This should have happened long ago. Ye’s been insufferable since 2016. That’s how long he’s been wearing a MAGA hat. I can’t believe how long his apologism has lasted, but this was clearly a long time coming.

I can hear Tom saying “we will see them again” repeatedly in my head

“Sexy baby” is a 30 rock reference!

Can’t wait for the day I’ll read a story here headlined “Kanye West Dropped by Stereogum” (not that it’ll really happen?).

I lost my leg to a dog wearing a suicide vest so delete that pic. How dare you assign positive connotations to dogs, clothing and bombs

And Now For Something Completely Different: When I first heard it in early 2003, Danish duo Junior Senior’s “Move Your Feet” sounded like such a breath of fresh air. A joyous song that evokes the best of bubblegum soul without sounding like a slavish pastiche, it was a worldwide hit everywhere but in the US (although it did make #41 on the R&R pop charts that summer).

I teach middle school music and at that time, we were one-to-one iPads, so every one of the kids got that album on their school issued tablet. 

One day a class pranked me and mid lesson they all pressed play on Miracle of Joey Ramone at the same time.

the thing is…teenagers have always had unoriginal thoughts and been trend-followers. that’s kinda what being a teenager and figuring yourself out entails. pre-social media you’d copy whatever the skater kids you thought were cool were doing, in the time of myspace and early fbook you’d do the same. it’s just that the combination of the pandemic, a continually fraying society, and an endlessly accelerating culture-devouring mass communication network has made this particular generation even more obnoxious in large numbers in public settings.

Maybe it’s just me, but in past years it almost felt as if this was not a scene but rather something more akin to an arms race.

I stopped defending Kanye when he started to publicly bully Pete Davidson. As someone whose struggled with depression and suicide as a result of bullying, that was the straw that broke the camels back for me. I usually am not averse to someone’s political beliefs that don’t align with mine but when someone tries to hurt someone on a personal/individual level that signals to me that person is probably not a good person. Around that same time the jeen-yuhs documentary came out, and it reaffirmed this idea that Kanye wasn’t the same person who put out the college dropout, or even the same person who put out Yeezus/TLOP. For those who haven’t seen the documentary, the evolution of Kanye into the egomaniac he is today is crystal clear.

It truly is really sad what happened to Kanye and I’m really reluctant to blame his mental health issues for what has happened with him over the past year, although they are no doubt a contributing factor. I was talking to my partner about it, and I think what was unique about the Yeezus era of Kanye was that never has a musician talked so much shit and subsequently backed it up and lived up to the hype. Both Yeezus and TLOP are amazing records, and I would argue they both pulled off an amazing feat of living up to their hype. Unfortunately, the talking shit that he did around this time, while very entertaining, should have been taken as a warning for things to come. To tie this all together, I’m scared to blame his mental health issues for what hes become because it could be seen as an exemption for all the hate hes promulgated over the last year. Kanye is mentally ill – there is no doubt about that, but at the same time he is a dangerous egomaniac with incredible and hurtful delusions of grandeur. Just because hes mentally ill doesn’t make his hateful rhetoric OK.

This is gonna be my last post under the timescreamer account because i can’t live with the comments I’ve made in support of Kanye through his MAGA phase and pre-Pete Davidson bullying. I will probably continue to post here under a different name but I’m gonna bow out for awhile.

Love all u gummers, even if we’ve had vehement disagreements in the past.

Scowl, Dazy, Chat Pile, Dust Star, High Vis and Fugitive are some of my favorites from this list and shows that the future is looking bright for loud, fuzzed up guitars 🎸