It is strange reading that about Yeezus, Kanye made Yeezus with a number of other musicians (the full list, according to Wiki: 88-Keys, Ackee Juice Rockers, Arca, Benji B, Carlos Broady, Brodinski, Ben Bronfman, Evian Christ, Eric Danchild, Daft Punk, Mike Dean, Dom Solo, Jack Donoghue, Gesaffelstein, Noah Goldstein, Lunice, Lupe Fiasco, Hudson Mohawke, No ID, Che Pope, Rick Rubin, S1, Travis Scott, and Sham Joseph).
So, when he's praising the horns line, the piano line, or the complex electronic effects, it's not Kanye who's responsible for all of that, it's Daft Punk, it's Mike Dean, or Mohawke.
Anyway, I'm getting unnecessarily off-topic here. So to get back: Lou Reed was undeniably an innovator like no other, a true hacker. He knew how to play a mean guitar (jazz, blues, rock'n'roll and a whole lot else), he wrote great poetry. The greatest thing that's said about him is, indeed, as another commenter already has said: "Only about 3000 people bought Velvet Underground albums, but all of them started a band."
Kanye has been pretty honest about his abilities as a producer. He was always a chopped-up samples producer and started bringing in musicians and other producers to layer original instrumentation over his samples on his first album. That style evolved with each subsequent album, with his albums prior to Yeezus being extremely orchestrated and huge.
There is absolutely no-doubt that Kanye is the ringleader in this. He puts a bunch of people in a room, and while he may not be the person pounding the keys, but he's putting it all together and making it cohesive.
I can listen to the Hudson Mohawke / TNGHT song that Kanye used in "Blood on the Leaves" and think it's an okay song. But the way it comes in on Blood on the Leaves with Kanye's rapping and the "Strange Fruit" sample left me floored the first few times I heard it. He made those TNGHT so much more powerful.
Kanye's influence over rap is enormous (the singing rap thing that Drake and others are using really didn't gain mainstream attention until 808's) and he's extremely successful commercially. It's not accident, nor is it the simple result of others' work. It's the work of someone who is meticulous in his craft, knows his limitations, and respects the work of others while pointing them in the direction he wants to move.
"but he's putting it all together and making it cohesive"
No, that was Rick Rubin who did that.
So we know Kanye isn't a great rapper (he's had many songs Ghost written and I think its a pretty common belief among hip-hop heads) and you say he can't produce well? What can he do well?
I don't have the time to go through it all unless you really want me to, but your last post was riddled with fallacies and pretty biased opinion.
Lou Reed was something else, Kanye is what he made himself (a pop star). I doubt anyone's going to pick up a copy of Yeezus in 40 years and be amazed in the way people continue to pick up copies of The Velvet Underground & Nico.
There are two meanings of "producer" at play here: a) he who cuts a beat, b) he who produces an album. Kanye was limited yet very successful at A, and he may be the best in his field at B.
Kanye may not be the world's best rapper, but he is no slouch, and to be producing (both meanings) in the capacity he does at the same time is staggering. I like to tell people it's as if Martin Scorsese played the lead role in all of his own movies.
From everything I've read, Rick Rubin arrived late to the project and edited a mountain of work down into a short album.
I'm not sure what fallacies my post was riddled with. Yes, some of it was opinion. And I never said Kanye West couldn't produce well. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say with the Rick Rubin comment either. Do you have a high opinion of Rick Rubin? I'm pretty sure Rick Rubin has a high opinion of Kanye.
I make music as a hobby, am fairly decent at it (IMHO, anyway) and listen to a lot of music. Kanye puts together songs, particularly on Yeezus, that are different than what else is out there and I have little doubt that Yeezus will influence a lot of rap over the next few years.
I think part of the reason a lot of people don't take Kanye seriously as an artist is that he behaves like a petulant twit. In this day and age of pop musicians being embroiled in controversy after controversy, Kanye gives them all a run for their money. From interrupting someone who was getting an award and voicing his thoughts on who he thinks should have won, to having no sense of reservation and calling himself the "greatest living rockstar", and handling himself the worst possible way when he gets criticized (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9dk66ICVQ), he's in the frontline lowering the bar. The man has absolutely no class, I'd rather he just abandon the scene. Similarly, I don't care if Chris Brown is really talented or not -- he's bloodied up women, his misogynistic behavior should have him set aside so that he no longer has a platform.
That's all just myth-building, and he's done a brilliant job of it. Take this very message thread for instance, on a technology forum thread about Lou Reed of all things, the conversation is dominated by Kanye West.
If we start to question artists morally then very quickly a lot of significant work and artists should 'abandon the scene'. From Lennon to Wagner, Ferdinand-Celine to Bill Murray, Polanksi via Woody Allen, to Chris Brown to Kanye (probably the mildest on this shopping list).
What's different this time around is that the pop stars' life details are part of their shtick more than ever before. Chris Brown is a 'bad boy', this is how he's packaged. What is of concern is that, this kind of behavior is being normalized in society at large when it's reigning a significant portion of the pop media cycle.
The common criticism with Lennon was that he was a bad husband and father in his first marriage -- but this part of his life was never publicized, indeed, it was actively suppressed by his PR managers. And for whatever it's worth, Lennon was in the process of making amends in his final days anyways.
"I think part of the reason a lot of people don't take Kanye seriously as an artist is that he behaves like a petulant twit."
But the thing is, people DO take Kanye seriously as an artist. His albums are constantly praised over and over again by critics. Even in places you wouldn't really expect it, there is a general acceptance that Kanye is leading the pack when it comes to innovation in pop music.
>> "So, when he's praising the horns line, the piano line, or the complex electronic effects, it's not Kanye who's responsible for all of that, it's Daft Punk, it's Mike Dean, or Mohawke."
To bring this round to tech I guess it's similar to Steve Jobs getting credit for the iPhone when a lot of the work was done by the engineers. In other words Kanye had to bring those people together and guide the creation of the music or it wouldn't have happened.
I think you're too readily writing off the role of the producer in the case of 'Yeezus.' Classics like Steely Dan's 'Aja', Quincy Jones' 'The Dude', and, in hip-hop, Dr. Dre's 'The Chronic' were crafted in much the same way, a collaboration between producers with a grand vision and a cast of musicians who could see it to realization.
> It is strange reading that about Yeezus, Kanye made Yeezus with a number of other musicians
As with his music, Reed is assuming his audience isn't an idiot. In this case, Reed assumes that you can fully internalize what West's role was and understand his words accordingly.
Reading that is like watching Lou Reed mentally wrestle himself to the ground. He really doesn't like the record, but keeps rationalizing: the annoying synth sound as a "challenge"; the abrupt changes are challenging and keeping us "off balance. But soon after undermines his own rationalizations to note (correctly, in my view) that the real reason to make music is to make something beautiful, and hope that other people agree with you. And there he truly uncovers what's wrong with Kanye's music, and all that ilk: it's disdain of the listener. Anyone who listens to it is Kanye's bitch, willing to take all of his musical shit and like it, and Kanye knows it. And he definitely likes it.
Here we see clearly: Lou Reed isn't anyone's bitch, even when some egalitarian part of himself perversely really wants to be. We are witnessing, in black and white, his higher principles assert themselves even after he his lower ones sacrifice aesthetics and credibility on their petty alter named 'open-mindedness'. He means well here, but he just can't get away from his own good taste.
I feel like we didn't read the same piece. Did yours have this at the end?
At so many points in this album, the music breaks into this melody, and it's glorious — I mean, glorious. He has to know that — why else would you do that? He's not just banging his head against the wall, but he acts as though he is. He doesn't want to seem precious, he wants to keep his cred.
And sometimes it's like a synth orchestra. I've never heard anything like it — I've heard people try to do it but no way, it just comes out tacky. Kanye is there. It's like his video for "Runaway," with the ballet dancers — it was like, look out, this guy is making connections. You could bring one into the other — ballet into hip-hop — they're not actually contradictory, and he knew that, he could see it immediately. He obviously can hear that all styles are the same, somewhere deep in their heart, there's a connection. It's all the same shit, it's all music — that's what makes him great. If you like sound, listen to what he's giving you. Majestic and inspiring.
I really don't get what you're trying to say here. Lou Reed more than most in pop music would understand that likability is not the highest aspiration of a musician. In fact, I think he would really disagree with your idea of the purpose of music. He made a lot of music that people still struggle to comprehend.
Where you think he's trying to rationalize feeling positive about the album, I think he's simply saying that there were some aspects of the album he didn't completely connect with, while other aspects absolutely floored him. On the whole, I'd say that's still a pretty stunning endorsement.
People's relationship with music is an odd one - what you listen to you is meant to say something about who you are. You can't listen to classical because then you're an elitist snob. You can't like Justin Bieber because then you're a teenage girl. You can't like Kanye West because then you're an egomaniacal asshole. You can't like rap music in general because then you condone drugs, sex, objectification of women, electronic music and (gasp!) street slang. It's such a weird phenomenon, and it doesn't happen nearly to the same degree in other mediums. I can watch a horror movie without people thinking I'm a serial killer. I can watch a comedy without worrying that people will think I'm an idiot. I can read basically any novel on any subject without changing people's opinion of me, beyond "oh, he reads". But music is different. When I was in high school you could clearly identify social groups by what music they listened to, which also matched their fashion, and I think the majority of people don't move beyond that headspace ever.
> But soon after undermines his own rationalizations to note (correctly, in my view) that the real reason to make music is to make something beautiful, and hope that other people agree with you.
You should take a class or two on aesthetics. Beauty is, at most, a secondary goal in a multitude of art forms.
RIP Lou Reed, one of my favorite musicians. The song Heroin has so much dissonance and noise throughout that it's almost revolting to listen to. Over time it grew into one of my favorite songs in that I learned to find beauty in the clash of consonance and dissonance. At the risk of hyperbole, that mindset of finding something new from the conflict of opposing forces is something that now applies in far more areas of my life than just music, and the VU was the vehicle that introduced me to that philosophy.
I'm interested that "Heroin" was the song that made you feel like that. I've always felt that "European Son" (YT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igWyYA_r06Y) was the most experimental and noisy song on the album, and I always experience a real visceral thrill when listening to it (especially that part with the roar-ish thing and then the glass shattering). The guitar parts are absurd, the band sometimes plays straight screeching noise, and the song barely holds together. "Heroin" feels contained by comparison.
In a similar vein, considering your appreciation for "the clash of consonance and dissonance," I hope you're getting a chance to see My Bloody Valentine during their short tour in the next few weeks.
As someone who is a music fanatic, but had never heard Velvet Underground until right now, I find "European Son" quite interesting, but "Heroin" didn't do anything for me.
I'll check out more VU, any suggestions for songs/albums in a similar vein (experimental, noisy, good guitar/bass interplay, heavily instrumental)?
As fun as "Metal Machine Music" is, it's a bit non-musical for my tastes -- you wont find interplay and solid musicianship, just noise. I suggest the next step you take is Velvet Underground's second album, "White Light / White Heat". It meets your feature requests fairly well, perhaps better than "Velvet Underground & Nico", the album "European Son" is from, would.
It took me a while until "Heroin" got under my skin, but when it did, it got all the way under. You have to listen to it as loud as you can possibly stand, and not repeat it too often or it will give you an immaculate headache.
I bought the album in 1987 during a school lunch break. Someone saw, and wanted to play it in the common room. There are many really nice tunes on the album, but unfortunately Heroin was the first song that got played so that record got taken off pretty fast.
I agree wholeheartedly, The Velvet Underground has always been one of my favorite bands and has shaped my musical taste. It was the band that made me look into punk, glam rock, new wave, and psychobilly.
"It always bothers me to see people writing 'RIP' when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop-out. To me, 'RIP' is the microwave dinner of posthumous honors."
I was talking to Lou Reed the other day and he said that the first Velvet Underground record sold 30,000 copies in the first five years. The sales have picked up in the past few years, but I mean, that record was such an important record for so many people. I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band!
“That's a quote that (in various different wordings) has been attributed to Brian Eno countless times, though even the author of the most comprehensive Eno biography couldn't track down the original source. Of more importance, The Velvet Underground & Nico [the debut album], though not exactly a hit the first time around, sold a lot more than just a few thousand copies — and more, even, than the "30,000 copies in the first five years" that Lou Reed himself told Eno the LP sold. An MGM royalty statement shows sales of 58,476 copies through February 14, 1969 (about two years after its initial release)—not at all bad for a late-'60s LP, if far less than Andy Warhol and the Velvets hoped for.”
Not true. My mom (otherwise heavily into classical music and, through the influence of her older brothers, somewhat interested in singer songwriters like Bob Dylan and - gasp - Donovan) bought a copy - and went to a concert. She didn't start a band - but did instill a love of very noisy, very nasty rock'n'roll in her children.
This is so true and this quote would always remind me of the programming language Scheme. Scheme never quite made it big commercially but almost everyone who tried it implemented a programming language just to see it for real.
I don't see how general celebrity deaths are hacker news. I would like to read about tech and computer news and ideas; if I wanted this, I would read general news sites.
I agree. This submission has taken up about an entire half an inch of screen real estate, and seeing as how Apple hasn't yet offered a Macbook Air with a larger display, I can't really give up that much space. What's worse is the js script HN seems to be running that forces your mouse cursor to gravitate towards links of celebrity news.
It's not that my time and reading effort is so valuable (it isn't). It's that news forums are as valuable as they are curated to be on topic. With your argument, everyone could just post anything, such as what Justin B had for lunch, and I could just scroll down, right?
Absolutely. People can post news about what the Biebster had for lunch, and if stories of Lunchables pizza with a glass of chocolate milk resonated with the hackers here to the point where it ended up on the front page, I'd have no problem with it.
Loosen up. People here are human with shared interests that go beyond interpreters and cloud computing. To have one story about a celebrity death hit the front page every so often isn't a big deal. And saying that, the entire front page was covered in stories about Job's death for a couple of days, but we survived. We're here, stronger, more alive than ever.
Or you can understand that a community will vote as they see fit, and some news items that are not to your liking may make it to the front page. If you disagree with the community, then I am sure you can find a more appropriate one elsewhere that might be able to meet every need you have, as opposed to one that might occasionally have something that does not interest you. With your 48 days on the site, I am sure it won't be hard to make the decision on where you want to get your news from.
This has been discussed many times, but as you've just joined, here's a PSA:
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. [1]
Lou Reed was an amazing musician, and someone that promoted intellectual curiosity [2], hence the 20+ points. (too bad one of the mods seems to disagree, hence it was flagged to now show up at the front page anymore).
So we probably shouldn’t discuss NSA surveillance ever again here on HN, right?
Lou Reed spoke on technology at SXSW. He was an audio purist. He made a video mocking the GOP. I think he qualified as an influential geek and deserves a black band on the title bar of HN.
As far as I can tell, the only things considered off topic on HN are (1) submissions whose title don't match the headline of the linked page, and (2) puns.
Did you hear about the latest research that shows adding a delayed version of a signal to itself [1] enhances the security of many existing encryption and anonymity protocols by adding an additional layer? Some people are considering adding it to the next version of popular Internet privacy software [2]. I don't understand how it works, though, so maybe I should:
Ask HN: Why comb in a Tor?
(Obviously I made this up just to set up the punch line. Or should I say, PUNch line?)
I'd say Lou Reed is a hacker. A hacker of music. His Metal Machine Music was one of the first and perhaps most famous examples of noise music (after Merzbow) which completely challenged all conventions of what music truly is.
There were plenty of others before him, but he had his place, as well.
There was a long tradition of noise and electronic music before Metal Machine Music going back to the turn of the 20th century, with figures like Luigi Russolo, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg, Iannis Xenakis, Jean-Claude Risset, Max Matthews, Morton Subotnick, and many others. Not much of it was made by famous pop musicians (as opposed to people thought of more so as composers), so Reed definitely deserves credit for introducing a lot of people to sounds and styles they'd never heard before, and perhaps paving the way for groups like Sonic Youth.
Wrong. The guidelines aren't that clear on what hacker news is, but they're quite clear on what hacker news isn't. Just because people upvote something, that doesn't automatically make it hacker news. Having said that, rest in peace Lou Reed. Your music was a big part of my life.
> Wrong. The guidelines aren't that clear on what hacker news is, but they're quite clear on what hacker news isn't.
The guidelines are not defining "hacker news" (or "not hacker news") at all. There is only a section which is called "What to submit" and both definitions (On-topic and off-topic) leave a lot space for interpretation. At the end it is really determined by the votes what is interesting to hackers (or the readers of HN) and what not. If something is breaking the rules, the mods would jump in - especially when an article is on top of the frontpage.
Actually I find those pointless "why is this on HN" comments a lot more off-topic than upvoted links (= interesting to more readers than the other options) that are not strictly computer- or startup-related.
People who want to dictate others what to post or upvote on HN and what not, should probably become mod or pg.
The absolute best thing about HN is that if you're a Hacker, it's a semi-complete resource of what's relevant. Not every celebrity death belongs on HN, but this one absolutely does. It's hard to explain why it does, which is why HN's rules are vague, but there's no doubt that it does. It may mean nothing to you, as many of the things mean nothing to you on the site (do you read every link on the front page? No way) but to a lot of the community, as hackers this was important to us.
You dismissed an entirely relevant link because you are allowing your biases to blind you, and are actively missing an opportunity to learn about someone who actually embodied the hacker mindset, because you do not have it.
Agreed. It's not just celebrity deaths it's more and more obviously not technology-related topics. It's a shame because the interesting technology topics are buried in an increasing amount of noise.
The endless bickering over whether or not it's HN material is a lot more annoying than a single entry on the front page. And much harder to scroll past. It took three whacks of Page Down to reach the bottom.
This is absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't take much effort to make anyone sound like a hacker.
Eg. Paris Hilton is a "Media Hacker" because she's managed to create a successful brand for herself despite not having traits commonly seen in successful celebrities (a talent in acting or a talent in music).
This might be an accurate description, but I don't want to see Paris Hilton news on Hacker News.
Music appreciation and hacking go hand-in-hand. When I have a ten hour project to do, I put on my Quiet Comforts, queue up some good tunes, and get to coding.
Jenny said when she was just five years old
There was nothin’ happenin’ at all
It was the fifties. We were living in cookie cutter houses in the suburbs. Our parents will still recovering from the war, buckling down and making a better life for their children, with barbecues and trips to the beach and…
Every time she puts on a radio
There was nothin’ goin’ down at all
Not at all
The radio was primarily for baseball. They played music, but it did not change our lives and then…
Then one fine mornin’ she puts on a New York station
You know, she don’t believe what she heard at all
It happened overnight. Sports became secondary. The music, the politics, suddenly life was full of opportunities and children were the leaders, not their parents.
She started shakin’ to that fine fine music
You know her life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll
Imagine that. Not an iPhone. Not an iPad. The greatest exponent of technology was the transistor radio, almost no one had a color television set, never mind a flat screen. But that rock and roll music coming out of the tiny speaker or earphone…was enough.
Surprised but deeply heartened see this at top of HN. I'm a long time fan of Lou Reed and was extremely saddened when I heard of his passing earlier today. Good to know his music and life also had strong effect on other hackers.
One of the most important musicians of all time. The Velvet Underground inspired countless musicians and greatly influenced whole genres of music, it's hard to see how Punk would have existed without the Velvet Underground.
Lou Reed's greatest contribution though was his ability to mix great song writing with artful experimentation. From ST with Nico to Loaded to White Light White Heat to Vicious and Metal Machine Music, Lou consistently wrote great songs and expanded the worlds musical pallet. He will be missed.
Speaking of Cale and Reed, I still enjoy listening to their 1990 album Songs for Drella about their time with Andy Warhol.
It's a very personal record, rather quiet, and gives a lot of insight in to who Warhol was from both Reed and Cale. Here's a sample, with Cale singing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FBvP8o35CA
I had Metal Machine Music on 8-track tape. This made it even better because of the infinite loop playback and, as the tape inevitably started distorting it didn't really make any difference!
We can discuss Lou Reed’s contribution to the Velvet Underground, I sure could fill hours and hours. He made some great albums later on as well. When I was studying English lit, Edgar Allen Poe’s works were covered. About 6 months later, Reed came out with his album ‘The Raven’. That was magical to me, deepening the experience I already had reading EAP’s work.
Indeed The Raven is a very good album. Who am I? (Tripitena's Song) from the album is an extremely beautiful & touching song about life & death which strikes a poignant note right now.
That's sad he wasn't really all that old, 71 is like the new 61. He had a great adventurous life more than most people but still way too young.
Love your liver!
I'm not sure what Lou's situation was but this is a good time to stress your liver is important and a lot of people abuse it. You don't have to drink alcohol to have liver problems I'd say there is a huge stigma whenever people hear about people having liver problems.
I suddenly developed fatty liver, I'm a non-drinker, no drugs and slim, it was either my diet or the heartburn drug (the only drug) I am taking. Right now my right side and back ache constantly it's not fun.
Thanks for the downvotes guys. Fine if you loved Lou Reed, but how would you feel if Hacker News featured every famous person death you didn't care about? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2013
No, it shouldn't. Although the death of a celebrity is interesting, it's not deeply interesting. However, some celebrities like Lou Reed, are deeply interesting. And it's not until their death that we generally discuss or think about how deeply interesting they were.
Hacker news, as far as I understand it, is not tech news. Other sites have that covered. This is the discussion of ideas.
Agreed on this. Lou Reed had a greater influence on our culture than most people on HN will ever know. This wasn't just a celebrity dying. This is on par with Steve Jobs.
Same here. Especially the s/t third album and Loaded. It's hard to imagine in our era of blog/Reddit culture, where pathos is kind of freely available if you know where to look, how brave it was to talk about the dark corners of everyday life. Reed proclaimed these things - depression, uncertain relationships, body image issues, sexual kinks (along with flashes of happiness) - in often gorgeous pop songs. Their portraits of characters dealing with these were still almost unrivaled in their vulnerability and believability when I listened as a teenager in the 90's.
Transformer is every kind of pop wonderful (and I mean that in the best possible way).
No idea how familiar you are with The Velvet Underground but have a listen to The Velvet Underground (self titled - 1969) if you haven't heard it before. Just amazing.
Sad to hear the news that Lou Reed is gone - though, he sure did make sure he experienced everything he could from life along the way.
1984, Pittsburgh's Syria Mosque. I saw just about anybody worth seeing back then (including The Who the night before the Cincinnati tragedy) but Sweet Lou was the only show after which I had serious hearing loss. It lasted for days. I recall being quite concerned at the time.
From a young age, no other artists expanded the definition of what it meant to fuse creativity, art, & music more than Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. There are not too many artists that I can honestly say redefined music for me. He was one of them.
On a side note, if you have a few minutes to spare, read Lou Reed's review of Kanye's Yeezus: http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/lou-reed
It's interesting to read a legend's opinion on a modern pop-star.