While "I Feel Like That" had just a little bit of comfort in the You Are Not Alone sense, this song does not. Like the example above it, "Never See Me Again" is another unreleased track.It's one of the most passionate songs Kanye has ever made, which has sadly never seen the light of day officially. It's completely heartbreaking and shockingly personal, with Ye revealing he has suicidal thoughts at one point. It's a mellow, drum heavy R&B song with spoken-word verses where Kanye asks the listener about their anxieties and fears before admitting he himself feels like it all the time. The soul-crushing but comforting unreleased track "I Feel Like That" is Kanye at his most vulnerable and honest.The image makes you wonder if past the controversial, angry, and vicious exterior is just a sad boy who still misses his mother. He then just motions for the DJs to skip to the next track ("Street Lights"). His performance of the song at the 2008 Grammys only a few months after the passing is sad enough, but then there's this Yeezus Tour performance, where he starts the song but then gets overwhelmed with emotion and falls to his knees, even with the crowd trying to support him. "Hey Mama", while initially an incredibly heartwarming and endearing song, has become very retrospectively sad, considering Kanye's mother has passed away since the creation of the song, and live performances of the song are sparse.The mix of sympathy and resentment, combined with the gorgeous instrumental, really makes this one hit home. And now we have "Real Friends", which is about Kanye having become distant from friends and relatives in the wake of his rise to fame."Roses", which is about when Kanye's grandma being hospitalized under conditions so severe that she could die at any minute, and her doctors can't even do their procedures since anesthesia will put her even more at risk of death.Especially sad when his voice audibly breaks from emotion at the line, "I just want you to do me a favor." The entirety of "Only One," which serves not only as an ode to his late mother, but a message to his young daughter too.This might seem comical at first but became Harsher in Hindsight when it became known Kanye has severe bipolar disorder and was having a manic episode which wasn't being treated. Another case was a concert where he stopped the show to give a long, off-topic rant about running for president (being "on Trump shit"), which then led to him begging Jay-Z to call off alleged snipers Kanye fully believed that Jay had sent to kill him (which makes absolutely no sense since he and Jay are old friends and would have no reason to want Kanye dead even if he could do that).You get the impression that all his narcissism and publicity stunts are just his way of attempting to cope with a death that he's never really gotten over. His speech at the Hammersmith Apollo in 2013 is particularly notable- about five minutes in he starts screaming about how he lost his mother. Some of his infamous on-stage rants can qualify."Lost in the World" especially, which is not helped by the transition of the bitter "Who Will Survive in America" outro followed by clapping."Runaway" and "Blame Game" are particularly good examples. Parts of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.Producers Jeff Bhasker and Mike Dean accompanied the rapper on a bank of synthesizers and drum machines. After that, a large sheet was pulled over the stage as the theme from "Chariots of Fire" played from within, the dancers writhed and clawed like insects trapped in a spiderweb. Later, Kanye inserted a VH1 Behind the Music moment into "All of the Lights," stripping the song down to piano and beatbox (Kanye handled the beatbox) and explaining how it was composed. He told the crowd that he wasn't perfect, but his music was, and then apologized for his arrogance and thanked the crowd for putting up with his audacity. He inserted a long discourse on sexual frustration into the middle of "Say You Will." He played an MPC on a large white cube during "Runaway" while a ballerina in a black dress danced an elaborate solo. Kanye sang "In the Air Tonight" (not badly), confirming, once and for all, the influence of "Face Value" and Phil Collins on his drum and synthesizer sounds. It's late and I'm still at Revel, so for now, I'll just mention a few of the things that happened at the show and encourage you to imagine the rest. I will try to summarize this overwhelming banquet of a concert for the Monday newspaper.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |