4 ms·

Eventually, Kanye went on to craft some astoundingly original sounds and beats. We don't all just appear like Athena bursting full-grown from the head of Zeus.

by beat 11y ago

Eventually, Kanye went on to craft some astoundingly original sounds and beats. We don't all just appear like Athena bursting full-grown from the head of Zeus. Kanye would never have become the incredibly successful musician he is today without going through that period of mediocre practice.

sehr 11y ago
'Lock yourself in a room doing 5 beats a day for 3 summers'
6stringmerc 11y ago
In some circles, sure, but in other circles he's known as the guy who tried to unapologetically rip off Aphex Twin[1], ruined a perfectly good Daft Punk song, and is pretty much a punchline. As in, I don't think he ever got beyond mediocre. Mediocrity and accessibility are significant elements to success in popular music; kind of like the other side of the coin to Max Martin's genius when it comes to the perfect song formula which is complexity posing as simplicity. [1]http://pitchfork.com/news/56459-aphex-twin-speaks-on-his-new-album-being-sampled-by-kanye-more/ http://pitchfork.com/news/56459-aphex-twin-speaks-on-his-new...
- beat 11y ago
  Really good pop is almost never mediocre. If it was mediocre, it wouldn't break through. The difficulty and sophistication of ongoing pop success is underestimated. There's an important distinction between "I don't like this", and "This is not good". Most people fail to make that distinction - they think that if they don't like something, it must be bad. Taste and quality aren't particularly congruent. (As a corollary, sometimes we like things that are actually bad.)
  - 6stringmerc 11y ago
    Well I'll have to disagree with you in that my belief is really good pop has to be mediocre otherwise it will alienate its intended demographics for maximum monetary gain - the 14 year old girls & their mothers group. That's what drives pop music sales. They don't dig complexity, they latch on to simple things. While the theme song for 'Frozen' is most definitely a well crafted tune, it's absolutely engineered to not be challenging or revolutionary. Regarding quality, subjectively speaking individual composition/talents/efforts tend to influence one's opinion of the work seen/heard/etc. This is why music does, in some avenues, resemble a competitive avenue in the collection of skills and techniques. For a not-insignificant number of people, Kanye's music is subjectively bad in quality, which is irrespective of popularity.
- twright0 11y ago
  > ruined a perfectly good Daft Punk song It's not like he painted over the Mona Lisa. You can still go listen to the original Daft Punk song if you prefer it - it sounds just the same as it did before Kanye sampled it.
gnaritas 11y ago
I wouldn't really call Kanye a musician; he's a rapper/hip hop artist/producer. Musicians are people who play musical instruments. Sampling other people's music and rapping over it isn't being a musician, it's being a producer.
- sehr 11y ago
  Samplers are absolutely musical instruments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampler_(musical_instrument) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampler_(musical_instrument) It's even in the URL!
  - gnaritas 11y ago
    I just don't agree, and won't; it's a computer playing pre-recorded sounds, not an instrument, no matter what this generation wants to call it, playing with a sampler is not being a musician.
    - eru 11y ago
      How's a piano an instrument then?
    - sehr 11y ago
      Actually I kind of like that! It really is much more than just an instrument.
    - pkolaczk 11y ago
      Maybe you're right when speaking of "samplers", however modern synthesizers and digital instruments are far away from just playing pre-recorded sounds. There are digital instruments that do not use samples at all, but use simulation-based methods instead. Also the ones using samples, are much, much more sophisticated than simple "hitting a key plays a prerecorded sample..."
    - beat 11y ago
      Is a wavetable synth a musical instrument? It's just manipulating samples. Is a mellotron (1960s/70s tape-based instrument) an instrument? When you listen to the "flute" part on the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields", is that a musical instrument? Mellotrons are much more primitive than modern samplers. When a musician plays a "real instrument" to exactly imitate the part played by another musician, is it real music? If not, is classical or other forms of note-reading "real music"? If you drop the prejudices and actually think about it, of course a sampler is an actual musical instrument.

by beat 11y ago

sehr 11y ago

'Lock yourself in a room doing 5 beats a day for 3 summers'

6stringmerc 11y ago

In some circles, sure, but in other circles he's known as the guy who tried to unapologetically rip off Aphex Twin[1], ruined a perfectly good Daft Punk song, and is pretty much a punchline. As in, I don't think he ever got beyond mediocre. Mediocrity and accessibility are significant elements to success in popular music; kind of like the other side of the coin to Max Martin's genius when it comes to the perfect song formula which is complexity posing as simplicity. [1]http://pitchfork.com/news/56459-aphex-twin-speaks-on-his-new-album-being-sampled-by-kanye-more/ http://pitchfork.com/news/56459-aphex-twin-speaks-on-his-new...

beat 11y ago
Really good pop is almost never mediocre. If it was mediocre, it wouldn't break through. The difficulty and sophistication of ongoing pop success is underestimated. There's an important distinction between "I don't like this", and "This is not good". Most people fail to make that distinction - they think that if they don't like something, it must be bad. Taste and quality aren't particularly congruent. (As a corollary, sometimes we like things that are actually bad.)
- 6stringmerc 11y ago
  Well I'll have to disagree with you in that my belief is really good pop has to be mediocre otherwise it will alienate its intended demographics for maximum monetary gain - the 14 year old girls & their mothers group. That's what drives pop music sales. They don't dig complexity, they latch on to simple things. While the theme song for 'Frozen' is most definitely a well crafted tune, it's absolutely engineered to not be challenging or revolutionary. Regarding quality, subjectively speaking individual composition/talents/efforts tend to influence one's opinion of the work seen/heard/etc. This is why music does, in some avenues, resemble a competitive avenue in the collection of skills and techniques. For a not-insignificant number of people, Kanye's music is subjectively bad in quality, which is irrespective of popularity.
twright0 11y ago
> ruined a perfectly good Daft Punk song It's not like he painted over the Mona Lisa. You can still go listen to the original Daft Punk song if you prefer it - it sounds just the same as it did before Kanye sampled it.

gnaritas 11y ago

I wouldn't really call Kanye a musician; he's a rapper/hip hop artist/producer. Musicians are people who play musical instruments. Sampling other people's music and rapping over it isn't being a musician, it's being a producer.

sehr 11y ago
Samplers are absolutely musical instruments https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampler_(musical_instrument) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampler_(musical_instrument) It's even in the URL!
- gnaritas 11y ago
  I just don't agree, and won't; it's a computer playing pre-recorded sounds, not an instrument, no matter what this generation wants to call it, playing with a sampler is not being a musician.
  - eru 11y ago
    How's a piano an instrument then?
  - sehr 11y ago
    Actually I kind of like that! It really is much more than just an instrument.
  - pkolaczk 11y ago
    Maybe you're right when speaking of "samplers", however modern synthesizers and digital instruments are far away from just playing pre-recorded sounds. There are digital instruments that do not use samples at all, but use simulation-based methods instead. Also the ones using samples, are much, much more sophisticated than simple "hitting a key plays a prerecorded sample..."
  - beat 11y ago
    Is a wavetable synth a musical instrument? It's just manipulating samples. Is a mellotron (1960s/70s tape-based instrument) an instrument? When you listen to the "flute" part on the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields", is that a musical instrument? Mellotrons are much more primitive than modern samplers. When a musician plays a "real instrument" to exactly imitate the part played by another musician, is it real music? If not, is classical or other forms of note-reading "real music"? If you drop the prejudices and actually think about it, of course a sampler is an actual musical instrument.