Sunday, December 5, 2010

     It's been a while again, hasn't it. Thanksgiving's gone and passed and now we're already into December. Unless you've been living under a rock or hate music in general, by now you would've known that Kanye West's new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, had come out. Whether you love him or hate him, Kanye West is a name familiar to everyone. Known for making highly controversial statements as well as having one of the biggest egos in the planet, Kanye West is known to everyone. Probably his most controversial statement yet was during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where he publicly on television stated that "President Bush hates black people" or something along those lines. Every week he has some juicy statement for tabloids and the such to suck off of. We can all agree that Kanye West is an asshole, and he openly admits it. Yet you'd be an idiot to think that his ego is not somewhat justified. His music is some of the best of the modern era and his albums are just great. At this point it should be no shock to anyone that his new album follows suit with his others, it's a pretty amazing album.
Kanye you genious
      Kanye West's album have always been very varied, he's constantly experimenting and trying out new things. This album is no different, he's evolved a lot. The guest stars on this album are amazing, as seen in the songs Monster and So Apalled. The flow and the rapping of these songs are amazing and are lighter toned than some of the other songs in the album. Nicki Minaj, one of the guest stars, just kills her lines, and I'm going to look into her some more because she was pretty great here. Jay-Z, who I only like one album from, is also pretty good here and drops some good lines. Even Rick Ross comes in and does a great job doing what he does in "Devil In a New Dress" which surprised the heck out of me. 



      Throughout the entire album you get a sense that Kanye West is self aware and that he knows that he's an asshole and he's embracing his role, giving the Fantasy part of the album. (Warning following line is inappropriate)  “I don’t need your pussy, bitch, I’m on my own dick.” This line from the song Power is perfect, it shows that he understand that the public views him as an asshole and is embracing it, telling all the SNL and South Park and everyone else to just **** off. Throughout the entire album you understand that the public has shaped him into the person he is today, shaped him into the person who during the VMA's stole the mike from Taylor Swift and shocked the USA (although the VMA's are a joke), that it's a role that he plays now and he doesn't care, he enjoys it. I also have to commend Kanye West for making his own music, which already puts him above other artists.


Overall:
The album is amazing, totally validates his ego
5/5 Get it if you haven’t already.

                                                   34 Freakin Minutes 
         Here’s also a short Harry Potter 7 review, which is another thing that pretty much everyone probably has seen once or twice already. I love the Harry Potter books, but the movies not so much. The movies never seem to capture the right atmosphere and have to skip out on some of the little things that gave the book its charm. Harry Potter 6 in particular was pretty bad, there was no  character development in the movie, which sort of made the climax pretty lame and is probably going to make some things that happens in Part 2 of HP7 anticlimactic. This movie standing on its own was pretty decent. Everyone plays their part well and the music is still pretty good just like the other movies (except HP1). The thing about the movie is that it’s making a movie out of nothing. I understand that they had to split it up into two parts but the entire first half of the actual book is just expository, talking and travelling and setting up for the second half. So trying to make a movie out of it was probably pretty hard to do. There are also some scenes which are completely awful, such as a dance scene which did not appear in the book, when that happened I heard a lot of chuckles coming from the audience. At the end where (SPOILERS) Voldemort enters Dumbledore’s tomb, and it is the most fake awful thing I’ve seen in a while. (END SPOILERS). However there are some great parts to the movie. The sequence where Hermione read the story of the three brothers, the CGI sequence for that was amazing, you could hear my jaw drop to the floor. Also when they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic that part is also good, because there you get the feeling that Harry and crew could get caught at any moment and that this is a desperate thing, something you never got when they were in the wilderness.

                                Trailer for the movie, some of it is probably in part 2
Overall: I’d give this a 3/5, it’s not great, but it’s not bad either. There are some good parts to it but also some bad ones and it’s sort of a slow movie. Also as a personal thing I really liked the part in the book where Harry and Kreacher had to make amends, but I understand why it’s not in the movie since it’s not really important.
          In other news I have been playing a game, Lord of the Rings Online, and I'll write more about it as I get deeper into it. It's basically WoW (World of Warcraft) but with the Lord of the Rings Lore, which I'm a huge fanboy of. This is also the simplified explanation, I'll elaborate more on the finer points in a later blog. The Walking Dead continues to be an amazing show, only one more episode left, the finale of Season 1 is today! Watch it! Also as much as I hated Merle and all the rednecks (sorry if I offend) who showed up in the show, it felt like they were going for lots of stupid stereotypes which I hate, and why I love the comics because they did not follow the stereotypes. Luckily the show did not go in an obvious direction and gave some people some depth, such as Daryl Merle's brother who first seemingly looked like a redneck but was actually given a lot of character throughout the show, he showed lots of different sides. Merle also while seeming like a racist person, it seems that he will have a huge role in the series and quite possibly serve as a main antagonist and a Governer-esque character (The Governer was a villain in the comics). They've also diverged quite a bit from the comics, especially in episode 5 where (spoilers) they found a CDC person alive, trying to find a cure for the zombie outbreak, something that never happened in the actual comics, so it's going to be interesting how they play their cards from here. Another surprising difference is that after Shane’s confrontation with Rick he’s surprisingly still alive, a somewhat big divergence from what happened in the comics. Also Glenn is still an amazing character in both the show and the comics. Also in my area we had our first snow :D.
Oh jeez

Glak Out
(Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate it) 

3 comments:

  1. For your information Kanye has released statements apologizing for the Bush comments. He realized that he said that without fully comprehending what he was saying. He was frustrated with the situation and spoke out of hand.

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  2. I know
    But I'm saying that he has been known for a lot of controversial things, I wasn't taking a stance either way on that subject.
    Did you get the album?

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  3. I have listened to the album many a times and it grows on me every time. I think it is a good bridge to his last album, 808s and Heartbreak (which was a little too poppy for me) and his older stuff. My favorites are All of the Lights, Gorgeous and Blame Game (I was so shocked to hear John Legend swear like that)

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