If it's hype, why is it that all his album after 808s have seen a steady decline in sales. Yet the 2 albums he released prior TLOP have been either number 1 or in the 10 of almost every 2010s mid decade lists. I hate using critics to back up my claims but people do the same with movies so why not. Also TLOP is doing great on metacritic as of now for an unfinished project. Now back to pressing F5 on Woj's Twitter for next couple hours.
Oh come on, it was just a silly meme. FWIW, I have a degree in music, I play multiple instruments, I have perfect pitch, and I've been studying, practicing and playing music for the better part of 3 decades now. So yes, I listen to all kinds of music, even rap. Was just listening to some PE on the way home yesterday, actually. Chuck D FTW. Seems like Kanye fans are almost as defensive as he is!
I'm aware you have some musical bonafides. But honestly was unaware of whether you had any inkling of interest in rap music. Besides, I was mainly responding to Joshfast's assumptions from your meme, which came across as "he likes music and isn't just following hype like you"
Agreed, just don't like it used as a crutch. I disagree. Lots of people sell a lot of albums and are influential. Here's a list of artists who have had single album sales above 20 million. Kanye's best album sales, College Dropout has done 4 million worldwide est to date. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums His best and number one selling album was his first. Steady decline in sales per album since. Correlates with the steady decline in quality of work. (IMO) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West_discography He's never had the best selling album in the states (per year) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_by_year_in_the_United_States He is the 26th raked artist of all time in total overall album sales. Don't feel like looking at how many albums each artist has in their total number for calculations, but 26th place is impressive. The only other hip/hop rap in the top 25 is Eminem and if you want to call Rhianna hip hop I guess. EDIT: this is not accurate per wiki -some big artists are intentionally left of because of certifiable rules calculation. I'll still back the point though, hes sold a lot of albums overall just can't give a real spot in order. He'd be 25th at best but probably farther down the list with the inclusion of everyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_music_artists So we are back to square one. He has 2 great albums (one all time great - don't care about sales as end all be all), some decent ones and some stinkers. Very influential based off his earlier work and is riding that gravy train hype machine into oblivion. An all time best across genre's AKA best ever AKA JESUS?? - I'm sorry but no. But opinions are like assholes so.. I somewhat agree with this.
Many of the artists above Kanye on those lists would not be considered influential by anyone, nor would they be considered to have large amounts of critical success. Always hard to objectively measure "critical success," but this website does a good job compiling lists and such to try and make it as objective as possible. http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/Current/about.htm. To any fan of rock music, you'll see it looks pretty accurate from a rock perspective. If we cross reference that with the albums sales lists you supplied, it looks like there are only four artists with more album sales who are as critically acclaimed as Kanye. And the most contemporary of those 4 is U2, who started in 1980. The fact that he's a rapper making un-formulaic pop music makes it even more rare. So yes, I maintain that Kanye is very unique in this regard. Some artists have sold more albums. Some artists have had more critical success. A handful of artists have had more combined critical and commercial success. No artist that started after 1980 has had more combined commercial and critical success. No rapper (much less rapper/producer) has had more combined critical and commercial success.
Interesting site puts Kanye at 21th ranked artist with their in house metrics (I posted he was 25th all time on album sales so album sales do correlate to "critcal yada yada) ... ahead of the likes of Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, James Brown, and Michael Jackson. They have Kanye West ranked above Michael Jackson They have Kanye West ranked above Michael Jackson?? They have Kanye West ranked above Michael Jackson I'll repeat before some else see's that and has their head explode. This is for safety purposes. They have Kanye West ranked above Michael Jackson
I just clicked and they do have Pet Sounds as the greatest album of all time. Also described it as Baroque Pop. I've never heard that term until today.
Who is "they"? That website I linked simply created a program that went out to another website that compiles every year end album list every created by a major publication and aggregated the results. There's more to in than that if you care to read, but there is no opinion involved. http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/Current/about.htm But okay, let's say they messed up on the Michael Jackson thing. The five bullet points I made are still accurate. Which bullet point do you think is not a fact?
Yeah they didn't put him over mj. The critics have. Kanye has a more consistent career there for he is up so high on the list. Also the albums hold more weight than singles on this website when they aggravate the numbers. I believe MJ has 3 albums on that list " off the wall" "Bad" and "thriller" and a bunch of singles. Compared to kanyes's entire discography all being places on the list. So yeah that's kinda why kanyes up that high. No hate on MJ tho love his music
the website. Cool. No words can describe Kanye West being ranked higher the Michael Jackson. No words. These two. Because information that comes from that website should be looked at with skepticism when it can give a result of Kanye West ranked higher than Michael Jackson. It's like getting a calculator and the first thing it says is 2+2=7. I'm not trusting this calculator anymore, don't care what website you forward me to to look at how accurate its programming was. Rotten Tomatoes isnt some end all be all and so isn't this site. Did you look at the critics list on the site? You want to generate an opinion on something from people working at Blender or the person who made the Amazon.com - The Best of the Decade in Music... So Far 2006 list? They used that. The vetting of their "critics" leaves a lot to be desired, probably one of the factors that had it egregiously and mistakenly put Kanye ahead of the KING of POP.
May I ask a question? Why is it so hard to believe Kanye may perhaps be a better artist than MJ? Can you give me reasons that aren't about sales or influence? Just your opinion on one artists art compared to another artists art. I'll just give you a list of artist that I can put in my top 10 as of this moment for a frame of reference so that my stannery isn't used against me. Kanye West David Howie Iggy Pop Bruce Springsteen Joy division Radiohead The Smiths Flaming Lips Daft Punk Arcade Fire Kendrick Lamar Honorable mentions The Beatles Pink Floyd Tame Impala Public Enemy Mia
The only thing that makes you skeptical is your own opinion of thinking Michael Jackson has released more critically acclaimed albums than Kanye West. Obviously, the numbers at least say they are similar in critical acclaim. I'm not going to nitpick over the exact ordering to try and prove or disprove something that is extremely difficult if not impossible to objectively rank in the first place. It sounds like maybe you are just shocked to hear how critically acclaimed Kanye has been over his career...like maybe you haven't been paying attention...I don't know. At least I'm trying to bring in at least a little bit of objective information...you seem to be bringing in nothing but your own opinion. Which sorry...does nothing to convince me that Kanye isn't unique in his achievements. So unless you have something else objective to bring in explaining why Kanye actually does NOT have a lot of critical success and acclaim, there's nothing more to say.
