July 29, 2013

"Being a manic depressive is like having brown hair."

Said Delmore Schwartz, quoted by Lou Reed, reviewing Kanye West's new album "Yeezus."
[On the song "Hold My Liquor," a]t first, West says "I can hold my liquor" and then he says "I can't hold my liquor."  This is classic — classic manic-depressive, going back and forth....
"I'm great, I'm terrible, I'm great, I'm terrible."  That's all over this record....
There are more contradictions on "New Slaves," where he says "Fuck you and your Hamptons house."  But God only knows how much he's spending wherever he is.  He's trying to have it both ways — he's the upstart but he's got it all, so he frowns on it.  Some people might say that makes him complicated, but it's not really that complicated.  He kind of wants to retain his street cred even though he got so popular.  And I think he thinks people are going to think he's become one of them — so he's going to very great lengths to claim that he's not.  On "New Slaves," he's accusing everyone of being materialistic but you know, when guys do something like that, it's always like, "But we're the exception.  It's all those other people, but we know better."
By the way, does Lou Reed/Kanye West ever smile? Do Google image searches for "Kanye West smiling" and "Lou Reed smiling." I think of Kanye West as a guy who only gives "depression face" to the cameras, but compared to Lou Reed, he's a veritable Goldie Hawn.

ADDED: Sorry I had "Jeezus" instead of "Yeezus" there for a while.