BrazilianOnRaspberryBeret said:

I dont mean to be arrogant, you all may maintain your disapproval, but I dont think many of you really took a chance to listen to his albums. Try 808s & Heartbreak. It's far more rnb than hip hop. And it contributes to rnb, its relevant. It really is. Take a chance. I think he's creative. Of course not on the same league as instrumental or vocal virtuosos of popular music, his league is the electronic genre, for he works with collages as well. But I dont agree what he comes up with, especially on MBDTF and 808, is anywhere near plagiarism. He comes up with something new. Nothing on the two records I mentioned really fits on previous genres. As many songs on Yeezus wont do.

About his personal attributes and behaviour, I dont take that much in count for a music appreciation. He may be a "cunt", as some of you said. Whatever. Aren't MJ and Prince Jehovah's witnesses? To me, that's far enough proof, at least to a philosofical level, that they are (or were, in the case of MJ), very very limited intelectually. And that does not stop me in any way from loving their music. (No, I didnt say Kanye's as talented as MJ or Prince. Dont misread me, teenagers.)

MJ was a Jehovas witness in the 80s, he stopped being one in 1988 or something like that. He was later on influenced by hinduism, buddhism, new age religions and other life philosophies, as one can hear in his music in the 90s and also personal commentaries on religion. To the contrary MJ was a very intellectual person, he had read over 10'000 books that varied from Immanuel Kant, Ernest Hemmingway etc. http://rhythmofthetide.co...ite-books/ Here are some of the books he read. It's not good to judge someones intelligence based on their life philosophy. Prince on the other hand doesn't seem to be very well read, at least not to my knowledge but I could be wrong, he seems quite conservative though.

The most embarrassing person in music bar none!!
Comparing him to phil Spector is unbelievable!
Spector understood instruments, and understood how to compose!
Kanye has a sampler. And bad sunglasses .
It amazes me that people on here who are a fan of real music re prince ,
Think Kanye is a good musician .
Also remember the Taylor swift incident!
He has more issues than the united nations.
Just stop it people .

GoldDolphin said:

BrazilianOnRaspberryBeret said:

I dont mean to be arrogant, you all may maintain your disapproval, but I dont think many of you really took a chance to listen to his albums. Try 808s & Heartbreak. It's far more rnb than hip hop. And it contributes to rnb, its relevant. It really is. Take a chance. I think he's creative. Of course not on the same league as instrumental or vocal virtuosos of popular music, his league is the electronic genre, for he works with collages as well. But I dont agree what he comes up with, especially on MBDTF and 808, is anywhere near plagiarism. He comes up with something new. Nothing on the two records I mentioned really fits on previous genres. As many songs on Yeezus wont do.

About his personal attributes and behaviour, I dont take that much in count for a music appreciation. He may be a "cunt", as some of you said. Whatever. Aren't MJ and Prince Jehovah's witnesses? To me, that's far enough proof, at least to a philosofical level, that they are (or were, in the case of MJ), very very limited intelectually. And that does not stop me in any way from loving their music. (No, I didnt say Kanye's as talented as MJ or Prince. Dont misread me, teenagers.)

MJ was a Jehovas witness in the 80s, he stopped being one in 1988 or something like that. He was later on influenced by hinduism, buddhism, new age religions and other life philosophies, as one can hear in his music in the 90s and also personal commentaries on religion. To the contrary MJ was a very intellectual person, he had read over 10'000 books that varied from Immanuel Kant, Ernest Hemmingway etc. http://rhythmofthetide.co...ite-books/ Here are some of the books he read. It's not good to judge someones intelligence based on their life philosophy. Prince on the other hand doesn't seem to be very well read, at least not to my knowledge but I could be wrong, he seems quite conservative though.

Please stop while your ahead..

Your wrong! Prince is very articulate.....He is very political and can count his close friends to name a view. Tavis Smiley,Cornel West, & Van Jones.

[Edited 6/16/13 17:49pm]

percy28 said:

The most embarrassing person in music bar none!! Comparing him to phil Spector is unbelievable! Spector understood instruments, and understood how to compose! Kanye has a sampler. And bad sunglasses . It amazes me that people on here who are a fan of real music re prince , Think Kanye is a good musician . Also remember the Taylor swift incident! He has more issues than the united nations. Just stop it people .

You do realize that Phil Spector himself has had some issues? Regarding women, his made Kanye's with Swith look like a little joke. That's my point, the personal has nothing (or barely nothing) to do with the appreciation of any musician's (or artist's) work.

docinwestchester said:

No. But here's a very interesting new interview from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/20...sVlA1qDCtg

I read that interview- he is the biggest and greatest ASSHOLE and DOUCHEBAG in modern music, that's for sure. I have never seen a musician as arrogant and narcisstic as he is...and that is saying a lot ! He honestly thinks he's some kind of messiah, who has access to soem sort of cosmic "truth" that has eluded the rest of us... I like some of his stuff, but what a FUCKING JERK.

And as a musician and songwriter and producer, he does not hold a candle to real greats like Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Prince, Phil Spector, Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Hank Williams, Prince, Curtis Mayfield, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Gamble and Huff, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Wilson, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Sam Cooke, Muddy Waters, BB King, Howlin Wolf, James Brown...just to name a bunch of musicians off the top of my head who shoes Kanye isn't worthy to shine...

Kanye is not a musician, much less a great musician. Wow. I really thought this would be a joke or trick question. People are serious?!!!

I can't. No, not today.

*exits*

He's not the greatest musician of our time. Of course he isn't.

But I do think he's probably the best artist around in popular music.

Every album takes a new direction and evolves his sound - and not in a Madonna-style where you just ride the coattails of someone else's talent. For example, MBDTF is an extraordinary album, both lyrically and musically. No one else in popular music would make a record like that.

Yes, he's a gigantic tool. But that's half the fun.

GoldDolphin said:

BrazilianOnRaspberryBeret said:

I dont mean to be arrogant, you all may maintain your disapproval, but I dont think many of you really took a chance to listen to his albums. Try 808s & Heartbreak. It's far more rnb than hip hop. And it contributes to rnb, its relevant. It really is. Take a chance. I think he's creative. Of course not on the same league as instrumental or vocal virtuosos of popular music, his league is the electronic genre, for he works with collages as well. But I dont agree what he comes up with, especially on MBDTF and 808, is anywhere near plagiarism. He comes up with something new. Nothing on the two records I mentioned really fits on previous genres. As many songs on Yeezus wont do.

About his personal attributes and behaviour, I dont take that much in count for a music appreciation. He may be a "cunt", as some of you said. Whatever. Aren't MJ and Prince Jehovah's witnesses? To me, that's far enough proof, at least to a philosofical level, that they are (or were, in the case of MJ), very very limited intelectually. And that does not stop me in any way from loving their music. (No, I didnt say Kanye's as talented as MJ or Prince. Dont misread me, teenagers.)

MJ was a Jehovas witness in the 80s, he stopped being one in 1988 or something like that. He was later on influenced by hinduism, buddhism, new age religions and other life philosophies, as one can hear in his music in the 90s and also personal commentaries on religion. To the contrary MJ was a very intellectual person, he had read over 10'000 books that varied from Immanuel Kant, Ernest Hemmingway etc. http://rhythmofthetide.co...ite-books/ Here are some of the books he read. It's not good to judge someones intelligence based on their life philosophy. Prince on the other hand doesn't seem to be very well read, at least not to my knowledge but I could be wrong, he seems quite conservative though.

least not to my knowledge. That is just it. You have no knowledge about what P reads or knows about and MJ could barely write his name. He signed something once that was in a People magazine article and it looked as if Bubbles had written it for him.

Gunsnhalen said:

luvsexy4all said:

i thought it was understood no more gay threads

You are a fan of Prince gay will be everywhere

umm.. because of Prince?

jjhunsecker said:

docinwestchester said:

No. But here's a very interesting new interview from the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/20...sVlA1qDCtg

I read that interview- he is the biggest and greatest ASSHOLE and DOUCHEBAG in modern music, that's for sure. I have never seen a musician as arrogant and narcisstic as he is...and that is saying a lot ! He honestly thinks he's some kind of messiah, who has access to soem sort of cosmic "truth" that has eluded the rest of us... I like some of his stuff, but what a FUCKING JERK.

He comes off as completely delusional.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

GoldDolphin said:

MJ was a Jehovas witness in the 80s, he stopped being one in 1988 or something like that. He was later on influenced by hinduism, buddhism, new age religions and other life philosophies, as one can hear in his music in the 90s and also personal commentaries on religion. To the contrary MJ was a very intellectual person, he had read over 10'000 books that varied from Immanuel Kant, Ernest Hemmingway etc. http://rhythmofthetide.co...ite-books/ Here are some of the books he read. It's not good to judge someones intelligence based on their life philosophy. Prince on the other hand doesn't seem to be very well read, at least not to my knowledge but I could be wrong, he seems quite conservative though.

Please stop while your ahead..

Your wrong! Prince is very articulate.....He is very political and can count his close friends to name a view. Tavis Smiley,Cornel West, & Van Jones.

[Edited 6/16/13 17:49pm]

"Well read" and "articulate" are not the same thing.

Now, go ahead - roll your eyes at me because I'm right and you have no response.

Of course not, such a question is an insult to true musicians out there. He isn't a real musician, he programs and samples, but he is using the ideas of others to make his hits. Why else would his song credits have 3,000 people on it? He writes the hooks and foolish lyrics and then pays the clearing fees to "make his art come to life". Someone upthread mentioned he helped compose "Diamonds Are Forever" which couldn't be any more dishonest. John Barry wrote that song nearly 50 years ago. Kanye just took a popular Bond song and made it cheap. If Kanye can be revered for his alleged musicianship while you have tons of real artists pushed to the wayside, then American Pop culture and society is really in dire straights. His contemporary Scott Storch is 100x the producer Kanye could ever be....

EddieC said:

Okay. As I've said before, I don't know Kanye beyond singles, and as others have pointed out that might be unfair to someone who seems to actually work at making longer album-length statements--so I'm not making an argument about whether or not Kanye is "the greatest musician of our time" (and I assume that "our time" here begins after "Prince's time").

I have several of Kanye's albums, and I can't dispute he's one of the very best at what he does.

I think that music technology has changed in such a way the last couple of decades that someone who isn't an instrumentalist (or is so only at a fairly rudimentary level) is not prevented from being a musician by that fact. Kanye clearly is involved in making a great deal of music, and while I don't know exactly what he contributes on each track, the general feeling seems to be that he's responsible (to a large degree, though with collaborators) for the sounds on his albums. That makes him a musician, as far as I'm concerned. The "greatness" of him "as a musician" has to do with his music.

And that is part of the larger debate. Like I said earlier, where you stand is where you sit on the timeline, and many in my generation don't consider even the greatest hip-hop acts "musicians" per se. It is true technology is changing that debate, but to folks my age, a "musician" sings or plays an instrument. That concept is changing.

Prince is a multi-instrumentalist, being at least good/very good on the basic instruments for the genres in which he works. However, he is not the "greatest" on any of these. He is also a good/very good vocalist, a good/very good songwriter, a good/very good arranger. The combination of these skills allowed him, often by himself, to have musical ideas and realize them as actual sounds, actual recorded music. Most of it was put together, piecemeal, in the studio. It never actually happened as a single moment in time, but was built using the technology he had available to him. The argument for his greatness relies on that music and its influence on other musicians and their music, both in its own time and in the years since then and still to come.

I tend to agree; see Reply 63.

Part of Prince's influence is that his remarkable output as a "solo" performer provided an example for other people to make music on their own as well, realizing their musical ideas by themselves in the studio. Changes in technology opened that up to people with rudimentary or even non-existent skills with traditional instruments. But the fact that they are not players doesn't mean that they aren't taking the ideas from their minds and creating the actual audible music--they are simple using different methods. They still make music; they're still musicians.

Valid points; electric instruments may not have been considered "real" instruments at the time they were invented. But I'm not so sure that music makers are musicians per se. But the question is, what does Kanye actually do in studio? I could call Dr. Dre a "musician" because I know he plays some keyboards. Kanye is extremely creative in his use of samples, but does he play keyboards? Use GarageBand? Create melodies and harmonies all his own? And if so, to what extent? Like you said, those questions tip the scales.

I don't know how great Kanye is. But I think any discussion of him needs to be as a musician as well any of the individual skills he has as rapper or producer or arranger--those are part of his skills as a musician working to make music. His greatness will be seen as we see whether his music stands the test of time and influence.

Honestly, I think Kanye's music will be revered by the millenials and post-millenials.

I think it's possible, by the way, that Kanye might beat Prince in one way. I can see him collaborating with others much more easily and fruitfully than others. He might actually do better in a room with Hendrix or Santana, working with them. But I said that somewhere else.

That makes Kanye a better kindergarten student than Prince . . . . . . but you have a point, even though Prince has gotten more collaborative over time.

namepeace said:

EddieC said:

I think it's possible, by the way, that Kanye might beat Prince in one way. I can see him collaborating with others much more easily and fruitfully than others. He might actually do better in a room with Hendrix or Santana, working with them. But I said that somewhere else.

That makes Kanye a better kindergarten student than Prince . . . . . . but you have a point, even though Prince has gotten more collaborative over time.