A number of periods and a number of styles were employed to describe this albums sound to segue me into one of the most vital elements of this project, the involvement of Caroline Shaw. Keen readers might note the number of classical musicians referenced in that intro. To be a little bit frank and perhaps aureate with it, The Ring Cycle takes 16 hours to change your life but Street Lights (live at the hollywood bowl) by Kanye West makes more of a lasting impact in 3 minutes. It's an act of pop-minimalism that takes the ethereal template of Laurie Anderson and takes it to the all-encompassing, dizzying and unknowable totalist dream world that Wagner spent years of his life trying to capture. It's a cityscape painted through chants and harmony and a skyline above it that fluffs and moves with effervescent Reichian bliss. It's a hug from a thousand angels and it's a fall from the roof of a bright skyscraper that never ends. It's an impassioned vocal performance that shreds your throat just listening to it, it's a warming and humanist portrayal of depression that somehow uses it's melancholic roots to plant itself in the uplifting and heavenly. Today I'm not going to do that, today I'm going to begin by saying something I'm so desperate to say it can't wait for it's appropriate place in the review: The performance of Street Lights on this record is not only the highlight of Kanye Wests whole career but a near transcendent piece of art that peppers ambient guitar swells with dazzling and confident orchestral arrangements. ![]() ![]() ![]() Usually I would start a review with an anecdote, an introductory sentence on why I love the album conceptually or in some special cases a reference to an obscure religious or otherwise philosophical text.
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