2-Sided: Trying To Hear Kanye West's New Album, 'ye,' Through All The Noise
On Friday, June 1, Kanye West released his eighth studio album, titled ye, after revealing it during a live-streamed event held at a ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Later that day, two of NPR Music's critics, Rodney Carmichael and Ann Powers, discussed what they heard in the album's seven songs, and whether they could separate the music from the mania that surrounds it.
Rodney Carmichael: This is going to be the most polarizing album of the year. That's my one-sentence review. Of course, we already knew that, right?
But there was also this idea, this desperate hope, or was it a conspiracy theory, that Kanye's irrational behavior over the last few weeks — the MAGA-hat selfie, the suggestion that slavery was a choice — might be some sophisticated bait-and-switch that would expose these deeper truths about the times we're living in. Maybe we were all a little too hopeful. Or maybe that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy season of the Dissect podcast really had us sold on Kanye's genius. More on that word in a sec.
Kanye West made his eighth studio album his first self-titled LP — not counting the messiah-complex of a portmanteau he created with Yeezus. At seven songs, ye is his briefest artistic statement, his shortest fuse. It's even stylized in all lower-case letters. It's pronounced like the exclamation "yay," but maybe it's more of an unconscious cry for help.
We've been talking about Kanye living in this bubble, with the reality-star wife and the Calabasas address, and this album sounds like Kanye trying to bring us into his bubble. Or transmit an
