary categories: Whether the font size is big enough to read, and whether an artist has more than one song present in the portrait. Interestingly enough, The Police make the list with two ("Roxanne" and "Every Breath You Take"). Hip hop innovators Run DMC ("Rock Box", "King of Rock" and "Walk This Way"), A Tribe Called Quest ("Can I Kick It", "Scenario" and "Bonita Applebum"), Wu-Tang Clan ("C.R.E.A.M.", "Protect Ya Neck" and "Triumph"), and Nas ("If I Ruled The World", "One Mic" and "Black Republican") all nab three references. Topping the chart with four? Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke ("The Eraser", "Analyse", "Black Swan" and "Skip Divided"), all from his solo album, The Eraser. As shocking as this may seem, it should be less so in light of the fact that these portraits came out immediately after the release of Kanye's fourth studio album, 808s & Heartbreak.
808s & Heartbreak was a polarizing album. Kanye, a superstar producer and at this point equally prestigious rapper, had created an album in which he only sang, leaning heavily on the crutch of Auto-Tune throughout. If this wasn't a big enough adjustment, his subject matter abandoned bravado and cultural commentary to focus on betrayal and loss (Kanye had been dumped by his fiancee and lost his mother in a short period preceding the album's creation). Finally, the beats weren't Kanye's typical club bangers - they were, as promised by the "808" series drum machines referenced in the album's title, minimalist creations, carved out of electronic sound.
At this point, it begins to seem logical that Kanye would have viewed The Eraser (Thom's solo record, in which he relied solely on synthesized beats as his backdrop) as a primary influence in his own album's creation. Sure, there had been other well-known albums with primarily electronic backdrops (notably Postal Service), but Kanye, viewing himself as a superstar, a cultural icon, is above that. If he is going to take significant cues from somebody other than a founding father of hip hop, it's going to be the frontman from the greatest rock band on earth. As artistic responses go, 808s & Heartbreak was definitely interesting. It still sounded nothing like The Eraser and was very different than all of Kanye's previous work, giving it a unique flavor. The level to which he experimented, from the vulnerability of his singing to the literal deconstruction of his own song on "Bad News" to the sci-fi metaphors of "Robocop", is fairly uncommon for an artist of his stature. In fact, the last time I can remember an artist coming from heights like "Harder Better Faster Stronger", throwing out the book and completely reinventing their sound? That would be Radiohead, coming off the technophobic pinnacle of 90's Brit-Rock with OK Computer and giving it all up to become a 21st-century experimental electronic band on Kid A.
Finally, I should mention that the picture above is Thom's very own Grammy portrait. While I will draw no conclusions so significant from this one, I may as well give you a little breakdown of what I see. Elvis Costello ("Alison", "Pump It Up" and "Veronica"), R.E.M. ("Fall On Me", "Man On The Moon" and "Losing My Religion"), DJ Shadow ("Midnight In A Perfect World" and "Six Days") and The Verve ("Bittersweet Symphony" and "Lucky Man") all get multiple billings. The headlining spots, font size-wise, go to David Bowie ("Ashes to Ashes"), The Rolling Stones ("Tumbling Dice"), Madvillain (the duo of MF Doom and Madlib, with "Meat Grinder") and, biggest of all, Bjork ("Unravel"). Interesting stuff, check it out below.
Thom Yorke - Skip Divided
Kanye West - Robocop
Wu-Tang Clan - Triumph
A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It
Nas - If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)
DJ Shadow - Midnight In A Perfect World
David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes
Rolling Stones - Tumbling Dice
Madvillain - Meat Grinder
Bjork - Unravel
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment