This Is Not What I Want to Write About

Kanye West, you are killing me. Serious. I am quite behind in the world of music (and blogs, too--months, maybe years) and recently heard the new Kanye West single, "Stronger". It's pretty much the Daft Punk track, "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", with West rapping over it. Well no. Borrowing heavily from. Or samples. I mean samples, right? I feel like a sample shouldn't be so blatant but what should I know (there are, of course, exceptions, i.e. Girl Talk's spastic samples are earth-shatteringly obvious yet deceptive and brilliant that it's a work to behold). Anyway, I disliked it when Busta Rhymes sampled Daft Punk's "Technologic" for his single, "Touch It", last year. Same French duo, different song, different artist, and I still dislike it. The a cappella version floating around on the internet last year is more interesting than West's take. It feels more sincere. Dudes actually try and appear to care.



I'm not quite sure how I define sincerity, but I don't hear it often. Music or anything. It's the sort of thing one recognizes when it's there, and if it's not present, everything seems shallow and pointless. "For fun" is not a good enough excuse to make crap.

With that said, I find the track with West rapping over Peter, Bjorn, and John's "Young Folks" to be lackluster. No pop for a pop song. And let's not delve into the mess that is Lupe Fiasco, Pharrell (an aside: I have a cousin who is the spitting image of this dude), and West sampling Thom Yorke's "The Eraser". Ick. Granted, I find it the best of the three latest tunes. But that's not saying much, is it?

I really want to like Kanye West. Really, I do. I liked that first album that made him ridiculously famous. I even somewhat liked the one that came after--Jon Brion did work on it and Brion is a darling in my musically-illiterate universe. Hearing these recent tracks, however, I have a feeling that the drop out from my school is going to do like most Columbia (or any college) alums--he's going to get boring and coast.

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I have a lot of posi stuff to write about. Swears! It's just taking some time to collect my thoughts. Or pretend to. I don't really collect anything.