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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Face it, this guy is just channelling what 80% of the western world is thinking…

Oh yeah.

NSFW by the way.

14 comments to Face it, this guy is just channelling what 80% of the western world is thinking…

  • Molly

    Yes that’s pretty much true. I wish Beck had just kicked him in the nads to be honest.

  • Mr Ed

    Having only the vaguest idea who Mr West is, and having seen something in fleeting about the Grammy Awards, I have to say that I am not and have not been thinking about this, but I like this chap.

    Some chap won a Grammy award by in part, copying the song ‘I won’t back down‘ by Tom Petty and the Heartbrakers, so why didn’t Tom Petty win? And Tom Petty’s song would be a fine anthem for libertarians.

  • Richard Quigley

    So very true.

  • Laird

    It’s hard to argue with any of that.

  • Heart attack material. I liked it.

  • May I quote you on my blog sir? :<)

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Outstanding. I Like this chap.

  • Personally I think Kanye West’s music is ok in strictly measured doses (provided the lyrics are taken in as tonal components and not actually listened to), but that not withstanding, West is a weapons grade arsehole.

  • Rich Rostrom

    Mr Ed @ February 9, 2015 at 8:56 pm:

    Some chap won a Grammy award by in part, copying the song ‘I won’t back down‘ by Tom Petty and the Heartbrakers, so why didn’t Tom Petty win?

    Because the Grammy is for the particular performance. There are Grammys for classical music and opera. This year’s Grammy for opera went to Boston Early Music Festival for their recording of La Descente D’Orphée Aux Enfers by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Should it have gone to Charpentier, who died in 1704?

    And the merit of a pop music composition may be as much in the performance as the work. As Mark Steyn has noted, some of the biggest hit songs were around for years before a gifted singer or bandleader found the right way to perform it.

  • Stonyground

    I think that Mr Ed might have been referring to a song that plagiarised Tom Petty’s melody rather than a newer version of the song. There is so much of that around nowadays that just about every contempory song I hear now sounds like something else. Maybe this is just because I now have such a collossal archive of old music clogging up my brain.

  • Slartibartfarst

    Music is in my blood, I have perfect pitch, a good baritone/bass voice, can read music, have a head full of memories of selected musical pieces/tunes, and was a first bass singer in the London Philharmonic Choir whilst I was living in London. I am a bit vague about what the Grammy awards are about other than that they seem to be a self-promulgating exercise, and have no idea who Kanye West is except for being some kind of male pop singer whose music I think I may have heard but found forgettable, because I honestly can’t recall any of it – so it was never good enough to be selected and to make it into my headful.
    I would suggest that @Stonyground may have it about right where he says:

    “There is so much of that around nowadays that just about every contempory song I hear now sounds like something else. Maybe this is just because I now have such a collossal archive of old music clogging up my brain.”

    , except that I can usually pinpoint the riffle or tune that was being plagiarised and I cringe at not only the frequency of plagiarisation, but also the frequency of use of computerised auto-tune to correct the many ungifted modern singers who can’t seem to sing on-key.

    The implication is that much – if not most – contemporary so-called music is just so much mediocre stuff and the generally discerning listener would probably be accustomed to this and sufficiently aware (consciously or unconsciously) as to tend to filter it out as such. I thus doubt that 80% of the Western world – or anything approaching that number – would be likely to be aware of K. West’s tirade (if he indeed had one), let alone be in the slightest bit interested in, or excited by it.
    And in any event, as a “public” music person at the Grammy event, surely K. West is entitled to feel and exercise a certain moral responsibility for voicing his professional strongly-felt opinions re fairness/unfairness, regardless of what our non-public unprofessional opinions might be on the matter?

    Let’s face it – the opinions of entertainment “stars” and NGOs such as (say) Greenpeace, Oxfam or broadcasters would seem to tend to carry more weight in our modern democracy and lobbying than those of the people, because the people allowed that to happen.

  • Mr Ed

    There is so much of that around nowadays that just about every contempory song I hear now sounds like something else.

    I heard an interview with the talented Mr Billy Joel, who said that he had heard a riff from his song ‘Uptown Girl’ in some ‘muzak’ in a lift. He got his lawyers onto it, but dropped the matter when he realised that he had been listening to some Mozart.

  • I think there is vast amounts of great modern music out there, you just need to look beyond the mainstream… which in this age of the internet is really easy to do. Things that appeal to my eclectic tastes abound on Bandcamp and elsewhere.

  • Laird

    The vast majority of contemporary music is dreck, but that has always been the case. How much do you hear of music by the contemporaries of Mozart or Bach? (There were lots of them.) Eventually the worthwhile rises to the top and the rest (the mediocre and worse) disappears into the dustbin of history. ‘Twas ever thus. Kanye West is a performer (definitely not a singer!) of minimal talent who won’t long be remembered. Not even auto-tune can help him.