Jerk Music Critic: Kanye West, Jesus Is King

There is a pernicious problem in religious media (and in these United States, this generally means Christian media) that because it's religious, religious people nod and say it must be good, even when it isn't. This is a big reason why I don't review Christian music here generally, even being Christian personally, because since the dreck isn't skimmed off there's actually more artless junk in Christian record catalogues than secular ones and I don't need to wallow in that sad realization. Yet now and again a religious album appears of such artistic quality and/or sophistication that given how high it stands above its contemporaries I end up feeling terribly wrong in praising it. With at most rare errancy West crystallizes his journey towards and with God into eleven tracks bookended by gospel and livened by hip-hop, and even at its clumsiest the album is smarter than people want to give it credit for. "What have you been hearin' from the Christians?" he asks in "Hands On," predicting accurately "they'll be the first one to judge me." At the same time, though, he shares their same aspirations and voices the common struggle to righteousness, "Made a left when I should've made a right ... told the devil that I'm going on a strike; I've been working for you my whole life." His metaphors on Christian reliance may be a little hamfisted in "On God," and his alleged tribulations might ring hollow to the struggling masses, but how else could a net worth of $250 mil pass through the proverbial eye of the needle? (On the other hand, although I'm hoping "Closed On Sunday"'s Chick-fil-A references were tongue-in-cheek, it just comes off as kinda dumb.) Musically, however, the production is exceptional as it splices more traditional gospel pieces to wrap around the singles (the rich "God Is" being the best example), and the performance quality is stellar. If it weren't for the fact it's unforgivably short, almost EP length, I would be seriously faced with the prospect of giving an album half this readership merely on principle will despise a full five stars. I don't know what's gone on in Kanye's life and I don't know how to walk a single inch in his shoes. I won't judge what he believes and I won't know how long he'll believe it. But here is a religious album that is still as scrupulously professional as his other productions yet unambiguous in his belief that it's his time to stand up for God. What he's saying here will bother or offend many and this album's unapologetic proselytizing makes it deeply controversial, yet he's determined he's still gonna say it and say it with the highest artistic level of quality he can muster. My beliefs may be my bias, but to my great personal astonishment I too nodded and said it was good, because it is. (Content: as stated.)

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Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

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An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

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A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

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Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

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Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

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Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

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How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.