Kanye West: a name which when heard evokes strong emotions and opinions in all circles. A bitter, bigoted man. A misunderstood and mentally ill man, misanthrope, provocateur, genius, deranged; all of the pejoratives and accolades you can think of have been prescribed to Kanye West at one time or another. A cultural powerhouse whose history has charted the waves of popular culture in America for over 20 years. You would be hard pressed to find an individual who hasn’t heard of Kanye West, and just about everyone seems to have a decisive opinion about the legacy of this tarnished figure.
My personal history with the titular “Ye” traces back to my time in boarding school. During my senior year I would run laps around a potato field in remote Limestone, Maine. Every night at 9 p.m. I would put on my running shoes, open Spotify and press play on the first track of “Yeezus”. I would then run the same 4.5 mile loop around an empty field in an empty town on the border of New Brunswick. Other than listening to “Yeezus” almost everyday without fail for an entire year, I have very little knowledge of Kanye West’s discography. I haven’t listened to anything he’s made since graduating high school, but given that the lovely culture editor here at the Maine Campus decided I should be the authority on this subject, this is a review of Kanye West’s latest album “Bully”.
“I put you through a lot, I know/ Highs and lows/ Still, you never let me go.”
This excerpt from the track ‘Highs and Lows’ captures the essence of “Bully”. This album coincides with a recent apology from Kanye this January. For the last 25 years he has suffered from bi-polar disorder as well as damage to his frontal lobe from a car crash. These incidents, in conjunction with the mental burden of stardom, seem to be Kanye’s explanation for the last five years of antisemetic hate speech, SA allegations and terrible albums. But is it enough?
On “Bully” you do pick up the traces of the “old” Kanye. There’s an abundance of interesting samples, even using the Carpenters’ ‘Close to You’ on one track. You’ll also find some recognizable techno pop hybrid beats backing a lyrically interesting performance. Kanye seems to be avoiding the political at any cost, while occasionally trying to take responsibility for his recent behavior, but largely it feels like a man who’s desperately trying to remind the listener of what once was.
The most enjoyable tracks of the album for me were one touching sample on ‘Mama’s Favorite’ and ‘Punch Drunk’ which was purely because it felt like a tribute to the “Graduation” album, a theme which is pervasive throughout “Bully”. Often Kanye feels like he’s doing a Ye impression, and I’m vaguely reminded of corpulent Elvis in 1977 belting out ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ with a voice strained by years of masochistic drug abuse and vice. After finishing this album I put on “Yeezus” for the first time in many years. The difference in passion is immediately palpable. The first 30 seconds of “Yeezus” feel like my skin is on fire, as Kanye had something to say in 2013. When I listen to “Yeezus,” I hear the man that bravely called out President George Bush on live TV for his duplicitous and bigoted handling of African American suffrage during Hurricane Katrina. When I listen to “Bully,” I can’t help but mourn a legacy lost to the same bigotry Kanye once protested.
I think at the root of this album, and Kanye West’s legacy as a whole, there is a more interesting conversation to be had about the burden of becoming a cultural figurehead. Any person, let alone a man who already battles mental health issues, would likely go crazy being bombarded incessantly by millions of people and their parasocial obsession with an entirely fictitious public image. Kanye West developing a messianic complex and lashing out through Twitter was always treated as a joke or profitable scandal in the media for the last five years, instead of the serious mental health crisis it was. We’ve seen this pattern become the pitfall of celebrities for generations with Marilyn Monroe, Emperor Nero, Lady Gaga and Elvis. We’ve created a culture which turns talented creatives into marketable effigies, with which production companies, labels and studios can suck dry every dirty cent then throw their gasping corpse to the dogs of public opinion. As long as creativity and talent are seen purely through the lens of mass marketability and fiscal gain we will always have a Ye, a tragic story of immense talent being perverted and exploited until all that’s left is an aging man trying to apologize for the grief he’s brought and trying to reckon with the great legacy he’s destroyed.
I would give “Bully” a 6/10, if you enjoyed this album and are looking for more I would check out the timeless, irreverent and perfect album “Folksongs & Ballads” from legendary singer-songwriter Tia Blake.
