Listening to it again today, I maybe like it a tiny bit more but it's still just so unremarkable. It's not bad, it's just so dry and boring by Kanye standards. There's some decent songs here but nothing amazing. Here's my track by track thoughts.
I Thought About Killing You - I actually like this a decent amount. Ye's lyrics aren't anything particularly profound but the beat is nice and I really like the way it switches. As a throwaway intro to a longer, better album I'd probably be all about it, but as it stands it's alright. Easily his worst opener now that I think about it though.
Yikes - Great hook, meh verses. The beat is good, you can groove to it. It's solid but unexciting.
All Mine - The hook is grating and Kanye spits some of his worst verses. Could easily be a TLOP leftover, microwaved with some bad topical references but still frozen in the middle.
Wouldn't Leave - Great vibe, great beat but the song doesn't do much for me overall. By the second half i'm always a bit bored, I guess because Ye isn't doing anything that interesting with it. Another spoken word section is very unnecessary! Still like it well enough.
Mistakes - It's fine but totally forgettable. It might be a soul beat but it hardly holds up to the sort of thing he's capable of. "I don't take advice from people more successful than me" sure is a Kanye ass thing to say. On a side note, Ye's grumblings about being in debt always ring hollow to me. His idea of debt is so far away from regular people's. He's always gonna be richer than 99% of the population.
Ghost Town - Not feeling the hype here. It really sounds like a demo, the vocal performances are suspect as hell. Cudi's singing is so, so bad, and Kanye sounds like he could be singing his verses for the very first time. At least it has that wavy outro. There's maybe a great song buried in here, but i'm not hearing it.
Violent Crimes - Kanye's earnest thoughts on his daughter maybe wouldn't ring so hollow if the rest of the album (and indeed TLOP) weren't full of him having fun with playful misogyny. And sure a lot of the sexism across his music is him playing the part as a sort of performance art but when you turn around and make a song about being worried your daughter will grow up and become sexualised, maybe don't also have a song on the album where you makes jokes about a bunch of women who were a part of sexual scandals? I don't know, the song does nothing for me, there's nothing remotely deep about his thoughts on fatherhood.
People want to call this a deep introspective look at mental illness but I just don't think there's anything profound or thoughtful here. Hell, The Life of Pablo did a better job of showing his bipolar tendencies with its Jackson pollack tracklist of different sounds and vibes that took you from him at his highest to him at his lowest. Nothing against anyone who likes it, you do you, but that's how I feel about Ye and ya'll know I've basically been a stan up until this point.
