Okay, okay, I know this isn't a movie, but I really think that the newest album from Kanye West is worth discussing. A lot of people tend to dismiss Kanye, either out of a distaste for hip-hop as a whole or a dislike of Kanye's insane narcissism and arrogance. However, neither are valid reasons to ignore Yeezus out of hand, or any Kanye album for that matter. His past efforts (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, College Dropout, etc.) have been some of the most acclaimed albums in his genre, and in fact some of the most acclaimed of all time, and any serious music fan has got to give him a chance.

On the "five favorite albums" thread that we had a while back, I noticed that a lot of you guys are big fans of industrial rock, Nine Inch Nails type stuff. While I can't say that that's ever been my speed, if you're a fan of it, you're going to love Yeezus. As soon as the album starts, you realize that this is unlike anything that Kanye's ever done before. Kanye has reinvented his style on nearly all of his albums, but none of those changes have been nearly as radical as this. The first song on the album, "On Sight," has a sample of a church choir singing a song that goes, "He'll give us what we need, it may not be what we want." As much as I'd love to see a return to the Kanye of Late Registration, Yeezus is what we need right now. I'd like to go track-by-track, but instead I'll focus on the songs that are most worth talking about, and Yeezus has a lot of them.

"Black Skinhead" is Yeezus at its most intense, so its placement as the second song on the album is interesting. After opening on the lopsided, awkward, but still well-produced "On Sight," "Black Skinhead" rights the ship. The original SNL performance of this song featured some primal screaming that is sadly missing from the release version, but the pounding percussion is more than enough to redeem this song. "Black Skinhead" gets your heart pumping. It makes you want to go out and do something wild. Of everything Kanye's released to date, this song might be the best indication of what the inside of his brain sounds like. You better believe it's crazy in there.

"I Am A God" isn't what you think it is. It's the closest that Yeezus comes to self-parody, and with that title, it was probably to be expected. Rather than bragging about how great his life is because of his godlike status, Kanye talks about the everyday annoyances that come with being an entertainer at his level of fame. In his now-infamous New York Times interview, he talks about what it's like to know, without a doubt, that you have earned something, and to not get it. He recalls a childhood incident where he didn't make the cut for a basketball team even though he made every single one of his shots at the tryouts. "I Am A God" is about that sentiment. Kanye doesn't sound thrilled to be a god, he sounds frustrated. "Hurry up with my damn massage...get the Porsche out the damn garage." The song also contains the album's most famous line, where an impatient Kanye implores the waiter at a French restaurant to "Hurry up with my damn croissants!" If that doesn't reveal the non-seriousness of this song, I don't know what else will.

In "New Slaves," the most politically charged song on the album, Kanye talks about the black American experience for what is arguably the first time since Late Registration's "Crack Music." The premise of the song is that blacks are still "slaves," only now it's to consumer culture. "You see, there's broke nigger racism, that's that 'Don't touch anything in the store'/and there's rich nigger racism, that's that 'Come in, please buy more.'" He condemns corporations and the media for enabling and enforcing this culture, and for daring to try and put him in a box creatively. If there's anyone who won't conform to genre stereotypes, it's Kanye West, and he's never been more open about that than now. Although I'd hoped to see more political stuff on this album, the driving beat and great build of the song still make it a new classic, in my opinion.

A prevailing theme on Yeezus is of Kanye looking back on the most tumultuous times of his life as he gets ready to settle down with Kim Kardashian and start a family. What's fascinating about "Hold My Liquor" is that it's like the anti-party song. A lot of people criticize hip-hop for being mostly a collection of mindless party beats with no lyrical substance.
"Hold My Liquor" is about what happens when everyone wakes up after a long, crazy night, with people reflecting on the mistakes they made. Kanye is almost daring DJs to remix a more fun, catchy version of this song. The beat is dark and brooding, the lyrics are introspective, and the elliptical nature of the song makes it one of the more interesting experiences on Yeezus.

"Blood On The Leaves" will probably be one of the more controversial songs on Yeezus, due to the song it samples. Nina Simone's cover of Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" was a highly important anthem of the civil rights era, and it describes in disturbing detail the aftermath of a lynching. Kanye samples it for a song about an ex-lover. Is it disrespectful to use such a vital song for such trivial subject matter? Maybe. Is the final product one of the best things that the genre has produced in the last decade? Almost certainly. It's an undeniably epic song, and the blasting trumpets add a level of intensity that not even "Black Skinhead" can match. This is Kanye at his most honest, and we all know that he's never been one to shy away from sharing his feelings. By the end of the song, Kanye and Nina Simone's vocals are so intertwined that you can't imagine one without the other. Despite what you think about the use of the sample, the way that it's used is extraordinary.

So there's a lot more to say about Yeezus. This review only covers half the album. This isn't Kanye's best album (Dark Fantasy is probably his biggest accomplishment, while my personal favorite is a tie between Late Registration and 808s & Heartbreak) but it is a deft statement about where he is right now artistically. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new generation of rappers who are inspired by this album, just like 808s inspired a new generation who followed the style of that album. If you have any interest in industrial rock, house music, or even Daft Punk (who produced 4 tracks and co-wrote "Black Skinhead") you're going to want to check out Yeezus.