Kanye West dumbs down Bon Iver’s “Woods”
Kanye West has released a tremendous amount of high quality material this year. His G.O.O.D Fridays series has irreversibly changed the world of hip-hop and set the bar so high that it is unlikely anyone else will attempt to surpass it; better to ignore the pyramid dominating the horizon and not draw attention to the inadequacy of one’s own work.
The most emotive bit of his work is probably “Lost in the world” where he pairs Bon Iver’s powerfully vocoded lyrics and melody with his own characteristic thumping, marching, cascading 808s to form a combination that induces a fair bit of simulated heartbreak.
Bon Iver lulls you into a painful shared memory with his warped, contorted, digitised falsetto. When the beat begins, you feel like a rider dying on a Cormac McCarthy landscape, where you are suddenly dragged away, dangling off the back of a galloping, crazed, runaway stallion.
It is all very powerful, overwhelming and oppressive. I listened to it and wanted to explode in tears without quite knowing why. Justin Vernon has a way of placing you in perfect loneliness by the power of his voice. We are marooned in time, each of us in some far flung dimension, as we join him in “building a sill to slow down the time.” You could listen to him weep into the fading wind for eight minutes but subtly, though slightly clumsily, the lyrics begin to morph into Kanye’s rendition.
The scope of the song is suddenly narrowed as Kanye turns a contemplation of almost cosmic scope into a metropolitan jaunt where he is new in a city, ready for a one-night stand and in the presence of a girl who is also “down for the night.” From that point on the song’s ambition is neutered. This city—this place—has no more magic than any other on his long roster of stale tour destinations. The girl he is about to conquer is anonymous and forgettable. The situation is temporary and unremarkable. His only concern is with blasting through the moment with no intimacy or love making. Even eternity is trivialised where “if we die in each others’ arms, I still get laid in the after-life.” Eternity, after all, is just another city with another ready, pliant, young girl.
I got the feeling that Kanye was fighting a losing battle as he wrote those lyrics. He starts with a poetic metaphysical description of duality (“You’re my lies, you’re my truth”) and a lamentation of the falseness of the world around him. But if you expected deeper insights you are swiftly disappointed because “this plastic life” is wholly manifested by “this fake ass party” and not much else. He wants to escape that only in order to consummate a conquest, after all “She’s down for the night.”
Bon Iver’s lyrics remain there but on top of them is the new bubble-gum chorus and bridge masquerading as meaning and substance. The Bon Iver beginning and Gil-Scott Heron’s poem (that sounds like the clarion call at a Black Panther rally) serve as powerful book-ends that sandwich a decidedly vapid affair. He tries to turn the whole song into a weeping, moth-eaten version of Usher’s “In this club”.
I keep wondering why Kanye West decided to dumb down such a powerful theme and song. Was Bon Iver’s sweeping sadness too much to match or was Kanye simply affecting authenticity by inserting himself in the company of much deeper thinkers who contemplate more heavily nuanced ideas?
It is difficult to know exactly what happened. The song is incredible and loses precious little of its potency but I get the feeling that a wonderful opportunity has been lost. West approaches serious, grave, beckoning, inviting you to listen to him whisper an intimate, painful truth but as soon as you are close enough, he slaps you in the face before running away giggling.
Footnotes Kanye West feat. Bon Iver, “Lost in the world” (excerpt from “Runaway” film). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0rGGcGVmoc
Update 12082011: After listening to the quite excellent “Watch the Throne” I realise that this yin-yang of depth and shallowness is Kanye’s whole modus operandi. He does it intentionally and with a mischievous wink of the eye. He’s trying to offend you, and you’ll love it.
