It's dissonant, it's rough, it's minimalism, it's very challenging on that level. It is pretty challenging in terms of just the musicality alone. Just the sound of the album is what I think throws most people off, and that's understandable. The interesting thing about Yeezus is, if you can get around the sonics of it - which I understand is not for everyone. The Record 2-Sided: Trying To Hear Kanye West's New Album, 'ye,' Through All The Noise It's a lot less strange compared to a lot of the stuff he ends up doing post- Yeezus. It was definitely polarizing, but in hindsight Yeezus almost feels like the last album from the Old Kanye - maybe not sonically, but definitely in terms of content. The fact that he did it is just interesting to me. It just commands a lot of respect, if you liked the album or not. But it's really interesting to see someone in the public sphere at the highest level do that. It's one thing to create an experimental album if you're a lesser-known artist. So, he essentially wins back the public - and then decides to jeopardize his career, at least his music career at that point, by creating an album that he knew was going to be polarizing. He'd just overcome nearly being canceled for the VMAs, and then his comeback season with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne. Then, everything around the album is just so interesting - not only where Kanye was in his life. I just loved the record, so I've always wanted to talk about it. I would say probably in my personal top three favorite albums by any artist of all time. What inspired you to pick this particular album at this particular time?Ĭole Cuchna: It's my favorite Kanye album. Rodney Carmichael: Up until now you've dissected albums that are universally heralded. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
It's an album that deserves revisiting and deeper reflection, Cuchna says, even if the new Kanye has become a dark, twisted allegory for some: "I know there's a segment of people that are going to be really into the season, but I am interested to see if there's pushback from other people that just don't really want to give Kanye any more attention." But before he checked lucrative deals with Adidas and the Gap, a curious visit to Trump's Oval Office or his own oddly mounted presidential run off his bucket list, Yeezus was the last album on which the old Kanye could be heard voicing his frustrations as a Black man on the outs with the billionaires he sought to bankroll his all-American dreams. The new season of Dissect, premiering Monday night at midnight Eastern, comes on the heels of a season of wildly speculative news for Kanye: an impending divorce from Kim Kardashian and a disputed Bloomberg report that he is now the richest Black man in America. This season, he also gets co-writing help from Travis Bean and Chris Lambert, hosts of the Kanye-themed podcast Watching the Throne. Of course, he draws his conclusions using more than mere hindsight, putting his degree in music theory and composition to good use. "From a historical perspective, I can't help but see Yeezus as this kind of clear marker in history that aligns with so many artists that stand the test of time," Cuchna says, "where we can look back and say that moment defined the next 50 to 60 years of music." He chose Yeezus because it's among his favorites "by any artist of all time." And when the classically trained Cuchna refers to "all time," best believe he's including the likes of everyone from Beethoven to Bob Dylan. But Cuchna didn't select him and one of his most polarizing albums, Yeezus, as the focus for season eight of Dissect for that reason. Needless to say, Kanye West has inspired that kind of reaction continuously over the last decade. But he knew that releasing an in-depth consideration of the album - and specifically the artist - in question in a year as tumultuous as 2020 could prove flammable. In a sense, the next season of Dissect was, too.Ĭole Cuchna, host of the Spotify podcast made notable thanks to his meticulous "note by note and line by line" dissections of the most iconic hip-hop and R&B albums in recent history, had already selected the LP and scripted most of the new season. When America took to the polls in record numbers to vote in last November's historic election, the fate of the nation wasn't the only thing hanging in the balance. Kanye West's sixth studio album, Yeezus, is the subject of Dissect's latest season.
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