Bro, when has Kanye NOT talked about celebrities and gossip? That's been going on since the Dropout. Come on, dude... Big Brother? Choke a South Park writer wit a fish stick? Hurry up with my damn Minaj? The Grammys? Ultra Travolta? Tuzxedo may have been a little guido but w/ my ego I can stand there in a speedo and be looked at like a fuckin hero? References to Jesus Walks? GEORGE BUSH DOESN'T CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE? The only nigga I got respect for is Wiz/ I admit I fell in love with Kim round the same time *she* fell in love with him?

Also, are you just listening to Famous over and over?
What about Ultra Light Beams? It's more HOPEFUL than anything he's released in YEARS.

I think you're either going to end up regretting all this trash talk, or Ye's done.

But for right now, I'm the biggest Yeezy fan on this board. That's for damn sure. Gimme that throne, bitch!! ;)

wasting resources? I'm confused.

For $10/mo I listen to hundreds of albums. The alternative would be spending ~$10 to buy ONE album a month to listen to.

And as far as "streaming" you don't have to use ANY data w/ Spotify if you don't want to. You can download albums (over wifi) so that they're stored on your phone for playback without streaming at all. No data used at all.

I still do buy physical albums, but they're ones I've already heard enough to feel worth buying on CD later.

LOL.. it's not just that man. This album simply isn't as good lyrically (in my opinion), and I don't really see an artistic merit in it. Of course my opinion might change when the final version drops, if it's much better.. but I don't love what I've heard so far.

"Now if I fuck this model
And she just bleached her asshole
And I get bleach on my T-shirt
I'mma feel like an asshole"

...

Louder, with all due respect, you keep talking about not living up to expectations....


I think you've fallen for the smear campaign. Pitchfork and Rollinfb Stone predicted that this would be his first bad album and I think you have bought into the hype a bit. You've lost confidence in Ye's creative decision making and you're turning the whole "first ever disappointing album" thing into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When Yeezus came out I didn't have faith in Ye, and you did. I was worried, it sounded choppy, sounded corny at times, didn't come across like a fully realized concept. But that changed as I listened more, and when the physical copy came out it made much more sense.

Remember you're listening to an unfinished product. STILL. New albums never sound cohesive when they first drop, via leak or stream or whatever, and you don't have that *album* experience, just a kind of ghost version of it.

Now I may be ballz out nuts for Kanye at this point, but I stil listened with my lips wrapped around my teeth, gritting, waiting for to disappoint me.

And it did not disappoint me. It sounded, oddly, a LOT like a Kanye West "Let it Be" ... Returning to soulful elements of his early music while keeping the aggressiveness and hard edge of his later work.

Father Stretch my Hands and its contributions from Chance the Rapper? DUDE! HOW DID YOU NOT LOVE THAT?

As for the video game... Who cares? Why are you suddenly so worried about the celebrity/gossip shit? I thought you knew that in order to truly appreciate Ye, you have to just focus on the music and leave everything else, including your expectations, at the door.

This annihilates any other album this year and I haven't even heard it all the way through yet.

Hello, ever heard a little song called "I'm in it?" What about "Blame Game?" Nothing new here. See my above post.

You've gone over to the dark side bro. By which I mean the white side, in this case. I'm hurt. I'm genuinely, truly, fully, blown away.

You have given me AIDS, brother. My heart hurts and aches for days of yore!!!

This is just my opinion on the stream. Not the album itself as we haven't heard that yet.

The Chance verse was great. It felt like he came overdressed for the occasion.

actual conversion between me and my wife:

me - "New Kanye album tomorrow."

her - "Surprised he has time with his fashion work."

me - "Fashion?"

her - "Yeah he has a fashion line now."

me - "I don't know anything about that."

her - "One of Kim's sisters is modeling for his line."

me - (shrug)

that's how Chance is. He kills it on other people's songs. Like that track on Dedication 4 (or 5?) or "Baby Blue" w/ Bronson.

As expected.. new tracklist, again:

interesting.

I like that more songs were added rather than taken away. I like that "Parties" is back on the tracklist.

I think it's safe to say that the album didn't get released yesterday since the tracklisting still isnt 100% haha.

wheer did you see that?

perhaps in some categories. In others she is far far < than Kim K.

in the category of "which does NR find attractive" there is no contest on this one.

I don't think I understand the point of Twitter. Isn't it supposed to be like a short post? But everyone does like 15 of them in a row. It's like they're making a FB post but breaking it up into single sentences. Weird.

Only "old farts" use twitter these days. Kanye for one...

HELL YEAH, BUDDY!!!
That's fucking AWESOME!!

Here I thought I'd found myself a copy of the new Ye album, and I'm loading. It onto my iPod to listen on my way to work, and BAM, there's another half an album out there!!!

I would probably have to admit to finding both of them attractive. But I'd feel like a criminal if I said anything sexual about Taylor. So young.

Kim is more my speed physically speaking. Sometimes she's gross as hell, but under all the crap she's almost unnervingly beautiful to me. Sometimes, when she's looking normal and not posing, I think, "Ok, I see how someone could fall in love with her." Something in her eyes seems very real. Not sure if it's actually there, probably not, but she's gorgeous.

Sexually, I definitely get it.
I have had my share of thin blonde girlfriends, but all the heavy relationships of my life, including my current--Jesus, gaining on 8 year-- partnership have been with darker girls with tons of character and features outside the blonde/blue/tall/leggy "Taylor" box.

So I say Kim.

Then again I've never seen the Kardashians. And I like Taylor Swift's music sometimes.

Oddly enough I feel like NR was right all along ... I feel like "Only One" could have actually worked on this album.

Man when the choir kicks in on "Ultra Light Beams" I feel like someone's pumping nostalgia and heroin right into my heart.

See what I'm talking about..

I told y'all the lyrics ain't the same.

As a journalist I really appreciate the premise of Twitter. You can get shit pumped out fast, to so many people. The character restrictions are actually probably good for writers, publicists, and anyone else who needs to remember how to give all the necessary information as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Hashtags and @'s should not be counted in the character count though. That's fucking ridiculous. You should also be able to post a link and not have the URL take up all your space.

As a consumer I hate Twitter. But I hate Facebook too. Twitter is definitely classier. I wish Facebook would die, or integrate with Tumblr. Death to the timeline!

What you know about a check?
What you got up in your pocket?
What you spending when you shopping, dawg?
Why you wanna go flex like you all in the mix?
Like you got some shit popping off?

Rae Sremmurd will be headlining the University of HOuston's Frontier Fiesta concert this spring. My wife and I will be there. Wonder who else will perform?

Well that proves it then doesn't it! (Heavy sarcasm, here)

Why now louder? Kanye's been acting crazy for a decade. He's done some seriously dumb. ass. shit. and he's said some dumbass things. You've never been bothered by it.

Now all of a sudden you're on board? You really think the music was THAT bad? Come on, have you HEARD the new Wiz Khalifa? It's a musical non-entity... An absolute void of nothingness.

Yeah you're right, the lyrics aren't the same. That's because these are different songs. Ye's been all over the place lyrically for his entire career. Parts of College Dropout and Yeezus should infuriate you if this bugs you out.

I can see that you've thrown in the towel though. You're just suddenly, today, no longer on Ye's side after being a devoted and committed fab throughout his entire career.

STOP REEADING PITCHFORK AND TWITTER. Listen to the damn music, stop talking about shit that has nothing to do with it.
You're all turned around. Kanye's always been crazy, but this is a new look for you.

I hate the fucking media. Part of it, but hate it.

You've been Cloud City-Vadered, to quote the only entertaining line on the Flash this season.

Cloud city Vadered like a Bitch.

I don't know who I am anymore if I'm not Ye buddies with Louder!

NR, don't listen to this shit- go hear the album and report back to me privately. We've been compromised.

who cares what millionaires have to rap about? He can sell his LP to the 1%

So, basically, who cares about the only rappers that the general public knows about?

oh you know I always wait and hear things on my own. Heck, suffered thru Barter6 because I didn't want to talk you and louder's word for it haha.

Til then... I'm just thinking about Taylor Swift. :)

Listening to this "awful" album right now.

It's easily the best thing I've heard in as long as I can remember.

This record has a lot in common with MBDTF. So many guest spots. So anthemic. Louder you'll come around. This shit is sick.

I been outta my mind a long time
I been outta my mind a long time
I be sayin' how I feel at the wrong time
Might not come when you want but I'm on time

Hey, I heard about the good news
Ya'll been sleepin on me huh, had a good snooze?
Wake up nigga wake up
It's time to get the paper
I can't let these people play me
Name one genius that ain't crazy
...
This is classic Kanye! And a freestyle no less!

yes. fuck the general public.

You guys know that there is NO SUCH THING AS FREESTYLE? All these fuckers write all their wack shit and practice it endlessly and pretend like it is coming off the cuff "freestyle."

You drank the kool aid.

I love Rae Sremmurd. Y'all are gonna have a blast.

You're being too defensive right now. I'm not attacking you nor anyone else here dude. I love Kanye and want this album to be great. I never cared what the media says..

The UH newspaper had a poll of a dozen or so students and none of them knew who Rae Sremmurd was and the ones that pretended to thought it was one guy. How is it that a 42 year old ex-metalhead, ex-punk, LSD-casualty knows and blast Rae Sremmurd tracks and the kids do not? WHAT ARE THEY LISTENING TO???????????

hahahhaha

Some songs were very enjoyable for me. Some weren't. It sounded unfinished and lacked direction. We'll see if my opinion changes when the album drops.

That's what's up! Weird though.. I thought "the kids" were crazy about this duo.

One rapper I think Rob might totally love is Schoolboy Q.

Danny Brown as well, maybe?

I think that since the current wave of hip hop is purely based around stripper anthems, and that most of the hot new tracks are bumpin' out of Magic City in Atlanta, instead of a large media marketplace like NYC (where hip hop was born and where it has rotted on the vine) and LA, (where every fucking goddamn rapper still sounds like G-Funk-Lite) these "kids are just not exposed to it.

Over the past month my wife and I have noticed that the hip hop radio stations in Houston (93.7, 97.9) are playing all the cats that we have been listening to for the past 8 months or so, from Rae Sremmurd, to Rich Homie Quan to TY $ to Kevin Gates to Future. I guess no one under 30 is listening to the radio anymore.

Schoolboy Q performed at UH last year. I missed it.

Who is this Makonnen guy that is gonna teach me how to whip it? https://youtu.be/nAPw_bmwxhQ

Earlier today I heard someone drive by who was blasting El Chapo Jr by 2Chains. Never heard that track outside my own speakers.... https://youtu.be/C6ZnwuhqALY

I dig this Doughbeezy track (Pass the Swisher) but do not know anything else from him https://youtu.be/SqO_RqUTjsc

Why does Bobby Shmurda not open his mouth when he raps? ha! https://youtu.be/vJwKKKd2ZYE