Music journalism is saturated with timely critique by thoughtful taste makers, we here at Sam The Turtle prefer to operate in the post trendy-pre retro undereducated opinion space. We are behind the curve, but you’d be surprised by what you can see half a lap back. Today I listened to Yeezus.

   Kayne wants everything more than I want anything and feels worse about having gotten it than a starving orphan. By his account no one has ever understood him, given him his due, or allowed him to finish a thought. Yeezus is his tantrum to that effect.

 This is the howl of Narcissus drowning, the crunch of Scrooge being crushed by shifting bullion on a late night money bin swim, and fuck me if it isn’t amazing. How can something this self serving and unwarranted be this visceral and affecting?

 The first three songs are the poetry the kid you never talked too would have written on the back page of your yearbook if he hadn’t hung himself the night before prom; the next three, the shit he wrote on the underside of his coffin lid when they accidentally buried him alive. Should have checked the vitals.

 I don’t know where to put this. If Kayne burst into my house halfway through “New Slaves” and incited me to beat my neighbor I’d kick in the front door and smash  his cracker face into unrecognizable goo, and the second the song was over I’d lapse right back into seeing Kanye as a spoiled clown, until “Hold my Liquor” came on and we wept together over how powerless and ill served by women we were. He’s tearing me apart. How can that big of a tool make something this wise and ugly.

 And it’s not like there is some duality at play, the same entitlement and persecution that fuels his public brattiness is on display here, but we’re seeing it at the root. To make his point he drags us under his bed and lets the monster maul us together. Though Kayne, of course, bears wounds more artful and pain more exquisite than our own. Which is exactly the sort of things that should make this insufferable, except it’s awesome. Game, Kanye.