Oh my God. I can't believe it. I'm being chased. I'm going to die. No, no, no. Don't eat me. No, no, no, no. Please, I beg you, no. Oh my gosh. I've never run so fast in my life.

Hey, it's Anthony Fantano, the Internet's busiest music nerd, and it's time for another episode of Let's Argue, where I go on the internet, I take your hot takes, your unpopular opinions, your tough questions, I respond to the best ones. It's what I do. Another instance of that where I'm sniffily and low-key sick, but we're doing it anyway.

"I have no idea why Future is as big as he is. Some of the mumble moaning rap, like on Plutoski, is just laughable. Maybe that's the point, and I get that there's a market for his type of music, but I'm just baffled by his audience size and amount of streams." - @blankface_

I mean, simply put, Future makes fucking bangers. I mean, no more, no less. Also take into account that we currently exist in an era of the music industry where viral songs and singles reign supreme, especially when it comes to Future's particular strain of hip hop.

For sure, there are some future fans that are making their entire way through any given album here and there. But I mean, it's mostly the hits, the features, and the crossovers that are carrying his career. To his credit, they are good enjoyable fun hype bangers. But when you dig into each respective album, you end up finding a lot of redundancy, a lack of versatility.

I would also say a lot of it comes down to right place, right time, too, because you have to give Future as flowers in terms of being ahead of the curve with trap music that was just more atmospheric and psychedelic and drugged out and trippy. Certainly, I have my own records that I prefer a little bit more in that mode around the early and mid-2010s, but DS2 was a tone setter for its time.

I mean, with Future, you have historical significance, you have hits, you probably have influence because there's so many rappers out there right now even guys like Playboy Carti included, who Future has just profoundly influenced the sound of. Love him or hate him, his impact and his fingerprints are all over a lot of modern hip hop.

"The only collaboration album we really need is is a JZA, RZA, SZA one. And it might actually be great." - pruavansno

I fully agree with what you said here. I think this absolutely should happen, but not before we get the long desired collaboration between Lana Del Rey and Lana Del Rabies. And after that collaboration happens, I think every mainstream popular artist should be made to do some musical crossover with the respective underground noise industrial music act that parodies their name in some way. And then all of those tracks and collaborations get pulled together into a massive compilation that single-handedly saves the experimental music scene. Whose but do I need to finger to make this happen?

"You shouldn't ask people to name three songs because they say they like an artist/wear that band's merch. You should ask people to name three songs when they say an artist is trash." - @abrahamjoyal4491

I mean, I get what you're saying here because there are a lot of people who will go out of their way to hate a certain artist or band or whatever, and they don't really know that much about the artist, or they are basing their hatred or their dislike for that artist on their fan base or some other aspect of their brand that doesn't directly have to do with their music, some bullshit that's just orbiting around them, and they just hate them as a result of that. So I get where you're coming from with this comment. I understand the angle. But with that being said, I don't know if knowing three songs from an artist you dislike, should or would validate your dislike of them. You could know three songs from an artist and have still completely bullshit reasons as to why you dislike their stuff.

And on top of it, if you truly dislike their sound and their vibe or whatever, chances are you're not memorizing those songs. You're not committing the tracks you think are terrible to memory. And if I dislike an artist's general catalog, but they've still come out with a lot of records over the years, I can sometimes name three songs from their discography that I actually like. The songs I'm actually remembering are the ones that I'm actually enjoying to some degree.

"Doechii's career projection is what Azealia Banks could have been had she focused on her craft and rather than being problematic online." - @akarinova

Look, I don't know if we can make the one-to-one comparison here that Azealia Banks would be seeing exactly the same trajectory that Doechii is now, give an X or Y or Z. I think in a lot of respects, Doechii is comparatively a more lyrical artist, more of a rapper's type rapper, where Azealia Banks, I think, had much more pop appeal, especially given her ties and the ways in which she would incorporate dance music and dance pop into her work.

Truth be told, Azealia Banks still continues to stand as maybe the most shiny example out there of how wrong your career can go if you come out of the gate just willing to burn as many bridges as possible. Part of me does, despite her being as problematic as she is, sympathize with her situation a bit because I feel like generally there is a shitty hush-hush type culture around the popular music scene where artists don't really actually speak their truth or say what's actually on their mind out of fear of pissing off certain music fans or other artists or higher-ups within the industry. So as a result, a lot of artists aren't exactly honest and straightforward with their criticisms of the current state of things or I don't know, prevailing music trends and so on and so forth.

And I hate that. I think that sucks. I think that is terrible. Part of me appreciates Azealia Banks's raw, we can call it honesty, whether or not what she thinks is based in reality, but a lot of the time it isn't. You know on some level, she actually feels that way to some degree. I'm making a terrible case here. I guess all I'm saying is that I wish artists and figures out there in the music scene could be less filtered in their work and not have to worry about the repercussions quite as much, especially if something they're saying actually speaks truth to power or is taking a task, some shitty, terrible trend in the broader music world.

But yeah, save for any times where Ms. Banks was actually leveling valid criticism at something in the industry or a big figure in music. A lot of the time, she was just starting beef with artists that she really had no business throwing hate toward. Also, as you said, being horrifically problematic in terms of throwing slurs out there and being homophobic and sexist and so on and so forth. But yeah, to finish this part off, I wouldn't make too many direct Azealia Banks/Doechii comparisons because I think they're both coming to the table with two very different talent sets.

And the degree to which they're connected for me, honestly, is I had a really strong feeling in my soul that Doechii would have a great chance of blowing up the day that I saw Azealia Banks start hating on her. I was like, 'Oh, man, she's probably going to make it.'

"Rap songs performed with a live backing band sound so much better than their studio version." - BOAYang

I mean, they could. I think that depends. I mean, obviously, there is a live groove in the moment, lightning-in-a-bottle type aspect that comes along with the live performance approach to doing any hip hop music. There are lots of stellar examples of that that – do I even need to list them, whether we're talking about the Roots or whatever. But with that being said, the approach of relying on production does allow the artist and the producer to lean more into samples, experimental sounds, and tones and textures that a live band may not be able to recreate with just instrumentation alone.

Also, some hip hop producers are great at making beats that either sample instrumentation or actually play instrumentation into the production, so it sounds live. Some bands actually go the extra mile to find some way to trigger samples and other sounds into their sets. They are doing their own live recreation of the beat. The degrees to which these things are so different, the lines are being blurred with every passing year.

Also, I would say there are some things like a really loud, banging, aggressive trap beat that it's difficult for a live band to recreate the same exact sensation of. But whatever. I see the point you're making. I don't entirely disagree, but it would depend upon the performance, the context, the song, the artist.

"The majority of music discourse online is people who almost never listen to an album the whole way through from front to back, which is why there feels like such a disconnect between critics and fans, especially when it comes to the most popular music of the time." - altervisi7748

Yeah, honestly, a lot of people are basing their entire opinions on albums with several tracks that are either their favorite or their least favorite. And on top of that, what further poisons the well and makes things confusing is that you have so many social media accounts out there right now that are being paid relatively small sums of money to basically post songs or post videos and being like, 'Oh, this person just came out of the new track. It's so hot. It's so great.'

Which I don't have an issue with in concept, but what I feel like is a must in these instances is that there are some disclosure going on, that this is a paid post, it's a sponsorship, it's an advertisement. I don't care if it's an artist or if it's a song that you would have posted about anyway, even if you weren't getting paid, that should 110% be disclosed so that anybody seeing that post can delineate between that and other moments where maybe your opinion isn't being influenced by money, or so that among music fans online, there's at least some awareness of what artists are actually getting some push, monetarily speaking, out there in the music industry.

"Yuno Miles will win a Grammy next year." - @normal__person

I mean, if that does happen, I hope it's with his own solo work and not because he collaborated or crossed over with somebody. I just hope it's his own banger, his own solo song, and there's potential for it. So fingers crossed.

"George had the best solo career after the Beatles." - @The.Sitcom.Central

I don't know. I feel like that's a tough argument to make. John, I feel like, had the most consistently experimental, but sometimes difficult-to-get-through catalog of the bunch. I think Paul had maybe the most agreeable catalog post-Beatles, even taking into consideration how weird his McCartney II record is, and also that John fucking wrote, "Imagine".

But George's catalog is nothing to sneeze at. Not only do you have critically acclaimed classics like All Things Must Pass. You have that really experimental electronic album that he dropped Coming Out of the Gate. Living in the Material World is a very good album that is often overlooked. He's got a solid self-titled LP, and Cloud 9 is legitimately a really solid '80s pop rock and soft rock record where he is just fully on his sunglasses, boomer, Hawaiian shirt shit. For whatever reason, it just sounds great. Really bringing the Electric Light Orchestra vibes full circle. Yeah, shout out to Jeff Lynn on that one.

But yeah, George is a very respectable solo career. You cannot underrate the George Harrison solo catalog. It has just as many highs and interesting moments as any other Beatles solo catalog out there. Even Ringo's, which is tough competition to beat.

"I hate when artists erase their older stuff, even if they have progressed as an artist there shouldn't be any shame of where they came from plus there's always people out there that have and will form connections with those songs." - @Twtching

Let's say and remind people that on the Internet, especially when it comes to popular artists: Nothing is truly ever erased or gone or disappeared forever. People are always copying shit and reposting shit and putting it somewhere for people to find. Once you put something out there, it's floating around ready to rear its ugly head once again.

There is so much widespread access to everything right now at the click of a mouse or on a tap on your phone that I get, especially with streaming platforms, artists trying to exert at least a little bit of control in terms of what they want to represent their sound, their catalog, their discography, what the public perceives as being like their body of work. I get it.

"Fantano needs to touch grass." - RyanTheIncredible882

Well, I would, but as you can tell from this video, there's a bunch of snow on the ground right now. If grass were available, believe me, I would be touching it.

"Saying 'not their best work' is a lazy and invalid critique of an artist because literally, by definition, not everything can be their best work." - PhilosophyofElivagar

That is true. I feel like if you are really trying to engage in some genuine music discourse, saying something is not their best work is fine, but that should be bolstered with reasons as to why. Okay, I mean, you are literally making a direct comparison there to other past works. What about this record do you feel like is lacking in comparison with those other albums? It's not a wrong critique. It's not an incorrect critique necessarily. It just shouldn't be left out there simply as that. You should have more to say other than it's not their best work.

"Features are overrated, especially when there's a feature on every song of the album." - Millermoore

I mean, yeah, I feel like there being too many songs out there. There are too many features out there these days, too. There are just so many on certain albums that I feel like they lose their novelty or they contribute to a choppiness or lack of consistency across the record. And look, I'm not trying to make a one size fits all prescription here. And there are some records out there that have a million features, and they're amazing. There are some records out there that have no features, and they're crap.

Having or not having features on a record doesn't make or break that album's quality necessarily. I guess if you are creating a record and you care about the album and you care about the quality of the album, you should question yourself with every decision that you make. Especially features. I'm not advocating here for overthinking or paralyzing yourself creatively and preventing yourself from making decisions.

But if you are going to bring a feature onto an album or onto a song, question, what does this add to the song? What does this add to the record? Is this redundant in some way? Is this the best feature it could possibly be given the quality of the track and the instrumental and maybe what we agreed upon in terms of the vibe or the concept of the song? What are we going for on this feature?

You should have thoughts and intentions behind these decisions. That way, you ensure that you're not just getting some mediocre by-the-numbers contribution to a record that doesn't really bring that much to your album. Here comes the Pusha feature. I got push a tea. You did? Here you go.

Yeah, that is going to be it. Thank you for arguing. Thank you for everything.

Anthony Fantano. Forever.