[music] SYSTEM OF A DOWN - Toxicity (American)

I heard a song on the radio (not to keep you in suspense, it was the title track from this record) and over the course of a few minutes went from being irritated -- in addition to not liking nu-metal, I had thought that the local alternative station made a big deal about a year ago over how they were renouncing their recent shouty-man style and restoring the format they had had until about 1999 -- to being fascinated. The vocals use metal tropes that I guess are not too unusual (dimestore opera swooping, overwrought but raw rather than technically confident) except that in place of the usual Cookie Monster voice, they use Kermit. And it turns out Kermit has somewhat more stylistic range.

I don't think I could listen to this twice, but I do really like the guy's voice. And the bombast feels oddly detached from the lyrics: I do not feel exhorted to take the horse flying over a great bay any more seriously than I would have otherwise; I feel exhorted to take Serj Tankian's feelings about the horse seriously, which is fine with me. If he can get me to listen to an entire metal album even once, he's entitled to a fair hearing for his beliefs on horses and, uh, prisons and things.

[music] KANYE WEST - The College Dropout (Roc-A-Fella) [5 listens]

I don't hear all that much chart hip-hop these days, so there's no way to be sure that what I think of as "weird" is even slightly unusual.

Kanye West's distinctive production quirk -- sped-up samples, especially from what sound like soul numbers -- doesn't get any less weird on repetition of these particular songs. Maybe if everyone's doing it this sounds unmarked to its primary audience. But I doubt it. Kanye also likes to sing and in places brings in kids to back him up. The magic's in how he keeps all this from being sugary, I guess.

The other thing I found weird, which I fear might not be at all, is his massive hostility toward education. I'd heard the background: West dropped out of college after a year to follow his dream in the music world. Since it worked out, he's not long on patience for people who told him it was a bad idea at the time. Okay. Fine. Okay.

But what comes out on The College Dropout is just CRAZY... through the mouths of skit characters, West reveals that he thinks "learning" and "being smart" are pure fictions constructed by academics to justify their existence, and to trick people out of pursuing important goals like making money. You won't hear hip-hop called "science" or "knowledge" on this record. It's work. The world contains a lot more legitimate beefs against the educational system than would fit on a single hour-long album (even with scary motormouth Twista on one track) but none of them make an appearance. This isn't about contrasting street smarts with book smarts; knowing things makes you a herb. Period.

The doubly weird thing, then, is how down-to-earth West can get about all that money that real men spend their time earning. He's got mixed feelings on greed and glamour; off the top of my head, the only *use* for money I remember him approving of is leaving it to your kids so they don't have to be drug dealers.

P.S. Take out one song, and all the skits, and I like this a bunch.