Hi everyone, Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for a review of this new Ye album, Bully.

Here we have a new record from legendary rapper, songwriter, and producer Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, who has returned with a new record, and I have returned to review it.

As some of you may already know, I have been on a little bit of a Ye sabbatical, and was dodging giving proper critiques of records like Vultures, Vultures 2, and all the garbage "HH" 'cousin sucker' songs he's been dropping as of late.

Because for the last few years, Ye has been spiraling out musically and personally, so much so that even some of the most moronic streamers on the planet couldn't continue to pretend it was cool.

It seems I once again had a point but was skewered for it anyway. But it wouldn't be the first time. Because, again, not only was Ye making music that was so low-effort, shitty, vitriolic, and stupid that it was beyond criticism, but also — and this is the point a lot of idiots missed — if I covered these records seriously in real time, what would even be the intended audience for that?

Because Ye's statements and behaviors over the last few years have understandably pushed a lot of people away, so basically the only people who are still left willing to even watch a review are the most parasocial psychos who are most likely going to reject any criticism of him. Because, believe it or not, I actually don't make content just to please Kanye fart sniffers.

So, I figured for as long as Ye would continue using his platform to, uh, spread fascism and self-immolate, there wasn't really a point in talking about it all that deeply. And I won't apologize for not wanting to fully humor a man while he is covering himself in swastikas and ruining one of hip-hop's great legacies.

In fact, I would argue that some of his biggest supporters over the last few years are really his biggest enemies, because they really only serve to validate his worst tendencies, because they're more in love with him as an individual than they are the music he makes. And really, this is no more evident than in how some were willing to openly embrace Ye using AI on the initial version of Bully, and even brush off the question of how much AI there is still potentially left on this album.

Because they don't even care if what they're hearing on his records is actually him, or some random background guy or writer using an interface to sound like him; just as long as Ye's name is on it and he's shoving it down his fans' throats, that's all that really matters.

And yeah, I know so far this review is kinda turning more into a commentary on Ye's audience than it is a commentary on the music itself, but it's not as if Ye hasn't mutated his fanbase into the weird form it's taken today. And this man is nothing if not acutely aware of who is listening to his music and what they want from him. In fact, this has been one of his greatest strengths across his career.

Part of what's made him such a compelling figure in music is how willing he's been to fly in the face of his audience's desires and those around him in the music industry. Like, 'Kanye, don't rap, don't go solo, just make beats. Just make hip-hop music, don't fuse that stuff with pop music and electronica. And even though that was good, give us more rap songs, don't do a bunch of autocrooner-type cuts and start a new genre essentially,' etcetera, etcetera, and etcetera.

Hardcore fans know how the story goes, and even casuals understand Ye's progression, too, and also how that contrarian streak developed into a negative feedback loop barreling Ye toward extremist ideology. Something he has since apologized for on a few platforms, which seemingly has been enough to get him back in a position where he is getting platformed and pushed on music streaming platforms again, even landing a headline spot at the UK Wireless Festival this year.

But as surprising as it has been to see Ye course-correct with all of this, it does all increasingly feel more and more like damage control than actual atonement. Because after his apology for all of the antisemitism, his lawyers then went on to explain away many of these comments as "art," which, personally I feel like muddies the waters and downplays the severity of a lot of what he did and said, and even feels like an insult to his past albums and moments where he was legitimately making great art.

And, you know, let's not also forget about the crazy shit he said about Jay-Z's kids, his public admission, too, of beating women when trying to support P. Diddy online, which, I don't know, was all of that art, too? Of course, he's currently facing a few major sexual assault cases at the moment, which, again, is kind of hard to ignore in light of those comments.

And there are some hardcore —I don't even want to say fans— but cultists who will respond to all of this and say, 'You know what, that- like, that's just Ye, though.' And while yes, it is true that prior to this rabbit hole, he has been falling down since like 2016, 2017, Ye has always been known to be conceited and egotistical, erratic, and sometimes delusional. Remember when the Bill Cosby tweet was the craziest thing he had ever said?

For a long time, with Ye and his fanbase, there has been this running joke of missing the old Kanye and where's the old Kanye? But everything that's transpired over the last few years has finally given us legitimate cause to miss the Ye of the 2000s, of the early 2010s. And it feels like he's consciously trying to answer that feeling on Bully, a record that's been evolving slowly and messily for about a year now.

Many fans heard an initial version of this LP uploaded to YouTube a while back, which apparently featured quite a bit of AI vocals and who knows what else. I'm really not gonna get into the hair-splitting here in this review of what is real, what isn't, with Bully. And even with Ye publicly announcing that there is zero AI on the album, the well has been poisoned, trust has been smashed with anyone who has critical thinking skills — I just hope it's a practice he avoids in the future.

What I really wanna talk about is the direction Ye is taking this album in, and whatever statement he's trying to make with it, as he is typically known for evolving from project to project, focusing on certain production aesthetics, co-writers and collaborators, and themes, to make each album cycle special and specific. And Bully is surprisingly devoid of any excitement on those fronts, honestly.

Part of the reason that I decided to try this record is that I caught wind that Kanye was not pulling the same kind of bigoted bullshit he was on Vultures and Vultures 2. But once I heard the entire record in full, I was surprised to find that the album is completely devoid of anything that might rub anyone the wrong way.

Not that a Ye album has to be offensive to be good, but it's important to remember that he has not always been defined by offensive or hateful and bigoted material in his music. But what he has always been is very much audacious and confrontational. And in the process of toning things down for Bully, I think he has also lost that quality and that willingness to challenge himself and his listeners artistically. Because also typically Ye is not an artist who really gets all that bogged down in nostalgia for himself. The version of himself he's usually in love with the most is whatever the current version is.

And when he does look back to the past, it's typically to expand upon old ideas that he's known for, or maybe make a little self-aware joke about how far he has come since records like College Dropout and Late Registration.

But now Bully isn't just Ye treading a little bit of water, that's really kind of the MO of the album. Because the writing, performances, and production on this thing reek of a desperation I don't think we've ever heard from him to this extent. Because nearly every song on this thing, to one degree or another, is essentially saying, 'Hey, remember me? I'm Kanye! Remember all these sounds that I used to do? The ones you loved? Remember I'm egotistical in, like, a funny way? And I love my mom, and I'm into white girls? That's me! I'm Kanye.' And it seems like the intention in that is to transport us back to a time when him and his music felt safe, relatable, and most importantly marketable.

As if he's still the underdog he was back in 2004. But honestly, that time is gone. It's not coming back. And there's no forcing it back, no matter how much Ye manages to behave from now into the future. Not to say that he couldn't make better music than this at one point again. He could. But it's gonna require a lot more than just, like, nostalgia and a bunch of beats that call back to Graduation and Life of Pablo and College Dropout and Yeezus to do it.

I think Bully also illustrates how much of a reach a great album is for Ye, and Ye alone at this point. Because this man is just not much without his rotating cast of eager collaborators who are willing to bend over backwards and do whatever it takes to make another classic record. With each album this guy does, anyone who participates wants to be on what could potentially become, like, the next monster.

And sure, while you do have ride-or-dies in tow, like Travis Scott, who gives a pretty mid-tier performance on "FATHER", you also have some neat talkbox stuff from Andre Troutman, which are a little kitschy, especially on this one track that interpolates "Close to You" by Carpenters — maybe my least favorite moment on the album.

Don Toliver is here, and he barely makes a dent. And then you also have Ye essentially using Peso Pluma to do a Latin crossover moment that is laughable at best. Oh yeah, and also CeeLo screaming his head off on the title track of the record in a very unflattering way. So yeah, what crossovers and collabs we do get on this project are not really, you know, all that exciting or great, not adding to these tracks' quality that much.

Meanwhile, songs that are maybe a little bit more nostalgic go over more smoothly, remind us of artful high points in Ye's past. While they are decent and passable and acceptable listens, they're also kind of scant and don't really reach many, if any, interesting peaks. It's like Ye doesn't have the collaborative juice or star power to kinda bring these tracks to a fully realized state.

I will say, though, nothing I'm hearing here sounds as shitty and as low effort and as just barely complete as a lot of what we were handed on Donda 2 or Vultures 2. What these tracks are to my ears are as close to done as Ye could get them to be, mostly on his own, whether that is the track "KING" or "PUNCH DRUNK", "WHATEVER WORKS", and many others.

Because I think a lot of these songs, again, they establish themselves pretty well, but ultimately go nowhere fast or fizzle out before they overstay their welcome, because there wasn't really anywhere else interesting for them to go, uh, once we reached that point where they might turn a corner or something.

And then there's the rapping on the record, which I will say, by usual Ye standards, is not terrible. Certainly not as pointless and as underwhelming as many of the riff performances that we received on these very unfinished projects recently, where Ye hadn't even bothered to fill in all of the lyrical gaps yet. So, in that sense, he is actually dotting his i's and crossing his t's on Bully.

However, the performances on this record are nowhere near as animated, or expressive, or over-the-top as he's been on past albums, even JESUS IS KING, which is for sure not the most glaring problem with this album, but it's a very apparent change, and I read it less as a sign that he's lost it, and another signifier that he is attempting to make a project here that once again feels safe and feels predictable and feels like it's not about to fly off the rails and do anything too nutty.

But that is not what made him an interesting artist in the first place. Not to say that I'm endorsing that he do anything, like, self-destructive or hurtful or harmful. No, I'm talking more about that unpredictability factor that he had artistically. There was always that X factor. You never knew where he was gonna take the music next. That wow factor, that creative ambition that he's always been known for, it's just not really here.

And because of that, this album, while it is listenable, it's like the most normal-sounding Ye album ever. Yeah, not terrible, not even close to his worst album in my opinion, but it's also not even close to his best album either. Really, Bully feels like the record he was forced to make since having to readjust the way he presents himself due to what he has said in recent years, and also the limited capacity he's been making this music in because of all the creative bridges he's been burning nonstop for 2 years.

Which I think could have drawn him into a bunch of different directions creatively, but what he did do was just kind of give us this unending nostalgia fest. Which was a choice, and I don't think it was a great one.

Meanwhile, lyrically, he's kind of flying over many of his recent controversies like a minefield. Though I will say, tracks like "HIGHS AND LOWS" do read a little bit like an apology and a desperate ask not to abandon him after putting his audience through everything he did on Vultures 1 and 2. But then also, simultaneously, on this record, we have bars about how people were switching up on him, as if there have not been real and legitimate reasons for doing that, which is a hard pill to fucking swallow.

Very unfortunate, considering that "PREACHER MAN" I think does have one of the better vocal performances — and beats too — from Ye; definitely more conviction on that one than many tracks on this album.

So while, yeah, I think ultimately Bully is, uh, okay, I can't really ignore how annoyingly self-referential this record is for him. Not to mention that it comes across like an act of manipulation on some level, a really cynical and shitty way of using all of these amazing, groundbreaking ideas that he's been known for for years, and then employing them to bandage up all of these self-inflicted wounds that many had been begging him to stop putting on himself.

And look, I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm not trying to be an asshole here, I'm not trying to be unfair or say that it's like impossible to win me over here. But whatever that it is, it is not this. Which is why I'm feeling a strong 4 to a light 5 on this record.

Anthony Fantano, Ye. Heh.