Kanye West - Graduation - 2008

Because music doesn't exist in a vacuum, cross-generational comparisons between artists are inevitable. These usually manifest themselves as some sort of dismissal of contemporary music, as in "Well, who are our Beatles then?" As if today's music is somehow unnecessary because they Beatles made great music 40 years ago. And because music doesn't exist in a vacuum, the answer to that question is simple: the Beatles are our Beatles.

When another band comes around and more or less lays the foundation for the next 40 years of pop music, there's your new Beatles. But when it happens, Beatles comparisons just won't sound right, because the songs won't resemble the Beatles in the slightest, and that's what will make it all so Beatlesesque.

"Well, then who is our Bob Dylan?"

I mean, sure, the answer is still Bob Dylan. But really, it's Kanye West.

People always bristle at this comparison. It's like in the NBA where white players are compared exclusively to other white players--like it's inconceivable for a white guy to have a game like Magic, or a black guy to play like Bird. And maybe those are the wrong comparisons--Bird and Magic had games that transcended black and white because they were such phenomenal, once-in-a-lifetime talents, but because of this, they became--Bird more than Magic--the platonic ideal for players of their respective races. This is how you end up comparing Keith Van Horn to Larry Bird--maybe it looks right if you squint, but if you open your eyes, you barely see the resemblance.

Bob Dylan, to most people, is a skinny white guy with a guitar and a questionable voice who just happens to be a genius poet. When you take away the genius poet part, you get a skinny white guy with a guitar and a questionable voice. This is how Connor Oberst got compared to Bob Dylan. Connor Oberst is the Keith Van Horn of folk music.

Naturally, Bob Dylan was more than just a genius poet with a guitar--he was an arrogant, shit-starting prick who craved attention from everyone at all times and got it, because he was just that good. It takes a special kind of talent to overcome an ego like that--to believe that you are truly god's gift to humanity, and then get everyone else--fans, critics, your contemporaries--to believe it too? Sound familiar?

Kanye West has a Dylanesque ego--that's not up for debate. This is a man who routinely compares himself to Jesus and truly means it. He's also a petulant, overly-sensitive man child who routinely throws epic hissy fits at meaningless awards shows when he doesn't win their meaningless awards. He has a blog where, in between materialistic ramblings about gadgets and clothes, he will respond immediately, usually in ALL CAPS, to any perceived slight and once admitted that he was "typing so fucking hard [he] might break [his] fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!!"

And yet, everybody loves him. He comes across at such a polarizing figure--an arrogant jerk who makes music that seems to white for rap radio and too black for the still-surprisingly-large "anything but rap & country LOL!" contingent. But he's had 3 straight number one albums and sold over 10 million records in the U.S. alone since 2004. He gets rave reviews from every conceivable media outlet from the Source to Pitchfork. Do you know how hard it is to be hipster and Hot97 approved? That just doesn't happen. Ask the Clipse.

Kanye West has taken rap music--a genre riddled with archaic rules and holier-than-thou purists--and turned it into something that can be nearly universally appreciated. Graduation takes chances--sure, it's still full of club beats, but they're more French discotheque than "In Da Club"--he samples Steely Dan, Daft Punk, and Can and you don't even care that he's pandering to white people because it all sounds so good(1).

Late Registration & College Dropout may have had his biggest hits, and his most enduring pop hits may very well be in the form of songs he produced for others, but Graduation is, pure and simple, a focused declaration of pop genius and artistic expression. It's a record that transcends the simple "rap" genre tag and Kanye's so-called limited skills as an MC(2).

And even if you don't believe it's his best or most important or even good, you still have to recognize the album--and Kanye himself--as a sign of progress for hip-hop & rap, both for total mainstream acceptance and artistic viability. Graduation gave Kanye the freedom to make an electro-pop record with nothing but autotuned vocals and the credibility to get away with it.

Is the autotune on 808's & Heartbreaks his Dylan-goes-electric moment? I guess you could argue that in some circles, T-Pain is as big of a blight on hip-hop as electric guitars were on folk. Either way, they both pulled it off, and music is better off because of it.



(1) Alright, not the Can-sampling "Drunk & Hot Girls"; that's probably the record's only 100% skippable track.

(2)Complaining about Kanye's rapping is like complaining about Dylan's singing voice--if it works, it works.

The Strokes - Is This It? - 2001

When the Strokes released Is This It? in 2001, I was incensed. How dare this band of rich kids from New York release a good album!

Naturally, I didn't think the album was good at the time, because I didn't listen to it. I saw the video for "Last Nite" (on MTV!), thought the song was pretty awesome and knew automatically that I Hated This Band. I mean, how dare they?

In 2001, I was 15 years old and nothing was more important to me than feeling a sense of ownership over the bands that I liked. And here come the Strokes, looking all cool with their leather jackets and just ruining everything. I spent my adolescent years listening to punk rock and cultivating an entire persona around listening to music that no one else listened to, only to have these chumps come around and blow everything up. At the time, I was positive that within a month, everyone I knew would be listening to the Velvet Underground and Television and I'd be the same as everyone else.

Of course, it never happened that way--and why would it have? No normal person hears a pop song and views it as a threat to their way of life. Most people don't put any thought into the music they listen to, which explains why Shaggy had not one, but two #1 singles in 2001. In fact, during the height of the Strokes' relative ubiquity, their only real contribution to pop-culture was opening the flood gates for a wave of bands with "the" in their names.

So, in a way, the Strokes were responsible for me purchasing and listening to Highly Evolved by the Vines. The year was 2001. I bought a CD. By the Vines. And I Hated the Strokes. I was 15. We all make mistakes.

Following the whole "garage band revival" bullshit that ultimately went nowhere, I rarely put any thought into the Strokes--if someone brought them up, I would regurgitate my standard "inauthentic rich kid" talking points and move on. More often then not, people would agree with me--it's now evident to me that I wasn't the only 15 year old who viewed the Strokes as an affront to their identity.

But then one night in 2008 I was alone in a bar in Berlin and "Is This It?" came on, and with no one around to tell how much I hated the Strokes, I was forced to actually listen to it. So I did. And for those 2 and a half minutes, I felt like the coolest motherfucker on the planet. Later, I sat down and listened to the whole album; the singles were exactly the same as I remembered them, which is to say that they still sounded great. Even when I Hated the Strokes, I still took the time to learn how to play the intro to "Hard to Explain" and if "Last Nite" or "Someday" just happened to come on the radio, I'd express my distaste for the band, but secretly enjoy the songs anyway. The rest of the album? Very few complaints--If you can make a 36 minute album with three top-notch singles and a handful of other songs that are merely "good", I will listen to it any time. At 15, Is This It? would have blown my mind, had I not been so worried about it destroying my life.

What I'll Be Doing & Why

I've got a serious love/hate thing going on with music writing--most days I loathe the very thought of it, most likely because I spend so much time thinking about it. I could list a million pretentious-sounding criticisms of it that I've come up with over the years, but these are ultimately just excuses I make for not writing anything at all.

After all, if music criticism is so shallow and unnecessary, why have I invested so much time coming up for all these reasons it's shallow and unnecessary? Maybe it actually has some value, or maybe I just enjoy pursuing things that are shallow and unnecessary.

And hey, what's more unnecessary than a list? How about a decade-spanning list with less-than-strict criteria for inclusion and no real order! So here's my plan: I'm going to write about albums from the last 10 years that I think are interesting, important or just great. Extra consideration will be given to albums that I have some personal anecdotes about, because really, what am I going to write about otherwise? "Swirling guitars"?

Some of these albums will be no-brainers--eventually, you will hear my thoughts about Radiohead--but for the sake of brevity (if brevity can exist in a project with no real end) I'm going to make this a 1 record per band affair. So when you do hear my thoughts about Radiohead, you'll be hearing them about Kid A. Because come on, what else was I going to pick?

Also, along the way I might find the time to talk about particularly great singles or particularly awful trends or personalities that made themselves known during this decade we've come to know as the aughts.

Just kidding--nobody calls it the aughts.