MUSIC V MUSIC: KANYE WEST - THE LIFE OF PABLO
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©℗ 2016 Getting Out Our Dreams (GOOD Music) II
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The Life Of Pablo
Music v Music
Ft. Harry Walker
19/02/20
A recurring segment on this blog and the origin of the title name itself; Music v Music takes a fan-favourite album and breaks it down, with the intention of finding the best track on the record.
Perhaps 2016's most controversial hip-hop record, Kanye West's The Life Of Pablo cemented itself as yet another ground-breaking album in the rapper's vast discography. With features from the genre's most prominent figures, such as Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar and Andre 3000, the album remains as interesting today as it did upon first release; a time at which the album was still being remastered, even after it's initial drop. The Life Of Pablo that we first listened to in the winter of 2016 is significantly different to what we can hear on streaming services now, with the newer version widely preferred to its first release. Kanye named the album a gospel record, and although the genre's influence can be heard in some of the better moments, it's still a hip-hop experience. Chance the Rapper's work on various tracks helped bring life to the project, whereas legendary producers such as Mike Dean, Andrew Dawson, Rick Rubin and more brought Kanye's ideas to the sonic world.
Each time, I'll be joined by a friend who loves the album enough to discuss it for this segment instead of listening to it; for The Life Of Pablo, my close friend and housemate Harry had offered to assist me with the task of handling Kanye's most complex album. In the five months of living with Harry, it's not uncommon for our housemates to overhear us singing something together, for no other reason other than the song being stuck in one (or usually both) of our heads. And it's even less uncommon that it'll be a song from this album.
After around three weeks of talking about this segment, an evening finally arrives where we're both in the house, free, and ready to talk about the album. I move my laptop into Harry's room, pull up the tracklist and quickly play through snippets of each song, as a reminder (not that this was needed). To make the process easier, we both agree that Pt.2, Low Lights, Freestyle 4, I Love Kanye, Frank's Track and Siiiiiiiiilver Surffffeeeeer Intermission should all be ruled out before the discussion. I ask Harry to write down his two least favourite tracks, three favourites, and what he thinks is the best. I fear how long this will take.
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| 📸 Dimitrios Kambouris |
HW: I think you're right.
JR: What two did you have in your bin?
HW: OK. So I took out Feedback and Facts.
JR: I took out Facts as well. So that's firmly in the bin (laughs). Which is interesting because I like the flow on it, but it's stolen from Drake so it's much less impressive.
HW: And if we're talking personal reasons, it's a diss at Nike so. . . not that I don't like Yeezys.
JR: (Laughing) That's a fair point. Why Feedback?
HW: It's just so short that it kind of feels irrelevant? You might just not think of it in the album.
JR: It's got a well annoying intro, too.
HW: Like yeah, fair enough it's good, but when you're looking at the album like we are, trying to cut it down to the best, it's just obviously not better than the other songs we've got here.
JR: It's got a well annoying intro, too.
HW: Like yeah, fair enough it's good, but when you're looking at the album like we are, trying to cut it down to the best, it's just obviously not better than the other songs we've got here.
JR: It's pretty interesting that this is one of the only songs that doesn't have any features, and it's been chosen as one of the worst ones. But I do agree with you, it doesn't stand out.
HW: You can appreciate it's good, but it's quite easy to discard it. There's nothing really going for it.
JR: Does it have that line on it. . . 'and the girl ain't even religious'?
HW: Nah, that's Highlights.
JR: OK. It's got nothing going for it then (laughs). I got rid of Facts and Fade. . .
HW: (Laughing) OK.
JR: Is Fade in your favourites?!
HW: No. We can take Fade out. As much as I love Post Malone, I just feel like there's a lot more that you can do with his voice on a song.
JR: The song just used to really annoy me, it's really easy to hear the first five seconds and skip it. It feels quite messy as well, it's not really that cohesive.
HW: Yeah but then again, the album is quite disjointed on purpose. . . so as a representation of The Life Of Pablo, Fade does a pretty decent job.
JR: True, but I feel like the album can be a pretty interesting journey if you want it to be. And I don't think Fade was the right ending. . .
HW: What about the actual intro then, Saint Pablo?
JR: That's on my favourites list. I'm just such a massive fan of Sampha, so having his voice on such a raw Kanye track is just incredible for me.
HW: It's not on my list, but, it's good (laughs).
JR: I didn't even know about this song until like summer 2018. Basically, for years I'd listened to the bootleg version from the first day of release, when it was only available on TIDAL. Saint Pablo wasn't even on the album at this point.
JR: Yeah. Then Charlie showed it to me in the car on the way home from Thorpe Park, and he knew I'd like it because of the feature. He was very right (laughs).
HW: Sampha takes over a good portion of the ending to that song as well.
JR: Yeah, but then it's also one of Ye's best rap performances on the album.
HW: I'd agree with you, I'm quite a big fan of long, lyrical songs. . . which brings us on to. . .
JR + HW: (Both) No More Parties In LA.
HW: . . and I had that on my favourites.
JR: (Laughing) Right. I had that down as what I think is the best.
HW: . . same (laughs).
JR: Did you?! Perfect.
HW: I don't even know what to say about it. Not only is it just incredible, but, just, how it makes me feel, just. . . yeah. Wow.
JR: I think because it's six minutes of straight rapping. There comes a point when you love an artist so much that all you wanna do is hear them rap.
HW: You're done with the choruses, you just want to cut straight to it.
JR: And it's got Kendrick Lamar on it. Come on.
HW: Yep. You've got such an incredible artist just featuring on it.
JR: We'll come back to this. You mentioned before that you had two tracks that you think could battle for 'best'. What was the other one?
HW: I just think, if you're considering songs for the best, then Ultralight Beam has to be there.
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| 📸 Dimitrios Kambouris |
JR: That's on my favourites. The memories associated with it are just too good to not put it down.
JR: OK. . . so you think Ultralight Beam is one of the best but not one of your favourites?
HW: So for what I thought could be the best, I had to choose between Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 and Ultralight Beam. I put the two together, so it was one or the other. So I picked Father Stretch My Hands just because of my memories of listening to it with other people. . .
JR: Memories in this very room (laughs).
HW: Exactly! So Father Stretch My Hands is, for me, a better listening experience than Ultralight Beam.
JR: That's fair enough. I'd would like to argue though, that the amount of times we sang that song together in 'Dam is stupid. Whenever I hear literally any part of it I immediately think back to memories of my favourite ever holiday.
HW: It's a really reference-able song. There's so many parts of it that you can come out with, like you would with a film.
JR: Especially with that skit at the start. . . 'Jesus praise the lawd!'.
HW: (Laughing) Yeah exactly, you can say any part of it and you know where it's from. So I'm not gonna argue with you that that could be definitely the best song on the album.
JR: Did you say you didn't like Highlights?
HW: Nah, but it can go.
JR: Can it?
HW: Yeah.
JR: Yeah. It's got the line on it that I was talking about earlier, 'and the girl ain't even religious!' which is great.
HW: Yeah, we like that.
JR: But I agree. Not much else that puts it apart from the rest.
HW: Cool. FML? Wolves?
JR: Right. So if Kanye had kept them the same as how they were when he first put them out, they would have been contenders for best. But because I've seen the change, it's hard to enjoy them when I know what they once were.
HW: See my problem there is that I never heard those versions, and they're pretty hard to find.
JR: This is the thing, it makes my listening experience of those songs pretty different to most other fans, because I had the originals for so long. I'd love to revisit them actually. . .
HW: That would be so interesting for me as well.
JR: So for FML there used to be this really intense harmonising choir towards the end of the song, which gave it so much replay value. I think it's still there but much weaker. And Wolves used to have Frank Ocean on it (laughs).
HW: Enough said.
JR: I still like FML, but it just doesn't hold up as well as some of the other songs, especially after it being out for nearly four years now.
HW: I'm happy to get rid of those two.
JR: Can we go back to 30 Hours? That was quite surprising for me.
HW: So having that and No More Parties next to each other almost pairs them up in a way.
JR: I've never really noticed that! Wow.
HW: It's a strong duo. Quite often, I'll get a lyric stuck in my head from it, which must be a good sign.
JR: 'Skrrt skrrt skrrt!'
HW: The beat is quite consistent throughout the whole song, which allows for Kanye to experiment more with flow.
JR: And 3K's on it a little bit. When TLOP first came out, my two favourites were this and Real Friends, which I've put down on my list today as a favourite.
HW: Oh really! OK.
JR: So he released this as a single before the album came out. You had to log on to kanyewest.com, and the only thing on the whole website was this song.
HW: Right. So you had no choice but to listen to it over and over again.
JR: There was this really cool image of a younger Kanye working on a beat, and the song itself was just so emotional. It stood out to me so much. It felt like old Kanye, to me.
HW: Right. So you had no choice but to listen to it over and over again.
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| ©℗Kanye West |
JR: There was this really cool image of a younger Kanye working on a beat, and the song itself was just so emotional. It stood out to me so much. It felt like old Kanye, to me.
HW: What do you mean by that?
JR: So obviously I was only fifteen, but I'd just been through a phase of listening to College Dropout and Late Registration on repeat. I wasn't too interested in albums like 808s or Yeezus, but I felt like I had to listen to them.
HW: So Real Friends reminded you of what you liked about Kanye?
JR: Yeah for sure. It gave me hope for this album.
HW: He talks about Real Friends later on the album as well.
JR: He does, but comedically. Talking about such a deep story in a lighter way is really interesting for an artist.
HW: Well, I guess that's pretty symbolic of the album; in, what, five songs, he's switched between two completely different mindsets about a pretty serious situation [a cousin allegedly stealing his laptop & paying $250k to retrieve it]. He's not too sure what to make of his life.
JR: . . He's also used Ty Dolla Sign like Parsley. . .
HW: (Laughing) I remember that tweet.
JR: I loved this song so much, it was exactly what I wanted at the time. But then the album comes out, and you're presented with songs like Ultralight Beam and No More Parties In LA.
HW: Yeah, it's so tricky. God.
JR: We haven't even mentioned Famous yet! I've got the best memory of us lot all singing that in a geography room at lunch, it's such an iconic first verse. It's such a funny song.
HW: It's probably the most controversial track, but at the same time I reckon it's also the poppiest song from this album.
JR: Do you think?
HW: Yeah. I think Rihanna's feature helps it in that way.
JR: True, that's how I felt about 'LOYALTY' from DAMN.
HW: I feel like if there was to be one song from The Life Of Pablo on the radio, it would be Famous. I don't think there's any others that would fit much better.
JR: Yeah I think you're right.
HW: I may have even heard it on Radio 1 at some point.
JR: I do really like the beat, and the Nina [Simone] sample, but I think it's quite simple, lyrically. I feel like it was made purely to be controversial, with that Taylor Swift bar. And that controversy actually helped promote the whole album.
HW: Definitely. It might have been a consequence but I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing. (Laughing) I mean, that event was controversial enough in itself, he didn't need to make a song about it.
JR: The thing is, the release of the song brought on more controversy. There was this thing about Taylor Swift saying she never said she was okay with it, but then Kim Kardashian released a voicemail they'd recorded without her knowing. . . it was all a mess.
HW: But a mess that promoted the album.
JR: After a bit of thought, I think it's easy to get rid of it.
HW: Yeah. We haven't talked about Waves. When I first listened to the album, it was definitely my favourite song. I think because this was the first album I'd heard from Kanye.
JR: Oh reallyyy. So you liked waves for its sonic qualities then?
HW: Yeah. It's like the opposite to what we were saying about No More Parties and 30 Hours, where I wanted the choruses and didn't overly care for his lyrical content. Who is it on the chorus for Waves?
JR: (Sighing) Chris Brown.
HW: I know that's why you don't like it, but I do feel like his voice goes well with the melody.
JR: Admittedly, I guess it does sound alright. (Laughing) It's still F*ck Chris Brown though.
HW: Yeah, it's a really good chorus.
JR: I would have much preferred it if Kanye had left it as the version Chance made for him. I think because I know that version exists, it makes me like the actual one less. Like FML and Wolves.
HW: Yeah, I think you've shown me that before. It feels like a proper ode to gospel.
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| 📸Kevin Mazur/Wireimage/Getty Images |
JR: There's a version on YouTube that combines the two versions; with the choir's chorus and Chance's verse, and then Kanye's verses as well. It might have a hint of Chris (gagging) Brown, but I'll tolerate it.
HW: I didn't have it down, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Just because it was the first song on the album. . . maybe even the first Kanye song I intentionally listened to.
JR: OK, so now we've got a list.
HW: Hit me with it.
JR: 30 Hours, No More Parties In LA, Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1 and Ultralight Beam.
HW: I'm happy with that, as a top four.
JR: I thought it was going to be way harder. Can I propose that we drop Father Stretch My Hands?
HW: Yeah, looking at the list that's fine.
JR: (Laughing) It irritates me, sometimes. Just because it doesn't commit to the massive sound it creates with that insane drop. . . it just fades away.
HW: Yeah, I get that. There's a song on his new album that does the same, Hallelujah, it can be really annoying sometimes.
JR: That's not to take anything away from what him and Kudi did with that track, it's incredible.
HW: No, I get you completely. What are you thinking about 30 Hours?
JR: I think, just because I didn't have it written down at all. . . I don't know.
HW: I was gonna say that we could probably get rid of that too. It's definitely one of my favourites, but when you compare it to the other two songs here, it's quite obviously not as good.
JR: So now we're left with No More Parties and Ultralight Beam.
HW: (Laughing) I had a feeling that was how it would end up.
JR: So I had No More Parties as what I thought was the best, and Ultralight Beam as one of my favourites.
HW: No More Parties was both, for me. Favourite and best. Whether I've put it as the best because it's my favourite, I'm not sure. But objectively, come on.
JR: It's very hard not to say it's the best. We've fought our cases for Ultralight Beam as much as we can.
HW: We have. It's undeniably a great track, it's pretty much perfect.
JR: Chance the Rapper's verse sets the album up really well, but I feel like Kanye's relying on him pretty heavily for this song.
HW: We have. It's undeniably a great track, it's pretty much perfect.
JR: Chance the Rapper's verse sets the album up really well, but I feel like Kanye's relying on him pretty heavily for this song.
HW: Well Ye's only really on, what, the first half of it, isn't he?
JR: Yeah. Whereas for No More Parties, he's got probably the best rapper of our generation as a feature, and he probably didn't even need him. Shawn Cee recently said that Kanye out-raps Kendrick, and I have to agree.
HW: (Laughing) That's not exactly easy!
JR: I feel like having the G.O.A.T on a song and not relying on him to make it better says so much about how great this track is.
HW: The sample is so, so good. And its just Kanye, through and through.
JR: Yeah, Madlib's beat just lets Kanye do whatever he wants. He shouts out Lauryn Hill and Andre 3000 on it as well which always makes me smile. It's very easy to love this song.
HW: You can listen to it and notice something different every time! Its replay value is so high, especially in the album.
JR: Oh definitely. I reckon this is my most played song by him.
HW: And I can't wait to listen to it when I go to LA!
JR: (Laughing) Absolutely no partying though. I also love the 'swish' sound at the end, because that's exactly what you wanna hear when you're playing basketball.
HW: I think just based on the reasons we've ruled out songs; being reliant on other people, not being entirely his song, not being lyrically strong enough. . . No More Parties doesn't have any of those issues.
JR: Yeah. I think we've got our answer.
HW: No More Parties In LA.
JR: Definitely.
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