Kanye West New Album: 'Yeezus' Reviewed By Lou Reed

While Kanye West's new album Yeezus has been dissected and reviewed by just about everybody, there was one opinion we didn't even realize we were missing: Lou Reed's. The former Velvet Underground member weighed in on Yeezy's latest for The Talkhouse.

A few choice quotes:

People say this album is minimal. And yeah, it's minimal. But the parts are maximal. Take "Blood on the Leaves." There's a lot going on there: horns, piano, bass, drums, electronic effects, all rhythmically matched - towards the end of the track, there's now twice as much sonic material. But Kanye stays unmoved while this mountain of sound grows around him. Such an enormous amount of work went into making this album. Each track is like making a movie.

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Very often, he'll have this very monotonous section going and then, suddenly -"BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP!"- he disrupts the whole thing and we're on to something new that's absolutely incredible.

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He seems to have insinuated in a recent New York Times interview that My Beautiful Dark, Twisted Fantasy was to make up for stupid shit he'd done. And now, with this album, it's "Now that you like me, I'm going to make you unlike me." It's a dare. It's braggadoccio. Axl Rose has done that too, lots of people have. "I Am a God" - I mean, with a song title like that, he's just begging people to attack him.But why he starts the album off with that typical synth buzzsaw sound is beyond me, but what a sound it is, all gussied up and processed. I can't figure out why he would do that. It's like farting. It's another dare - I dare you to like this. Very perverse.

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He thinks that getting head from nuns and eating Asian pussy with sweet and sour sauce is funny, and it might be, to a 14-year-old.

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 As if he's some piece of shit from the street who doesn't know nothing. Yeah, right - your mom was a college English professor.

While many people have called Kanye's latest "challenging," Reed takes on the whole idea of music being described as a challenge.

Still, I have never thought of music as a challenge - you always figure, the audience is at least as smart as you are. You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they'll think it's beautiful. When I did Metal Machine Music, New York Times critic John Rockwell said, "This is really challenging." I never thought of it like that. I thought of it like, "Wow, if you like guitars, this is pure guitar, from beginning to end, in all its variations. And you're not stuck to one beat." That's what I thought. Not, "I'm going to challenge you to listen to something I made." I don't think West means that for a second, either. You make stuff because it's what you do and you love it.

What do you think of Lou Reed's Yeezus review?

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