KANYE WEST MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY

It's a great album, period. 

I recently tweeted that it's easy enough to ignore Kanye West's interviews and public outbursts, just enjoy the music. Besides his own records, he's produced great music for John Legend (who he pretty much helped to become a big star), Common, Mos Def and a bunch of other people. That's the way I feel.

I don't like the way he acts - I actually had my own run-in with him before his debut album came out. But it doesn't take away from his music. At the same time, his great music doens't excuse (to me) his lesser efforts.  On my Kanye scorecard, I really like his first two albums, 2004's The College Dropout and 2005's Late Registration. 2007's Graduation was ambitious and I really liked some of it, but overall, it didn't do it for me. And I just couldn't get into 2008's 808s & Heartbreak. Going into this album, I really dug the King Crimson-sampling single "Power," and didn't really like "Runaway." So I figured there was a 50/50 chance that I would like it or not. But I definitely really like it.

The opening track, "Dark Fantasy," produced by The RZA, pretty much announces that this isn't another synthy, autotuney 808s type album. But I think the second track is where it takes off: "Gorgeous," featuring Kid Cudi and Raekwon (who are both great, but the song would stand without their verses). It's a song that a rock band should re-work.  It features a cool sample of The Byrds' "You Showed Me." "Power," like I've said, is amazing. "All Of The Lights" is pretty wild, it features a ton of guest vocalists, including Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Elton John, John Legend and Fergie, among others.  

The centerpiece of the album, to me, is "Monster," a classic collab track, featuring Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and... Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Minaj kind of steals the show with a classic verse, but the real star is Kanye's track, he produced it. Another rocking track is "Hell Of A Life" which borrows liberally from Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" (and in fact gives Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward songwriting credits). There aren't really any weak points on the entire album, and there are just so many highlights.  Yes, Kanye's attitude gets annoying, but it doesn't really ruin anything.

And by the way, even after listening to "Runaway" (the one that toasts "the douchebags and the assholes") I realized that it's actually a really good song (and would have fit in better on 808s).

"I'LL SCRATCH YOURS" - PETER GABRIEL COVERS

When Peter Gabriel first announced his Scratch My Back album of orchestral covers, he also mentioned that he'd be curating a collection called I'll Scratch Yours, with those same artists covering Peter's songs. But he's actually taking a more modern approach: releasing one digital "split-single" each month, with a song from Scratch My Back, backed by a reciprocal cover by the artist he is covering. The problem is, iTunes hasn't promoted these singles at all, so you have to know to look for them.  That's why I'm here.  I have them all (so far), let me tell you what I think.

Also, I have to say that when I discussed this album on SIRIUS XM OutQ's The Morning Jolt With Larry Flick, I was kind of not into the album, which is odd for me, as I have enjoyed every Peter Gabriel album up until this point. Taken as a whole, it can be kind of slow and pretentious. But taken as singles, I like it better. I've warmed up to it a bit.

Anyway, the first split single featured Magnetic Fields' frontman Stephin Merritt covering "Not One Of Us" from Peter's third album. It's probably the best of the covers so far.  It has some added emotional context because it was recorded right after California voted against gay marraige. I am not a Magnetic Fields fan, but I was impressed by the song. Plus, Peter's cover of their "The Book Of Love" is maybe my favorite song on the album, and that inspired me to get the original, which I like. I prefer Peter's version, actually.

The second was Paul Simon's cover of the classic "Biko."  I actually love this one also.  I think it is the best thing Paul Simon has done in ages. He's singing and playing a moving song on acoustic guitar.  It sounds like it could have been his song.  (In contrast, I did not like Peter's cover of Paul's "The Boy In The Bubble," one of my favorite Paul Simon songs).

Next was Bon Iver's version of "Come Talk To Me," a song that originally featured Sinead O'Connor from the excellent Us album. Bon Iver one of the indie rock bands that I've heard in the past few years that I've kind of enjoyed. "Come Talk To Me" is one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs, and Bon Iver really take it somewhere else, but I like this new interpretation. Peter's version of Bon Iver's "Flume"?  I think it would work well in an indie film, but I don't love it on its own.

Lou Reed covered Peter's "Solisbury Hill."  Supposedly, Peter wrote this after leaving Genesis to start his solo career, so I figured Lou Reed would identify with it.  I am a fan of Lou's, but I didn't dig his version of this classic. Meanwhile, Peter's verison of a relatively recent Lou Reed song, "The Power Of The Heart," was positively moving.  It's a side of Lou Reed most people aren't familiar with.

The latest release is Elbow's "Mercy Street," an under-appreciated song from So. The singer sounds  bit like Peter Gabriel in parts, I think the version is pretty good. I don't love Peter's verison of their "Mirrorball." This is my least favorite split single so far.

Peter's website reports that next month we'll get David Byrne's cover of "I Don't Remember." It's one of his more rocking songs (it's from the classic third album), I'm interested to hear what Byrne does with it.

PETER GABRIEL'S NEXT PROJECT: "SCRATCH MY BACK"

A few months ago, I wrote about Peter Gabriel's new project, and that he has reunited with Bob Ezrin, who produced some of his early albums. Well, I just looked into it a bit, and it turns out that the album is going to be called Scratch My Back, according to Peter's website. The idea of the album is that is a "song-swap": Peter will cover songs by artists, who, in turn, will cover his songs. Stylistically, it is an acoustic, orchestral album, meaning that there will be no guitars, drums, or "world music" instruments. One of the songs on the album will be Paul Simon's "The Boy In The Bubble," which is an interesting choice. Peter 's So and Paul's Graceland were some of the first albums by so-called "western" artists that were referred to as "world music" in the '80s. They were both incredibly original albums that still hold up to this day. Coincidentally (or not!) I wrote about both albums for VH1's 100 Greatest Albums of All Time book. Anyway, Peter is collaborating on the new album with a guy named John Metcalfe, who, in an interview with the UK's Guardian, said that other "swaps" on the album would be with Radiohead, Lou Reed, Bon Iver, David Bowie and Neil Young. The album is supposed to come out in the spring of 2010.

If you're a Peter Gabriel fan and new to No Expiration, by the way, check out Big Blue Ball, a hard-to-explain album that Peter curated which was released last year. I wrote about it here.