Kanye West and the Curation of Frustration

When Kanye West breathlessly exclaimed the release of his new album, The Life Of Pablo, on this week's Saturday Night Live, he wasn't met with the gasps of shock that he was likely looking for. Online, the general reaction was one of relief; after a notoriously messy rollout that was beginning to threaten the convolution of Rihanna's Anti, the final product was here at last.

Well, not quite yet. On the other side of the screen, my friend and I spent a good half-hour desperately googling for a link or a sign of the supposedly-released stream. In typical modern West (and Tidal) fashion, the release was late and came with multiple misnamed tracks, seemingly as unorganized as they day it was conceived. One might expect a reaction here of frustration, but again, this wasn't the case. For us who had been following the rollercoaster of a release, such a drop was more than just par for the course - it was the only logical conclusion to the whirlwind ride that had caused Pablo to arrive two days late and stumbling into the light as though shaking off the hangover of an ill-advised night out. 

On the road to its release, the album we now know as The Life Of Pablo saw many forms. It went through numerous title and track list changes, many of which were announced on a barely legible notepad autographed by the most lucrative of names. These updates were peppered with increasingly troubling tweets, from West's now-infamous Bill Cosby siding to his defense of an embarrassingly juvenile line about Taylor Swift to the admission just before SNL that he was $53 million in debt. What this very public descent into madness says for West himself is horrifying and another topic of discussion for another day. 

What it says about the current state of music releases is another thing entirely. Through all the changes, all the confusion and all the middle fingers to the world at large, the public remained all-ears for West’s next opus. In fact, the constant flux of information created a curious effect; it actually became difficult to not anticipate the album. Even the biggest Kanye haters still found themselves refreshing their feed for a new morsel of half-baked opinion presented as ambrosia; the think-pieces on the ignorance and spectacle of the man only began to add into the hodgepodge of promotion for the release. West took the concept of “no press is bad press” to a whole new level - he actively curated frustration to fuel the hype.

Now of course, West would vehemently disagree with this assessment, but this was no revolutionary idea. Just a few weeks ago, the aforementioned Anti finally launched with a whimper via an accidental Tidal release to the chorus of millions of Rihanna’s Navy banging their heads against their walls. Besides the obligatory chart-fodder of the Drake-featuring “Work”, there was no clear hit on the album; even “Work” barely fit that bill. Remaining true to its name, Anti subverted all exceptions and hopes from both fans and critics alike, resulting a piece of work uniquely removed from realistic expectation. One could argue that this was Rihanna’s plan all along; one could just as easily argue that she truly stopped caring somewhere along the road. Either way, the album has been received mostly with surprised acclaim laced with bitterly conceded respect for its sheer irreverence to the structures that were once as integral to Rihanna’s star as her own voice.

Going against the grain doesn’t always work out as well, however. Nothing is more proof of this and relevant to the topic at hand than the case of Frank Ocean’s missing sophomore LP. The project had been rumored and hotly anticipated from just after the release of his debut channel Orange. The elusive R&B singer set the blogosphere ablaze early in 2015 when he posted a picture of what seemed to be his second album packaged as a magazine with a teaser hashtag of #JULY15. Well, as the sun set on the final day of July 2015 with no sign of an album much less an acknowledgement, fans began to crumble into hot frustration that sent Ocean’s name to the top of the trending topics. Unfortunately, there is yet to be a culmination to this story; his project (rumored to be called Boys Don’t Cry) still is nowhere to be found, with Ocean himself neglecting to even reference the stressful July of the past year. Fittingly, the only place we’ve heard Ocean since then is on The Life Of Pablo, soothingly closing the somber "Wolves" with a show-stopping verse that - again - brought him right back to the forefront of music fan’s discussions. With almost no promotion and little more than 20 seconds of total music released in the past year, Frank Ocean is once again the most anticipated name in R&B.

And likely, this is exactly what he was going for. In all three of these aforementioned cases, the collective anger of millions of fans and foes alike coalesced into something tangible. Trending topics, news headlines, thought pieces and condemnations all cobbled together create a fascinating whole: the modern promotion chimera. The days of traditional rollouts are slowly beginning to fade, and the proof is in the results; did anyone even blink when Coldplay announced A Head Full of Dreams, an album that bashfully released four weeks later to weak fanfare and middling reviews? No; it was Wilco’s release of Star Wars a day before their headlining performance of the whole set at Pitchfork Music Festival that turned modern rock fans' heads. Did Justin Bieber’s Twitter manipulation and use of famous friends to announce the release of Purpose light up the web? It did, but not as much as when Drake’s If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late - a glorified mixtape - showed up on iTunes with little more than word-of-mouth leading up to it to become one of the biggest pop records of the year. Both in terms of initial impact and long-term retention, the modern music-consuming public is clearly showing their preference.

To return to West, did the absurd rollout process affect how the world received Pablo? At least in my opinion, absolutely. In fact, the context of his stream-of-consciousness public persona gave an essential level of detail to the amalgam of sound and statement that drives the album. Just as the irreverence of Anti’s release structure lent the same devil-may-care attitude to Rihanna’s art, the mania that is Kanye West in 2016 is perfectly emulated in The Life of Pablo. To think of the project as an aural representation of West spewing his thoughts out onto a blank canvas and handing it to the world with a cherry on top is not only logical; it’s almost demanded by the time one makes it to the end of the tracklist.

To say we live in a complicated world of music is an understatement. We’re in the midst of the shift from digital downloads to streaming, from the traditional industry patterns to an age of throwing things at a wall to see what sticks (and recoups investments). And in the midst of it all, the projects that stand out are those that embrace the chaos. “Pulling a Beyoncé” was just the start; in 2016, expect music releases to become even more convoluted, frustrating, and - most importantly - compelling. One could argue that the Kanye method of promotion and release - complete, utter insanity - could actually be looked at as an extension of the final work itself. I’d tend to agree; in such a scatterbrained world, focusing attention is an art all its own, and truly enterprising artists are starting to see the crafting of frustration toward an eventual payoff as a worthwhile pursuit. Where this path will lead for music’s future is uncertain, but it will certainly catch us off-guard again and again on the way.

Bernie Sanders, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

(Photo by Phil Roeder, via Flickr)

I’ve proudly displayed a Bernie 2016 sticker bumper sticker on my blue, slightly beat-up Subaru for a few months now. The amounts of little jabs at my ever-so-hip car-and-politics combo, middle fingers from people with trucks and confederate flag ornaments, and enthusiastic thumbs-up in the rearview that I’ve received in that time are more or less equal. I willingly and proudly became a stereotype in order to show support for the most exciting politician and, if you’d believe his words, revolution leader to come forth in my adult life. That this is only my second legal election is beside the point.

Actually, it’s definitely not beside the point. As the excitement of 2015’s historic “digital grassroots” campaign began to wear off, I started to feel a bit like the callow millennial voter I’d laughed off being pegged as at first. I began to find myself repeating the complaints of my parents and many others, things along the lines of “okay, Bernie, and what else?” No more common was this than during the Democratic Town Hall that was held last week; in such a one-on-one alternative to the gladiator fights of the debates, I was excited to see Bernie given the perfect chance and - more importantly - ample screen time to bring his message past the repetitive rhetoric.

And yet, he didn’t do that. In fact, he even fielded a softball pitch - almost literally “what does Democratic Socialism mean to you?”, clearly meant to coax this sort of detail - with almost exactly the line that my roommate predicted seconds before. "What democratic socialism means, to me, is that economic rights, the right to economic security, should exist in the United States of America," said Sanders, preaching to the choir with the intensity of a weathered pastor counting the number of sermons left before retirement. "It means there is something wrong and government should play a role in making sure that all of our kids regardless of their income are able to get a higher education." The words are strong and not without blunt truthfulness; they are also words that we’ve heard from Sanders many times before as part of the same grab bag of buzzphrases he’s seemed to pull from to answer every question while the camera is on.

What’s frustrating about this willingness to rest on his laurels is not just its contrast against Sanders’ repeated claims of a political “revolution”. It's far worse, in fact; it’s reflective of a confusingly unfocused late-game strategy that only seems to indicate a lack of planning for the campaign to have gotten to this point at all. These rhetorically charged messages, these facile castings of the government versus the kids, of income and class warfare, were essential to the establishment of the uniquely successful grassroots campaign borne of the Internet and a generation - my generation - more than willing to listen when things are put in such dramatic terms. Even now, they seem like great outlines, the kind of talking points that we cheered for when Bernie forced the hand of the election season into discussing them.

But we’re not in 2015 anymore, and that ingenious social-media fueled early campaign has given way to far less than its counterpart at the national stage. Bernie Sanders is not just an established name at this point; he’s the direct underdog-with-candor in opposition to Hillary’s “establishment” politics, and certainly able to be considered a big name in the election season. He’s eaten up a sizable - but not majority - portion of the Democrat preference. And here he is in a position many dreamed of but a year ago; live on national news, in front of millions, engaged in a one-on-one interview with the attention of not only the devoted, but the unsure and even the opposed. Here, of all places, he chooses to lean on the same surface-level quotables we’ve heard for the past year.

Granted, Sanders has always favored an easy grab for a head-nod over detailed explanations of his policies. Granted, he did do a solid job with litigative transparency later in the discussion when he compared his voting record to Hillary’s in big votes such as Wall Street deregulation and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Granted, even, that he’s continuing to appeal very strongly to my generation which - granted - does not have the real-world stripes that lead many to shake their heads at Bernie’s idealism and ask to see the economic receipts. 

That all is granted, but a truly successful presidential campaign does not choose to shoehorn its appeal into one voter-base, and especially not one that historically has had a problem with actually getting off its asses come election day. The millennial still in college is all ears, of course, but Sanders has both the opportunity and impetus now to expand beyond his niche as the “youth candidate”. Ironically enough, the oldest candidate is still having issues reaching those closer to his age. To the average American, “Democratic Socialism” still sounds like something on a spectrum between Marxism and a blind fantasy that willfully ignores the capitalist backbone on which this country was built and continues to (for the most part) prosper. That’s not to say at all that his thoughts are to be laughed aside. However, it’s becoming difficult to argue for an unclear and controversial concept that even its champion refuses to explain. Such a politically inciting idea should be something that Sanders is itching to support with the sort of numbers-don’t-lie evidence that would appeal to the right-leaning voters he stands to sway; as it is, he seems content to let it remain a vague clarion call for those who’d rather not think about the details.

Therein lies the frustration of attempting to continue feeling the #Bern at the start of 2016. As fringe candidate Martin O’Malley continues an impressively stubborn losing campaign that has, to his credit, never fallen victim to sensationalism at the expense of never really gaining steam, many formerly unswayable Sanders supporters - myself included - are starting to wish that an O’Malley vote wasn’t so out-of-the-question. Even more frustrating, the Hillary Clinton campaign that has never truly needed to steady itself is still going strong, even as its candidate continues to prove that she needs to calculate the public response to any opinion (see: Keystone XL) before settling on something that would offend the least of her constituents (read: donors). Against a Goliath with so many weak points worth an attack, Bernie is playing a rather bashful David.

When the opportunity to unpack “Democratic Socialism” for the entire nation went unseized, thousands of Sanders supporters nationwide - once again, myself included - felt the momentum of his campaign begin to stall. As the night continued, those same supporters watched O’Malley make the absolute most of his time on stage with the charisma they once expected from their hero. They saw an ever-confident Clinton beam with renewed assurance that no more surprise “damn emails” moments would be thrown her way. And, frustratedly, they ended their watch with a feeling of lack - a lack of confidence in their candidate and a lack of an undefined but expected moment of #Bern that never came. Again, this is only weeks before the primary vote and days before the Iowa caucus. The #Bern should be burning brighter than ever, rather than complacently flickering as it currently seems to be. As the primaries loom on the horizon, now is not the time for Sanders to come off as anything resembling complacent. And unlike all of the other debates that left his supporters wanting more, there’s no longer a “next time” to hold hope for.

I’ll continue to rock my Bernie bumper sticker with the pride of a fan, albeit one with slightly less conviction. I’ll still be out for the primaries to cast my vote for him, even as I begin to accept that I will likely not be able to do the same in the fall. I’ll be following the Sanders campaign until he’s voted out of the race, a conclusion that is beginning to seem foregone. But I’ll be doing so with the concessive frustration baked into me by growing up as a Chicago sports fan - that my guy, despite all of the hope once poured into his name, will not be coming out of this on top. And frustrating of all - it’s his own doing (or lack of doing) that’s sinking the chance for a Sanders ticket.