| armodillo17 said: I don't disagree that he's very influential, very important, or very talented. You make very good points to support all 3. I just think it's silly to say that any artist is the "most" or "best" anything because music involves so much subjective taste. Statements like "No one makes albums like that" aren't based entirely in fact; their based heavily on taste, and that's totally fine. That's the way it should be, really. As for the change in clothes, I would argue that the change was inevitable. Kanye might have been the impetus for the change at that particular moment, but in general, the change was a reaction against baggy clothes in the same way that baggy clothes of the 90's were a reaction to tight fitting clothes of the 80's. Our whole culture right now is repeating the 80's style (obsession with exercise and tech, clothes that are bright and bold, women wearing tights as pants, music that is much more electronic sounding than guitar based--I even saw a commercial recently with a woman wearing a sweatshirt that had the neck cut out, hanging off of one shoulder), so it was only natural that clothes style matched that. |
Is definitely not silly to say he's at least the most important and influential. That can be proven. Who else has influenced music and culture more? No one. This is quantifiable stuff here.
While the statement about albums is slightly subjective, it's mostly based on an objective academic knowledge of music. It's what I major in in school. It's not just me saying that it sounds nice. It's based on music theory, on counter-point, harmonic reductions, and synergy between songs, and structure throughout the entire album. Music doesn't just sound good because someone writes with heart - it sounds good because of what is essentially music maths. I understand that music maths, and that statement was almost entirely based off that music maths. No one makes albums like that. Even if you remove all subjectivity from that, which factors in lyrics, themes, metaphors, pleasentness, etc., you'd still get that no one objectively makes albums put together as perfectly as MBDTF is. Not even his other albums are as perfectly structured as MBDTF. MBDTF is like music Tetris. Academic courses could be taught on MBDTF.
You can argue that change is inevitable, but you can't argue that the specific change he brought is. These people aren't just repeating the 80s. They are dressing like him. They're Kanye clones. His look wasn't 80s fashion - it was completely his, and he made that cool for a traditionally urban community and more. Even if you did try to argue that it was inevitable, the fact that he specifically pioneered that "resurgence" isn't unsubstantial, either.
