My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy isn't better than Recovery

[MikeNUFC]

There is an obvious positive bias for Kanye with critics. All they keep mentioning is the "sound" of the album - not the fact that nothing interesting is said on the whole fucking album! Whereas when they review Eminem albums the ONLY thing they mention is the subject matter and criticise it.

"Ohh look Eminem uses pop culture reference - that song is automatically shit regardless of the great rhyming. Ohh look Kanye uses a pop culture reference - we can ignore it because the song 'sounds' so great"

Recovery shits all over it and I'm not even a massive fan of Recovery.

[TheGentlePlayer]

It's cuz Recoverys beats sucked balls, and MBDTF had great beats!

[Devil'sAdvocate]

No Shit,Kanye aint no rapper.

[Almostlity]

Recovery is much better in all subjects.
Flow, Lyrics, Beats and many more.

ITT: Mad kanye hating

[DƎRDYPK]

yes it is !!!!

[xxTrigger1989xx]

MBDTF's beats are better. They are what hold this album together, mainly

Recovery is way better than this though. The lyrics, subject matters, rhymes, flows...eons ahead of Kanye. But Kanye's beats are and are enough to keep me listening

[shadyrecovery420]

MBDTF is a great album as well as recovery, but idk what it is about kanye, but i would definatley put ems album higher. Just my 2 cents though, off i go.

[kiki]

we don't need a thread to know this. Maybe that's got to do with me not seeing Kanye as a rapper first.

[ShadyNarkoticz]

ITT: Mad kanye hating

I know, silly people.

[Elision]

Probably because reviewers don't know anything about rap music, and would rather ride Kanye's dick as his songs are 'catchy' and the production is good, even if the lyrics are mediocre.

werd

[BILI]

Recovery is DEFINITELY better than MBDTF.

Its not even close,MBDTF actually sucks imo and I agree with Amadeo(nice post).

[Berry]

It ain't kool to listen to Eminem.

Hell, it ain't been kool since 1999. You can tell yall hipster friends that you listen to Kanye & it's kool.

However, when you say you like shady's shit you get that scrunched up face look.

Forget the music people, it's as simple as that.

[EminemBase]

Well the easy answer is, mainstream critics care more about music than lyrics. And given that Em is a heavily lyrical artist who often just uses music as a backdrop to highlight his lyrics - If they don't like his lyrics, they don't like the album.

If the music of Recovery was as strong and consistent as say The Eminem Show, lets say he self-produced all of it in that way, I think Recovery would of gotten much better reviews all-round. Even with the exact same songs and lyrics.

Where as Kanye's lyrics on MBDTF are average / good and the themes have all been visited in those ways before to much better effect. There's nothing truly noteworthy about anything that he says bar the odd line and the concepts are basic - But because the music is so striking and consistent, they love it. It's also more ambitious in scope, which is definitely worthy of praise.

Also, Em is a very confrontational artist in his approach, he almost begs you to hate him so at this point, given its his 6th major album and many mainstream critics who don't get hip-hop and at first wanted to count him out immediately as they didn't hear the music but just saw his skin - Given that fact, they're almost embittered at the fact he's not only 'still around' but is as big as he is.

It's like their assumption / ignorance is being constantly denied so they feel they need to validate it by picking apart his themes or saying how tired they are of him. Which is simply bad criticism, they're so attached to their personal bias they fail to objectively analyze and provide food for thought on his work now. Which is all a critic should do. Modern critics seem to think people are so interested in their particular opinion that they can reign free with every neurotic personal taste view they want...

When in reality, the point of criticism is in a way to validate the point of art, to open discussion on a piece and debate its legacy. And people seek it out and read it to affirm their own viewpoints and challenge their perspective for the same reason. It's not that we're all so desperate to hear what a specific fucking Pitchfork journalist thinks, it's that we're all desperate to challenge and affirm our own opinions. But said specific journalists don't seem to understand that, they think we all love what they have to say so much. Modern critics just talk about things like school children.

But the music aside, Recovery is a very consistent album and he's more gutsy, ballsy, noteworthy and impressive in a single-line than Kanye is for an entire album. On that front I agree but at the same time, an album needs to be more than just good lyrics - It needs to be a marriage of many elements, music being a heavy component.

And whilst as usual, Em's musical tenancies are on point; his sense of melody and timing, his song construction, his rhythm... as a whole the album feels direction-less and inconsistent musically because there's a mix of hand-picked beats from a lot of guys. Practically speaking, he's just as consistent with his lyrical themes and style as he is on any of his past albums - In terms of, keeping a set of themes going for an entire album (I don't mean his lyricism is as good).

But the difference is, his past albums had a handful of people all working towards the same sonic vision and they therefore felt consistent. They had a musical backbone that kept the story of the album flowing correctly, regardless of where he went lyrically.

If Em had produced all of Recovery, with say the Bass Bros, it would of been a far superior album and probably much closer to the quality of his first three. You'd be surprised by how much the music can seem to highlight the lyrics in a different way. As, if The Eminem Show was made in the same way, with those producers all making those kind of beats - I suspect the result would be pretty similar. It would still be much better lyrically and conceptually but it would feel aimless.

[Evan C.]

I haven't heard any of Kanye's album but I'll just take Amadeo's word that it sucks...that and I refuse to like an album with with a faggy name like that.