A Very Special Post

The Beginning and the End, or "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"

Thesis

When you're sick, it's hard to blog. Fortunately, I care about my readers enough to sacrifice much-needed sleep in favor of some late night writing. This post is going to be worth it, to a greater degree than the past few posts. I admit, there's been a dip in both frequency and quality of #METASWAG output. I had some hella stressful weeks followed by a hella careless week. In both cases, I wasn't much in the mood to blog.

However, now that my schoolwork and energy alike are decreasing, I have few options but blogging and sleeping with Grouper to keep me occupied. I guess picnics and adventures with friends and loved ones spring up from time to time, but for the most part, I have been "chill" lately.

About time. Anyway, let's start talking about Important Stuff.

UPDATE [4:30 PM, 4/14] Or talk about it in totally contradictory and terrible ways. WARNING: Theoretical mess approaching. And this is the revised post.

Challenging "Challenging"

Maybe I've just been burnt out by tons and tons of feminist theory, but the impact and importance of the always controversial Odd Future is starting to feel a bit forced. What I wanted to talk about here was the way people use the word "challenging" to describe art, and suggest an alternative definition for the word. So, what follows is hopefully a redefinition of the word challenging, and not a misguided ramble about authorial intent and convention.

This wasn't meant to be a post about Odd Future. I only intended to use them as an example of art that is labeled "challenging." I don't mean to hate on OFWGKTA. I love them. Their music sounds good to me. I even made a #GOLFWANG shirt.

It's just that people won't stop writing about them and the meaning of their art. I'm getting sick of the notion that Odd Future is meaningful, or in particular, "challenging." It doesn't help that most of the writing on the subject is horrible (my own included; this post included).

I too wrote a reactionary post on OFWGKTA shortly after watching the "Yonkers" video, and referred to Tyler as some sort of Important and Challenging figure that provoked honestly useful consideration of sexuality and violence in rap.

I was wrong for two reasons.

1) Though the music is sometimes serious and Tyler probably does have daddy issues, Odd Future is straight-up camp that has been done before.

2) My (and most folks') definition of "challenging art" is too limiting.

Odd Future is challenging art in one sense of the word. It's provocative, offensive, and noticeable. Maybe they have gotten white people to write about some contrived notion of innate violence or the artfulness of rapping about rape. It forces you to ask questions like, "Is this okay?" and "Are they serious?" and "Does it matter?" Of course it doesn't. The lyrical content (primarily limited to Tyler and Earl's output) sounds mean and misogynist. This has all been played out countless times. People should not still feel challenged by this kind of rap.

So yes, Odd Future still makes people queasy. But art called challenging should be much more than art that simply provokes a gut-reaction.

Challenging art is a label that would be better applied to work that truly inspires self-confrontation, an examination of the really buried stuff, and potentially results in a new understanding of how to exist with oneself and the world.

I'm not saying that shocking art can't be challenging in this sense, but rather that "challenging art" has been conflated with anything that makes people mad, rather than that which makes people change.

I've been lucky enough to experience a real piece of challenging art over the past few weeks: Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Here is a piece of art (the Greatest Piece Of Art?) that demands us the audience to delve within ourselves. To re-imagine how and why we exist. There were moments in the show that had me asking questions about myself that I didn't want to answer. That were actually painful to answer. This is art that doesn't rely on taboo and shock value, but appeals to some fundamental conflicts brewing within us.

But maybe I'm giving too much credit to the show, and not enough to Odd Future. Maybe I'm placing too much importance on questions of self like, "What makes a good person?" or "Am I alone?" Maybe because of Odd Future people really are asking themselves, "Do I like this music because it talks about violence against women?" Maybe this does inspire people to examine their id or whatever. Maybe the argument I'm trying to make is just as convoluted and ineffectual as the pieces I linked to earlier.

That last maybe is a definite yes.

Okay, let's make this simple (and arrive at a conclusion unearned by the previous hundreds of words, which it turns out were about nothing).

Odd Future is not Important right now because their lyrical content and attitude is shocking in an all new way. Countless other artists have done what they're doing. Odd Future is Important right now because they are hella good at what they do, a group of young rap artists appealing to young rap fans. Their art may "challenge" people to think about the artistic value of violence. But their art does not challenge notions of identity and self. Which is obviously not what they are trying to do, which is why this post is making an unfair comparison between a post-modern cartoon and a group of teen rappers, which is why I would have been better off going to bed.

This is what happens when I really want to talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion, but spend an hour reading articles about Odd Future before I start writing my post.

Conclusions

Sorry about all of this. I promise there is a cohesive statement lurking somewhere within the rambling mess above. Thanks to Ted for pointing out a lot of the inconsistencies and contradictions within the original post - criticism which I used to no good end, and simply further complicated my argument into non-existence. Whatever.

One day I'll compose a perfectly focused argument on this blog. For now, that caliber work will have to be limited to my classwork.

I was also going to write about the Weezy concert and the on-campus feminist coalition I'm trying to help fire up, but I'm just too tired. I'll save it for the next post! Until then, it's been a pleasure. I'm off to be consumed by Grouper.

CUTEST VID EVER

Never Sleep

A screenshot from Malick's Days Of Heaven. Gorgeous.

Thesis

If I use my night time unwisely, I can use my mornings wisely.

A Quick One

Let's see if I can turn this nonsensical blog into a hip music blog for a second. Or, I would just like to use this area to catalog '011 releases I'm excited about. That way I can simultaneously share my coolness and remember what exactly my coolness is. So:

Constant Future - Parts & Labor

Boys And Diamonds - Rainbow Arabia

A I A - Grouper

Spiritual * Mental * Physical - Death

Tha Carter IV - Lil Wayne

Tomboy - Panda Bear

Violet Cries - Esteban And The Witch

I guess that's most of it. I'm just regurgitating information from other blogs. As a student in Indiana, other blogs are my only real source for music news. Still, it's pretty great.

Conclusions

If ever there were a time to go to bed, that times is now.

Short, sweet, and small - the ideal blog post.

The Year In Review | 2010 [Part 2: Songs]

Thesis

Sup, y'all. Another day into finals week, another day of blog-posting. What are we going to do this time? Oh! Before I get started, I thought I'd let you know that there aren't any more trial dates for December. Meaning, no more calling the jury duty hotline "every" night! Did I even tell you that I had jury duty? Well, I do! Or did. It's midnight, isn't it? No bed til I'm done! All for you, fam. Without further ado,

Hold Up

Maybe I'll start things out a little differently. Like, a technical, unbiased account of my favorite jams of '010. The best songs of the new decade! That's what this list is, by the way. So, according to Last.fm, these are my most-played songs of 2010:

> 10. "Does Not Suffice" - Joanna Newsom

> 09. "Take Care" - Beach House
> 08. "Wait" - S
> 07. "Eyesore" - Women
> 06. "Lost In The World" - Kanye West
> 05. "Paul's Tomb" - Frog Eyes
> 04. "Monster" - Kanye West

> 03. "Lucky 1" - Avey Tare

> 02. "You Can Count On Me" - Panda Bear

> 01. "Runaway" - Kanye West

Pretty interesting stuff (boy, that's a lot of Kanye). My Official Blog List will limit each artist to one song. Oh, and I'm aware that Pitchfork leaked the results of this list earlier today. I'm not going to press charges or even file a complaint. They desperately need readers, and this list is the kind of material that generates interest. So, I'mma forgive them and continue with my steez unaffected. So, without further ado,

Top 10 Songs Of 2010

10| "Limit To Your Love" - James Blake

Honestly, I've only listened to this song like five times. I know, I know - this isn't how I'm supposed to do it. It makes this list on the virtue of being really, really great. It's made huge through its understatement - the voice churning out those simple and poignant lyrics bare against the piano. Until that bass shows up (that Bass!), and you realize this song isn't a simple ballad. But I mean, it totally is. It just has that extra Something.

The song sounds classic, the vocal delivery super fresh, nuanced. And the video. And the atmosphere. And the lyrics! It all clicked. And even if it's new to me, it's already dear to me. James, I don't know you very well, but you earned this.

09| "Wait" - S

Wait, you didn't hear this one? Okay. No big deal. Here you go. "I will wait for you/I will wait."

Alright. First things first, this song is hella deceptive. It sounds really straightforward - shimmery plucky guitar, reverbed sugar coated vocals, and even a heartfelt string section. And even though it is 100% a simple breakup song, it is a genius simple breakup song. Each verse interacts with the chorus until you realize what story is actually being told. And like, the weight of the world contained in its climax.

It's about patience, paranoia, hope, defeat, and rebirth. All of this in like a baker's dozen words. It'd place higher on the list, but it's just too pretty for its own good. If I were in as dramatic a mood as when I first heard it, this would be Number One (The Greatest Song Of All-Time).

08| "Cold War" - Janelle Monae

This song saved Janelle Monae for me. The video saved her. After "Shutterbug," I was totally unconvinced. I mean, homegirl was totally hyped. The entire internet was singing her praises, my Idols at CMG even crowned her with the objective "best" record of the year. So I was super skeptical when I plugged into "Tightrope," and it ended up leaving me cold and unmoved. Don't know why, I was probably just mad at how hot she is.

Then there's "Cold War," with its emotionally gut-wrenching in-your-face bare bones video. And it just keeps building and building like a bonfire, fam. That voice, those words, that guitar (a guitar solo in 2010?!), that hair. All of it spinning like a hurricane around the bloody heart of this song.

And it's danceable!

07| "Bonfire" - Memoryhouse

Look how hot those bros are. Dang. That's not important - what exactly sets them apart from the other chillwave - BOOOOOO! - bands? Well, for one, they're totally (not) cool. Dude is like a classical composer. Their songs sound tied down by and indebted to the fact that there is some serious piano composition going on here. Other cool facts: their first EP is free, one of their songs is arranged around a sample of Jon Brion's Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind soundtrack, and they've got a super admirable tendency to name their releases and songs after works by Virginia Woolf. But none of this matters if the songs are no good.

The songs are good. One of those washed-out summer/winter sad sack romance songs. Who doesn't love those? Their other work (excepting the exceptional "Caregiver") hasn't struck me as much as this one - either a little too samesy or too Beach Housey or too chilled out or too something. But "Bonfire," boy.

Upon hearing it, it was immediately considered for mine and the gurl's Our Song. It's so longing and warm/cold, a real heart-grabber. Visually evocative, it conjures up bonfires (duh) and winter nights and summer nights and lakesides and napping under a quilt. I guess it sounds sorta sleepy, but in a totally engaging and staring-at-the-sunrise way.

Not danceable, but very romanceable.

06| "Good Intentions Paving Company" - Joanna Newsom

A song so good, I planned to have a first kiss to it. That didn't turn out quite as planned, but the song remains great. So great that it's on this list despite the fact that it's not the best song on the record. That's right - real talk. "Does Not Suffice," "Baby Birch," and probably even "Kingfisher" are like way better than this song. Or at least they make me cry.

But this song has a really feel-good piano and a muted trombone! I couldn't get it out of my head from the moment I heard it (way before anyone else, I'm sure). It's so darn likable. Groovy and emotionally charged, with so many exciting and engaging elements. The bridge is striking (drop the drums, here are some organ tears), the coda relieving (cuss it all, go for the big happy horns). It's got it all. It makes me feel nostalgic and futuristic. I can't even understand how powerful this song is. Sort of wanna dance with my wife and ride my elementary school bus at the same time. It's confusing, y'all. METASWAG.

05| "Colouring Of Pigeons" - The Knife

Okay, I'm not going to argue that the album wasn't hella tedious (well, not in this list), but the POWER of this song is undeniable. Like, Kanye West POWER. This song got me through my second semester, carrying me on its strong shoulders up and down snow-covered back roads from class to class.

Opera + The Knife = Grandiose Monster Mash. You could hear some of it in Fever Ray - the cymbal splashes and the crazy tin atmosphere of it all. But what's really striking is how the scribblings of Charles Darwin's diary are turned into absolutely vital words. Dramatic and human, the morphed vocals intertwining with the driving drum rolls behind the whole thing, this song grows and grows and grows!

For a while, too. But it deserves every second of its eleven minutes, and feels as perfectly lightning-short as "Whip My Hair." Chalk it up to the weirdly humid and cold production, scattered groans and scrapes, and those aching Opera vocals at the end. It's always moving (dare I say, evolving?). This thing is a masterpiece.

04| "You Can Count On Me" - Panda Bear

Seriously, I have to write more about how much I love Panda Bear and the Animal Collective? They've been my profile picture. I'm on the forum. There are posters on my walls. I love this stuff. You know it, I know it. So, how do I objectively justify this song's presence on my list?

I don't. Duh. This song shouldn't even be here. Or at least now how it is, as some forgettable single release in the middle of the year. This was supposed to be the unforgettable closer on the Best Album Of 2010. Instead, Tomboy gets delayed indefinitely (forever?), and "You Can Count On Me" becomes some overlooked diamond in the rough of the internet.

Anyway, the song. It's great (voice of God). It's simple (bass-bass-clap, clap-bass-bass). It's catchy (sing-song melody). It's perfect (wait a second). The guitar has been obliterated in reverb, becoming a cosmic gelatin bath through which Noah's angel voices permeate. The racecar distortion and wobbling whispers that sparkle around the song's edges just make this beast sound immense. Achingly pretty, totally universal. Love it!

03| "Eyesore" - Women

This is the song that starts me off on my day and it is the best song of the year almost well at least it is totally one of the best songs ever I mean listen to the guitar-riff-to-end-and-save-the-world that shows up after the breakdown good God it is good it is so huge and powerful and churning and machines grinding up against each other and running really fast at something and swinging a sword and pumping your fist and there is no way to capture just how big and terrifying this thing is because it is the Ultimate Summer Jam but not the kind you play at the cookout no it's the kind that you listen to when you're driving really fast on empty roads at three AM after staying out too late before a morning shift at work or the kind of summer jam where you're sure that you're going to conquer the world because this is the best song and it starts right off with those abrasive and militant drums and then it gets all swing chilled out good feelings but then there's this hidden madness lurking beneath it all like the dark thing standing around the corner of your cool cookout and then that's all there is but then the big bad guitar riff shows up and destroys everything and makes everything new because it is the Best Guitar Riff Of All-Time and it's way too bad that this band broke up or is taking a break or something because all I want to do is be obliterated by these guitars in-person one last time.

02| "Runaway" - Kanye West

This song is of a moment. I'mma take you back to the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. That's right - awkward Nicki Minaj debut performance, Lady Gaga meat dress, Linkin Park comeback (?), and the worst host of all-time. All of this dissolved the moment the lights opened up on a blinding white stage and a Devil red Kanye.

Ominous piano intro? Chopped and screwed vocal samples? A dirty old-school beat? Kanye singing?! Pusha-T in a salmon suit?! A MINUTE-LONG UNINTELLIGIBLE AUTOTUNE CODA OVER CELLOS? Homeboy just went medieval on our asses.

Y'all just knew that the blogs were going to be talking about this one. Then it showed up as a bootleg single, then an official download, then the title track of a 35-minute short musical film. And finally, as the centerpiece of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (A+). The atmosphere and emotion exuded in these nine minutes are almost unrivaled this year. And it's all being done in hugely accessible pop music. Important stuff.

01| "Round And Round" - Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

Cuss cultural relevance. Cuss Ariel's immense back catalog and his status as an outside artist and his AnC0 connection and his live shows and his everything. Cuss it all, it's unimportant to me and to the towering greatness of this song. Frankly, my first exposure to the dude (outside of "Can't Hear My Eyes") is this year's phenomenal Before Today. And "Round And Round" is the highlight of the record.

Highlight of the year. I mean, way to go - sounding like golden radio rock and meaning it. It is the sunrise on the way to airport! Did you not realize how all-powerful this song is? It is my jam, fam!

Besides scoring my California dream vacation, this song has snuck into just about every extended car ride I've been on, lots of walks, and several house parties. I've interrupted countless conversations just to sing the songs praises and point out key moments: "Right here! Wait... No. Right here! Wow!" "This is the most perfectly structured song of all-time." "Listen to that chorus! It's perfect!" "Ahhhhhhhhh."

My apologies to everyone who has had to hear about this song over the past months. At least I really was talking about the year's best song all along.

Bonus Round

Why not round out the Top 25 while we're at it.

> 25. "Dirty Cartoons" - Menomena

> 24. "Phenomenons" - Twin Sister

> 23. "Take Care" - Beach House

> 22. "Got Your Back" - T.I.

> 21. "Ridin' Solo" - Jason Derulo

> 20. "Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National

> 19. "King Night" - Salem

> 18. "Genetic" - Emeralds

> 17. "Super Bass" - Nicki Minaj

> 16. "Free Translator" - The Books

> 15. "Firework" - Katy Perry

> 14. "Go Outside" - Cults

> 13. "Lucky 1" - Avey Tare

> 12. "Mr. Fingers" - Animal Collective

> 11. "Rill Rill" - Sleigh Bells

Everything after Top 10 (and even the Top 10, let's be honest) is totally arbitrary. For instance, I just got chills listening to "Take Care," kicking myself for its rejection from the Top 10 by some song whose title I can't even remember. And "Mr. Fingers" - I once declared this the Animal Collective's best song. What's it doing in the 12 spot?

Whatever, it's all pretty much the same. I mean, I've declared each and every one of these songs to be "The Best Song Ever" at one point.

Conclusions

Another too-long post written in the pre-dawn hours of a cold December day. Finals week, fam! What am I doing? Oh well, these lists keep me going. Party on, y'all. See you during Winter Break. Albums and Movies are up next. Eventually. I still haven't seen half of the movies already on my list.

#SMH

For Part 1 of the Year In Review, click here!

Look At The Time

Thesis

I am an Idiot for not having utilized this space for this purpose before - the Music Review. Yes, I, the champion of fresh music and clattering, attempted hipsterdom, haven't yet used MY OWN BLOG for writing music reviews. And it's is my joy and love. Writing and music and girlfriend and reading.

So, reader(s), eat my heart out, lest Amber Rose sees it - bleeding on my sleeve - and snatches it from me first.

You thought I was on the ropes before, writing poetry at three am. You ain't seen nothing yet. Class in six hours. For the love of Women, I was tucked-in and ready for sleep! And yet I emerge: Writer. Desperate, needing this. Crawling out of bed and turning on my desktop lamp (it's adorable and has a red shade, so help me). This is who I am.

This is who I am now: Music Critic. And what better way to start all of this off than

METASWAG

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy -- Kanye West

by Patrick Beane

It was obvious and unavoidable. Inevitable. How could we not all see it coming?

It is the masterpiece. The comeback from a fall that could only be important in celebrity culture. The Merriweather Post Pavilion. The statement in which he (Yeezy, Our God) declares that the superstar has just as much right to the working man's album as the working man her/himself. Kanye West's new record is exactly what everyone needed to hear. And everyone is loving it.

Rightfully so! Just listen to how ecstatic "All The Lights" is, how menacing "Blame Game" is, how aching and indulgent "Runaway" is. But all of the indulgence pays off - the flourishes and embellishments all contributing to a unified whole, something complete and powerful. This is Kanye at his biggest and most self-important, but his ego is being used to challenge the worth of his bigness and self-importance. An insanity that could only be contained by Twitter, being released and refocused into the strongest set of songs in his career.

Kanye confronts Kanye, discovers Perfection.

The record somehow eclipses the fact that the vast majority of its contents have already been distilled in a slew of weekly single releases and a 35-minute film. It is greater than the sum of its parts, and its parts are pretty great.

Lead single "Power" still retains its punch after all these months, the cold honesty of its coda justifying the bravado of its opening. "Devil In A New Dress" coasts along in haunting fashion, finds Kanye establishing a new comfort zone, his own style. Opener "Dark Fantasy" contains an origin story and a prophecy, all soaked in the most arresting music moment of the year (Nicki's opening monologue notwithstanding). "Lost In The World" is the gloriously cheesy catharsis earned by the whole ordeal.

It's hard to refrain from hyperbole when describing this stuff. But just listen to it!

I mean, the instrumentals alone are killer. So many of these songs take time to relish in the beats, the guitars, the cellos, the synths, the totally blown-up and tortured AutoTune. The songs are confident enough to bask in these moments, and by doing so, become Important. And they communicate with one another, depend on one another. Each song exists because of the song before it, all of them telling the story of Kanye's triumph. He turned this collection of great songs and made it an Album (Of The Year? All-Time?).

That the instrumentals are this bold and still allow breathing room for every name in rap to show up (great turns from Jay-Z, Nicki, Pusha T, and Raekwon) is a testament to the sequencing and production work by Yeezy. And to his skills at the mic! When did Yeezy come into his own like this? His voice is confident and distinctive, and never for a moment is his presence compromised by his guests. No one can deny the magnitude of this accomplishment, holding big songs together and making each of them his own.

This is rap that collects all the chiches and the problems, and spins them into a universal and human thread. Kanye took from the best and worst of his career and the genre, and created something that sounds absolutely essential. Totally of the moment and brand new.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy sounds like what hip-hop needs right now. Something that extends a hand to the past while embracing the present and showing us the future. The possibilities. Radio-friendly and dangerously personal. The title of the record is about as brashly silly and self-important as it gets, but it also rings genuine and true. Kanye is trying to prove that he's the best, but perhaps more importantly: if he's human, then we all are. For the love of humanity, for the love of Yeezy.

And your mom is going to love this album when you play it at Christmas. Your little brother already thinks it's the second coming. Your roommate doesn't mind that it's always playing. Your followers don't even mind it's all you tweet about. You and me, we just have to thank Yeezy. He taught us well.

Score: A+

Conclusions

Readers - forgive me. Rachel - be glad I got all this out of my system before lunch (you are my everything). Ros - come home. Rebecca - let's get creating. Rest of the world - goodnight, I probably love you.