Let alone for Kanye West, and not the Kanye of the College Dropout. This is 2021 Kanye. He’s been awful forever now
It was the lead single for his apology record, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. What's dreadful about it?
I personally wouldn't consider it dreadful, just... mediocre. I'm not one of those Forum members who hasn't listened to anything written since 1979, but on the other hand while I haven't deliberately listened to the radio in quite a while, I get exposed to newer music via movie soundtracks. But I didn't hear a hook or anything that really grabbed me.
That's fair. At least you gave it a fair shot. I discovered King Crimson through his work and that's how I got into Prog Rock, but that was never one of my fav songs by Kanye. I just posted it because it's one of his most recognizable songs and have been featured in trailers, movies, commercials, etc.
Why did Todd Rundgren want to be on this album in the first place? Kanye is notoriously difficult to work with, and he hasn't released a truly good record in almost a decade. If the collaboration had, by some miracle, gone through, it would've been nothing but bad publicity for Rundgren, given everything horrible that Kanye has said and done lately and the mediocre-to-negative reviews the album got in the end.
Not exactly sure how important critical reception is to Kanye, but his fans seem to have received the album well. That honestly should be all that matters, at this point. The man did everything he set to accomplish, in terms of music and fashion.
But what on Earth would Todd Rundgren have gotten out of it? The album wasn't well-liked by the general public, and there aren't anywhere near as many Kanye fans as there used to be.
Any type of exposure he can get. Everything Kanye does receives a crazy amount or publicity and hype. It's been 25+ years into his career and the hype and promotion for Donda was one of the biggest in recent years. The only album to receive anywhere near that level of attention was CLB.
Yes, Lennon was so desperate for attention that he dropped out of the music scene, and the public sphere, for five years. Then signed with a record company demanding he would only commit to one album, and was planning a tour of smallish venues. Can't be any more attention-desperate than that.
The bills were paid a long time ago from his production work. That's why he was able to make the music that he chose. When exactly did he complain about The New Cars or Ringo's All Starrs (which he did more than once)? He may be at times abrasive, but nobody's ever accused him of not being a team player. Also skeptical of the claim that he'd previously campaigned to get nominated for the RnRHoF. When was this supposed to have happened?
Todd reeks credibility. if there is one active musician out there that can and should comment on anything in the musical spectrum it is Todd Rundgren. his interviews recently, though a little abrasive are full of great observations and he still has a curious interest in any trend, path that modern music goes down it seems.
He can be sarcastic but there's always a little wry smile there. It's hard to 'get' Todd in printed interviews, he's sarcastic and cynical but self-deprecating with it. I'm sure he views this Kanye stuff as a silly bemusement rather than an objectionable action.
rundgren is ok in my book for his work with the psychedelic furs/forever now--all on it's own--have never been a fan of kanye, regardless of his working methods. i don't care for the end results.
I was listening to the Bob Leftsetz podcast that he did with Todd before the Clearly Human virtual tour, and apparently Todd has taken very good advantage of the opportunity to own his masters after 35 years. So he has more money now than he ever did before. Like when he took that pile of random song ideas from Ringo and turned it into a tune. In fact he took the opportunity delivering an address before the Berklee School of Music graduating class to specifically disdain The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame introduction, and paraphrase LBJ, stating that he will not serve. Personally, I think it's stupid, but I'm still going to show up for his concert on the same night.
Also, the Philly accent. In it, you could say "I love you with all my heart and soul, to the very ends of the earth, a love surpassing both life and death" ... and you would still sound sarcastic.
I'm grateful to be ignorant of such drama. If their music is good, cool, but people really need to get a life (imo).
It might just be the people I know and read/follow, but I saw uniformly mediocre to bad reception for the new record. I think he’s got a ton of fans that will definitely stick with him no matter what, but a lot of diehards have left him behind since TLOP. He’s also probably picked up a decent amount of fans over the last few years just because of the shock value stuff. They’re probably not in it for the long haul. I considered myself a very big fan for a while but I haven’t even listened to the new one because of who he decided to feature on it. POWER is an excellent song though!
I reckon if I was getting strung along for a year, and it appeared my time was being wasted, I'd be annoyed too. It seems that some of this seems to be a failure to communicate. It seems both guys have very different processes, and that can be difficult to balance out. As far as Rundgren talking about it.... he was probably asked the question, and at the time, he was probably still annoyed. They are both just people, we all get annoyed sometimes. Storm in a teacup
