I think I'm ready for *this* 'Graduation'...

everybody has their own likes and dislikes. This is just the nature of the world. Let me break down a couple of my likes, aesthetically, here right now:

-Daft Punk's "Discovery" album (I think a post on that in the near future is due);
-Good, smart hip-hop;
-Japanese stuff, including (but not limited to) anime and 'cyberpunk' movies and TV shows.

well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Kanye West's new single "Stronger"...which samples the French techno artists' "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger," is pretty well written, and....has a music video that is basically an homage to Akira.


yes, that's really Daft Punk. Yeah, they're kinda weird.

Yeah, that's a fastball right in my wheelhouse. I think I'll keep that Firefox tab open so I can watch it again tomorrow morning. That's the stuff.

I know my friend and Daily Emerald cohort Matt Sevits will hate me for it, but...I like Kanye West. Yeah, some of the shtick is played-out, and it definitely can be shtick-y...but when it's new, and hasn't gotten really stale, it's good. And fresh Kanye is always good.


even the single cover art is cool and Japanese

The question is: will this be a hit or a miss long-term? I'll probably want to buy it now; will I regret that decision once the song is off radio and MTV, and I stumble upon it in my iTunes library in two years?

It sounds like it could be worthwhile. The beat is, as always, very good, but the rhyming is a bit more mature. He's never going to be Jay-Z or Biggie; nobody will. And, granted, there are a couple songs on each album (more on Late Registration than College Dropout) that stand the test of time; Kanye seems to still be developing and maturing, which means he gets better with each album. Hopefully this album reflects that, and the single certainly sounds like it could be.


TETS....urr....KANYEEEEEEEE!!!

At the least, though, it's the first Hype Williams video I've enjoyed in a long while. Something about the video subconsciously "clicked" the first watch-through, then when I went to it again I had the "OH SHIT" light-bulb moment. Lights streaking off the cylces? The nurse coming into Tetsuo's Kanye's room, and him stumbling out with shrouds of bedsheet hanging off his head? YES. So very good. Too bad the katakana scrolling across the screen at times makes NO SENSE (except the soldiers' "GYAAA" when they get attacked near the end).

(and now I want to watch Akira...)