Ah, I'm gonna argue with you.

We're arguing now. Oh, yeah? Well, I'm gonna argue with you. I'm arguing with you now.

Oh, yeah, that's me arguing with you.

Oh, yeah, well, this is me arguing with you.

Okay, hey everyone, Arthony Guetano here the Internet's most argumentative music nerd and it's time. It's been a while since a "Let's Argue" where I respond to your hot takes your unpopular opinions your tough questions and You know, address the best ones. Hopefully fingers crossed. Let's do it.

"Kanye does NOT have an album with zero bangers. Even vulters 2 has river, donda 2 has 530 ,bully has all the love etc. - @loukasantoniou7319

Okay, I feel like we're kind of just throwing the word banger at anything. There are no bangers on Bully. There are no bangers on, you Vultures 2.

And I would say this is especially true for an artist of Kanye's stature and size. This is a man who repeatedly across his career has come out with multiple undeniable smashes with pretty much every album cycle. And these days the only people getting boners over Kanye's tracks are dudes who are like in some kind of Kanye cult.

Sorry if that's a little mean. Sorry if that's a little presumptuous, but you know what? I grew up during a time of, "Gold Digger". I grew up during a time of Through the Wire", of freaking Graduation.

Not to mention the quality and focus in the songwriting and the lack of collaborations across much of Bully really kind of kneecapped the potential of that record. I just don't understand why at this point we are still like coping with yay.

It''s not necessary. We don't need to do it. We can just simply acknowledge the man has made numerous great, amazing, classic, influential, groundbreaking albums. That is enough. That is enough.

There are things you do. It's not enough that artists who would kill to have the kind of creative run that Ye has had during his peak. We don't need to delude ourselves into believing, well, every single album has bangers on it. Give me a break.

I don't even believe that of my favorite artists of all time ever – Prince is one of my favorite artists – do you think I'm sitting here trying to convince myself that every single album in that man's catalog has undeniable bangers on it? Have you seen the Prince catalog? Okay, bud.

"Ok bud, the Lemon twigs are telented, I will give you that, here and there they deliver some cool tunes. The problem with them, is they fall so hard into the revival exercise (beach boys, kinks, beatles) that not infrequently they sound like a tribute band and nothing more than that. Cartoonish even in their last album (I just can't get over losing you is as "original" as That thing you do). Not that good tbh." - @DavidMartinez-vo2cn

Okay, look. I will say of the three latest Lemon Twigs albums, the new one is probably the one that I'm most shaky on.

And I would agree with a lot of the sentiments you were expressing here if they were simply limited. To the first couple of releases from these guys. I am not somebody who has been in love with this band out of the gate.

In fact, I was skeptical to start for sure. But personally, I think the songwriting and production and singing has gotten too good to ignore and the band for sure has not stayed sort of in that dark place that I think a lot of tribute-ish bands do where the performances stink and the songwriting stinks and all they really have going for them have going for them is the nostalgia of the era that they're bringing back. I guess the difference maker for me is that I can imagine a lot of their songs being sort of produced or presented musically in different ways and they still would be appealing on some level.

I'm not going to say it's not derivative. Obviously it is. But for me, while an extreme lack in originality can certainly knock an album down a few points if it's super severe, I don't know. It doesn't really trump, I think, bad songwriting or replacing it and I'm not going to say it. Take away from an album's enjoyability in the way that bad performances and songwriting can predominantly. Yeah, look, I'm not shaken by this comment, okay?

I'm going to keep enjoying my Lemon Twigs – but you make a fair point and you don't have to like them, that's fine.

Slayr is proving that being a good rapper is exactly what people want nowadays. His sound is nothing we haven't heard yet. He makes it sound completely fresh and original simply by choosing not to waste production on a half-baked freestyle done in a drugged-out headspace. He also got super gas transitions and creates true albums that don't feel like mislabeled mixtapes. - @BlinGsterTinGster

Look, I echo a lot of what you're saying here, though I think it comes down to a lot more than just simply lyricism. And even though Slayr does often get kind of labeled and put in the lane of rage, as a lot of underground rappers do these days, he clearly borrows a lot of sounds from hyperpop, emo trap, and pop punk too and mixes them all together into songs that have very clear, snappy structures. And it's that level of focus and care and purpose and effort that, I feel like a lot of artists are not willing to put in these days, across many different genres.

Because, many such cases, today audiences are merely happy with, kind of getting the same vibe and sound that they get off of whatever viral TikTok clip is going crazy at the moment. Or just kind of hitting a vibe, an aesthetic, getting a loop together, or an aura, that can be felt for maybe 90 to 120 seconds at a time.

Which, honestly, I feel like we should call this sort of thing out for what it is. It's just slop songwriting. It's slop. I think this is exactly why Slayr has collaborated very successfully recently with Tiffany Day. Because a lot of the songwriting and music creation fundamentals that he works into his own tracks also carry over into Tiffany's music. Regardless of sort of what genre each of them are actively placed into. Though there is a lot of stylistic overlap between both of them, for sure.

"You give out too many 10s! I feel like a Fantano 10 used to have this aura, this mystique! There was a time when a 10 was more coveted than a Grammy."

HA! Okay. Sorry....

But in recent years, I feel like they have become watered down, especially with you going back and giving perfect scores to albums retroactively. Be honest. How often do you revisit In the Aeroplane Over the Sea? Is it more than you listen to Sinner Get Ready? What I mean is that if two albums are 10s and you find yourself gravitating to one more than the other, how can they both truly be 10s, it kinda contradicts the idea that so many albums can be truly 'perfect'. That being said, this new Genesis Owusu album is a 10 with the weird chipmunk vocal track on there? - @ryannwe

No, I'm sorry. I'm absolutely sorry. Also, do you know how old I am? Is this a person who thinks I'm like 30 because I just got that fresh skin? You know I'm a millennial, right? You know millennials will take a bullet for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, correct? Are you seriously insinuating that I really love Sinner Get Ready but I only went back and gave In the Aeroplane Over the Sea a 10 just because it's, hype and cool and chill and trendy online? I grew up in the fucking Jeff Mangum trenches!

"I love you, Jesus Christ!" - Jeff Mangum

Okay, yeah, I've done a handful of videos where I've gone back to some particular decades and I've given already, widely praised and beloved albums, 10s. As if that's something that even really matters in the grander scheme of things. Because, these are already, considered, for the most part, to be perfect albums.

Pretty uncontroversial picks in terms of, what I've said from back in the day as a 10 out of 10. Oh, Prince's Purple Rain? A really daring take there, Anthony. You're really watering down the 10s by saying this amazing, perfect, beloved album is perfect and beloved. Oh, the humanity. Oh, no, life is over as we know it.

But also, I've been doing regular album reviews for going on 16, 17 years now at this point. Over that course of time, I've only given out nine real-time 10s. This argument is even crazier when you consider that on my main channel there's, 5,000-plus reviews.

Yeah, man, I'm just slinging those 10s around, left and right, like they're nothing.

"The anger surrounding the game Mixtape is purely based off how deliberately cringe the game is and has nothing to do with its merit as entertaining software." - @ashe.7945

I'm sorry, I thought you guys didn't like cringe.

Isn't stuff being cringe, doesn't that make it less entertaining?

Y'all are telling me that I'm less entertaining because I'm cringe all the time. When does cringe ruining something apply and when does it not? Can y'all do the thing where it doesn't apply to me? That'd be great.

I don't know, at least from what I could see from the outside, Mixtape doesn't really appeal to me as a title because it's kind of one of these movies masquerading as a video game-type experience. If that's the sort of thing that you want to do in a video game, there's nothing wrong with that. That's totally fine.

But being somebody who only casually games, that's not the type of title that I seek out personally. But yeah, I wouldn't overthink it. If you like the game and you enjoy it, just like it and enjoy it. All the fun little musical tie-ins are cool for sure.

That's cool.

"The Fall Off is awful because of how Cole clearly had his head up his ass making it. I feel like you can't make an album with so much very intentional hype and also not even attempt to develop or evolve past random things he took from seven different 90s rappers." - @themostepictrash3719

Wait, is he up his own ass or is he up the ass of the seven different 90s rappers? I don't know if I fully agree with your framing over here. I think I can be forgiving to Cole for the elements of the record.

I think I can be forgiving to Cole for the elements of the record that are very kind of centered around his self and his own personal story because there is kind of like, an autobiographical element to the album that I think actually kind of works in its favor.

And then there's also kind of like this retrospective nostalgic element to it as well because he's going back to the past and reflecting on a lot of his formative experiences and his influences.

I will agree with you, though, the album did really kind of fall short of the hype. He was not nearly as ambitious with it as I thought he was going to be, given the story.

The size of the record – given how much time he made us wait for it – It's not that great of a moment to end on if this is truly like his last record, his bowing out, his finale moment. If this were a record that was like just going to be another J. Cole album, I would say it's good, which I have said it's good. I do think it is a good album.

But unfortunately, long term, I feel like the status of the record and the context it exists within is going to eat away at it because this is not the blowout this record should have been, given that it's coming from an artist of J. Cole's lyrical talent and caliber.

"Your take on the new Strokes single feels extremely dated and unfair. Knee-jerk hating on autotune is so late 2000s, early 2010s. Keep up, buddy." - @drv4543

Honestly, no.

No, I'm more recent than you are. You are behind me. You are in the past.

Because the era in which autotune is this new novel thing that we have to marvel at and act like, "Well, it's very forward thinking to have it kind of used in this context", that's actually early fucking 2010s.

Now we're in the mid-2020s, and autotune is not boundary-pushing, it's not novel, it's not experimental, it's not interesting as a thing in and of itself. You can't simply just apply it and expect people to think there's something interesting about it or to just listen past it just because it's a new thing and you're adjusting to it and figuring it out.

No, the autotune grace period is over. It's done now.

We don't need to keep sort of like being complimentary toward autotune if we don't like it, especially when it's being used in contexts that aren't aesthetically cohesive.

Don't come in my comments here and gaslight me and gaslight my audience like we haven't all heard songs for the past 20 years using autotune that we've all liked. And no Strokes fan is reacting to this song as if they've never heard any vocal effects or autotune on Julian's vocals before.

We've heard him collab with Daft Punk. We heard Angles. We've heard him record numerous tracks with The Voids. Maybe Julian doing this is new to you, but to the rest of us, no, it's not.

And it just sucks on this track. It's a crappy application. I'm sorry, it sucks.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you." - @The3rdAttempt

I hate you? Where's this guy from? My subreddit? Huh?

Come on, man. What's going on here?

"2Slimey is unironically a great music artist that pushes boundaries you are ready to have pushed" - @mikayel2525

Yes, I am ready for the 2Slimey boundaries to be pushed. Push them, 2Slimey. Push.

Nah, but look, I think those first couple of 2Slimey projects and tapes were definitely wild for the time period that they came up in. At least, with the level of exposure that they were getting, the level of visibility that they were getting.

But I feel like he more or less has kind of settled into a sound that, with each project I hear, it's kind of expected. And the scene that he operates within just evolves so aggressively and so quickly that it's kind of hard to keep up sometimes.

Whoever's doing something different or pushing the boundaries or who is in the lead is like an ever-shifting game of musical chairs in a way. The moment you sit down and focus on a particular sound or direction, you have kind of gotten up from the chair and have allowed some other guys to do something even weirder, an opportunity to kind of usurp you.

While I do think Slimey is more conventional than your average rapper out there these days. I don't know. It's been a minute since I've heard a track from him that's like blown my mind as much as the music that I heard when I first did a formal review of his stuff.

"A good album cover is 90% of the time what makes an album iconic or really loved by the mainstream and niche. (Imaginal Disc, Court of the Crimson King, etc.)" - @Rinkley

I don't know if we can quantify it with a 95%.

I'm going to be honest because there are plenty of albums out there with great covers, but the content of the music within sucks. And there are also a lot of great albums and amazing albums with covers that I don't think are that great or striking or memorable.

I don't really like the cover for David Bowie's Black Star. Not blown away by it. Not that intrigued by it. I think he's had far better album covers to be frank. But it's still an amazing and mind-blowing record.

Look, I don't want to play too much devil's advocate with this question because I feel like ultimately I would be inadvertently recommending against artists putting kind of thought, passion, and effort into their album art and they absolutely should.

But at the end of the day, the music has got to be what you actually sit there and frickin' listen to. The best thing an album can do for your record is be interesting, alluring, and be intriguing, and be unique enough and striking enough and striking enough to pull people in and make them curious to actually listen to the music.

And then possibly on top of that, enhance maybe the experience of hearing the album because visually the record encapsulates the experience of the music in some way. And it's like, oh, now I kind of get why it looks like that because this is how the music feels. That is the mark of some great album art. I don't buy into this idea that the album art is 95% of why albums get popular. That's crazy.

There are loads of bands and songs that get popular off of a variety of different things. I don't know, music videos, live performances, a popular single. You're telling me the album art for Michael Jackson's Thriller contributed more to the popularity of that album than the "Thriller" music video?

GET OUTTA MY FACE!

"Anthony, here's a question. The people I know regularly consume AI-generated music, videos, and content knowing it's AI because it sounds and looks nice to them. They don't care about artists as they see AI filling the role and doubt the impact their regular consumption has environmentally. To them, they have no reason to tolerate AI content any less than real content, which kind of makes sense to me – I guess if you don't care, then that is what it is. My question is if I'm wrong to comply with their indifference." - @ManityG-pk5ry

I mean, comply with their indifference in what way? Just by allowing them to exist in the AI slop minds that they have voluntarily placed themselves into. I say voluntarily with an addendum because the only reason we have all of this AI-generated video and content to begin with is because all of these companies and data centers that exist purely off of all of this speculative investment from money that is being siphoned off of us through our labor, through our wages, through the stock market, through politicians and regulators treating these companies with fucking kids' gloves.

If any of these institutions that would normally be controlling any of these things and making sure that they weren't doing stuff like generating CSAM on a regular basis, these entities would have been shut down or broken up or defanged in some way quite a while ago. But instead, us and our economy and our environment is being taken on a wild fucking ride against our collective will, and maybe there are some people along the way who are kind of like content to consume the dumb AI slop content as it's all happening.

Honestly, if you care about doing the most amount of good in regards to this whole situation, it may not necessarily do you or anyone too much good to be pestering your friends or relatives about how many Love Island fruit TikToks they're watching. If that kind of crap is like a part of your usual content diet on a regular basis, you are a lost soul. I don't really know if that kind of person is salvageable.

Honestly, it would most likely be a better use of your focus and effort to try to team up with others to prevent data centers from being built in your local area or get somehow active in politics and knowledgeable of those who may be running for office who might actually try to combat some of these trends that we've been seeing in tech and in data centers, AI, etc.

Unfortunately, we're talking about problems and issues here that are very broad and very large. urgent and very systemic and can't merely be changed or fixed or eliminated by trying to get those who are immediately around us to make better personal choices.

"Habibti and Maid of Honor sound better if you choose not to take them seriously" - @MobiusVII

I mean, I like those albums better than Iceman, and I feel like part of the reason those albums sound better is that they're not taking themselves as seriously as Iceman kind of took itself. They're more fun, casual listens where the stakes don't feel quite as high because Drake doesn't feel pressure to drag out every stupid thing that he could bring up about the battle and then throw it back in our faces and twist it into a W when in reality, like he's just bringing up old L's and there's nothing he can say and there's no way he can frame it two years later that's going to make all of it look good.

He still lost. He still put out the worst of all the tracks. He still tried to sue over the whole damn thing. There's literally no use in re-litigating all of this – and yet he tried to – but at least he moved on and did something with these other records that was different and was more from a place of just passion and the enjoyment of creating music itself.

I hope he's able to just kind of focus on that more in the future.

And there you go, guys. Argue in the can. There you go. We argued, didn't we?

Yes, we did. A little more than usual, maybe.

Y'all are the best.

Anthony Fantano. Arguing. Forever.