These past few weeks have a been a little surreal. When I'm not busy figuring out myself, I'm trying to figure out the people who follow me. I can't say all the hype has changed my point of view on the new Kanye record--I feel the way I feel, so sue me. But for me, watching the internet buzz unfold exposed some gears in the hype machine.
Will we gain some kind of new focus from all the talk surrounding this album, or will our attention be snatched as soon as the hottest new commodity comes along? It's happened time and time again this year. It happened last year, too. Will this time be different? Remember the excitement around this album?
I think people just like consuming music, and everyone loves hearing something new. This Kanye will fall into the grey, and it's got nothing to do with being perfect or awful. Albums both immaculate and mediocre suffer this fate because of the speed at which we plow through albums, music videos, remixes, and singles. Yes, this will even happen to albums I've liked this year.
Maybe shelf life is overrated.
The truth is all the positive and negative vibes only last as long as attention spans do. Albums of the year are forgotten because we desperately need to make room for the next album of the year. Is that because we're dolts? Nah. We've just got a lot of tunage at our fingertips, and it's hard to say "no" when the next song you search for could be better than the previous.
The following track is a freestyle from one of my favorite MCs on the West Coast: Fashawn. He dropped it last night via On Smash, and he's spitting all over the first beat from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's an extremely ballsy move, but he's one of the few guys out there right now who could pull it off.
