BULLY

I didn't go into BULLY expecting much, and unfortunately it didn't do much to change my mind.

There are moments where you can still hear what made Ye such an exciting producer. The samples are interesting, there are some beautiful textures, and every now and then something appears that reminds you of the artist behind 808s or The Life of Pablo. BULLY left me with a strange feeling: I enjoyed parts of it, but sometimes I wondered whether I was enjoying Ye’s music or simply recognizing music I already loved.

Too often I found myself waiting for the music to actually do something to me.

That's ultimately how I judge an album. Before the ideology, controversy, meaning or lyrics can make me appreciate a record, the music itself has to make me feel something. Make me bop my head. Give me a melody I want to hear again. Make me immediately flip the cassette back to Side A when it finishes.

I KNOW THIS SONG ALREADY

Sampling has always been at the heart of Kanye’s production. The difference is that his best work could take a familiar record, chop it, twist it and rebuild it until the sample became part of something completely new.

You hear echoes of The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Cortex and plenty more throughout the project. Sometimes they create genuinely beautiful moments, but too often the familiarity of the source material seems to be doing the heavy lifting.

VITAMIN C, OR SOMETHING NEW?

Ironically, one of the moments I enjoyed most came on the last track of Side B with “LOSING YOUR MIND,” essentially Ye's reworking of Can's “Vitamin C.”

It's hardly the most original moment on the album — it's extremely close to the Can track — but musically it was one of the few moments where I immediately connected with what I was hearing. The groove works. The instrumentation works. I wanted to keep listening.

That says quite a lot about my experience with BULLY.

Other listeners have had similar arguments about the track: some dismiss it because of how heavily it relies on Vitamin C, while others consider it one of the more enjoyable moments from this era.

I also don't think separating Ye's music from everything surrounding Ye is particularly easy anymore. But in this case, I don't really need to.

Because even if I remove all of that and judge BULLY purely as music, I'm still not particularly impressed.

And that's important to me.

An artist can have the most interesting philosophy in the world. The lyrics can have ten different meanings. There can be an incredible story behind the recording.

But if the music can't make me bop, the explanation isn't going to make me bop either.

There are glimpses of something much better here.

More significantly, many tracks seem like remakes, and even if that was intentional, it feels like I'm being compelled to appreciate this album for being familiar with most of the songs from their original versions. I just wish there were more tracks that allowed me to forget I was reviewing the album and simply enjoy listening to it.

AND THE TAPE DOESN'T SAVE IT

The cassette itself doesn't sound particularly impressive either, which makes the physical listening experience harder to recommend.

Favorite moment: LOSING YOUR MIND / HIGHS AND LOWS / DAMN

Final verdict: 5.8/10

Interesting production ideas and occasional flashes of the Ye that made extraordinary records, but BULLY rarely turns those ideas into songs I actually want to replay. I didn't expect to love it — and by the end, it hadn't given me much reason to.