Hey, yo, what the... Looking like a snack over here. Put me in a vending machine. Looking like a of bag of Fritos. Looking like a bag of Cheetos, Fritos, and Doritos. My guy's looking like a bag of Takis over here. Come get me down at the bodega. I'm hanging out next to the bodega cat. Hey, how's it going? I want Anthony Fantano over here, the ocky way. Nice, nice, nice.

Bitch.

It's time for a new episode of Let's Argue. Let's stop around. We're here to argue. Went on the internet, accepted a bunch of your hot takes, unpopular opinions, tough questions.

Frankly, it was not a good batch. Batch was not great. Massively disappointed. You guys need to start doing better.

This is the fun of big time. Up the ante. What do you think we're on? Rumble? It's YouTube, baby. You YouTube, the same Vimeo. When I ask you guys to give me hot takes, unpopular opinions, and tough questions, I expect you to put in just a smidge more effort than this.

I'm disgusted, I'm disappointed, you're filthy, and I hate you. But also, I love you.

I don't know why you want to go on the internet and just be this wrong. I don't know why, especially considering the rapping doesn't get that good toward the end of the track.

How is it a checkmate moment? Because Kendrick was not cornered by that song. J. Cole apologized for it before he even had the chance to respond.

On top of it, on the front end of the track, J. Cole was just totally full of shit, just totally playing off how good and entertaining and fantastic multiple albums in Kendrick's catalog were, really downplaying his talent. I mean, there's other fronts you could attack the guy on. Whether or not his music is actually good and resonates with people is not one of them.

It was just a preposterous track out of the gate. It was very obvious from first listen that J. Cole's heart was not fully into doing that track. How you got much out of it that you did, I don't know. It sounds pretty clear to me that he's not even excited to be doing the diss, and you have to really be locked in in order to have a good quality diss track.

She most definitely does because her hype wave has built up into what it is this year.

It's absolutely true. This has just been a banger, banger, banger fucking year for pop music. There's absolutely, positively no denying that. It's worth wondering, is that as a result of something or did it all just serendipitously coalesce in this way?

Also, keep in mind, a lot of these pop artists have at one time been discussed as these mid to low-tier pop icons and figures who make pop music, but they're not quite mainstream. They're like an alternative type pop artist in a way. Since those discussions about them have been had and a lot of think pieces have come out, their profiles, especially Charli's, has only grown. I feel like the space that we've been seeing for pop artists that have a more alternative it would have been.

It's growing and growing and growing. Whatever you could characterize as being alt-pop in a way is slowly taking over and becoming the mainstream of pop music. At least that's my perception of it as of right now and when that might reach a peak or what that ultimately will evolve into from there. If that mainstream takeover does fully happen, I don't know, but it is a trend I feel like I'm noticing.

Do the vocals really sound like from Daveed that they're trying to go for Broadway per se, or do they just sound that way? Because I feel like that vibe has been embedded into our minds because of Hamilton. Keep in mind, clipping. pre-exists Hamilton. Although prior to that, Daveed did have acting and stage performance experience. But there wasn't necessarily anything about his rapping at the time that to me said, 'Oh, this is rapping for the theater.' I don't know. To me, that reads as a bit of a perception thing that I don't entirely vibe with.

While I have watched recordings of Hamilton, I'm not a big Hamilton boy, not a big musical theater in general. So maybe that's part of the reason I don't really have that perception. Again, I've seen it, but I've more or less avoided any regular consumption of it. And maybe that's put me in a place where I just see clipping.'s music as clipping. and not anything else.

I mean, yeah, true, but the thing is, I don't really feel like that's much of a point because JID's, The Forever Story is better than most rappers's discographies. It's that fantastic of an album. He's just a very, very, very above-average rapper and lyricist. He is making better music than most. The fact that he's made better music than J. Cole, I don't really think is necessarily any shade to J. Cole, specifically, even though obviously, you're trying to pose it as such here. I could see why because, oh, he's on Dreamville, and he's better than the Dreamville guy. JID has made music that is better than most rappers because he's just better than most rappers at writing, at storytelling, at rapping, at conceptualizing. This is not really a diss against J. Cole.

I think Red has good highlights, and obviously, Maladroit is a good record, and Green is catchy, maybe not as catchy as the Blue album and a little too sacriot points, but I wouldn't go as far as to say make believe is decent. And look, while Weezer has certainly made worse albums since those records. The reason I feel like a lot of people still have a negative connotation associated with those LPs, it's because those albums really signify the beginning of the end, while in the grander scheme of Weezer's catalog, they're not the worst things they have put out. They were still the worst things they have put out at the time.

If from there, they went on to just consistently make much better albums without any missteps or anything like that, they would be perceived as their worst releases and their worst records, especially Make Believe. But no, I don't really feel like we can say that. Maybe most of the ire in their catalog shouldn't be reserved for Make Believe because again, worse albums.

I would agree. I think we're in a post hyperpop moment. However, I don't wish for this album to become a template that everybody is just like, endlessly copying. Because again, I feel like we hit that wall already with hyperpop itself, and it just led to a lot of mediocre copycat artists, a lot of forgettable album songs and records. The wave really crested, and after the fact, it just was not all, but mostly for not. And the best artists who were leading the charge on that style of music ended up switching their sounds and doing something different anyway. So what really is the use of having loads of people all copy the same thing?

Not that people can't borrow inspiration from other stuff, but everybody honing in on the same idea, sound, trend, wave. It has its benefits and has had proven great and positive results, like in the instance of multiple classic, ground-breaking influential eras of music, be that punk, be that new wave, be that whatever. But I don't wish for dozens of artists to just basically be copying the Brat blueprint. I don't want to hear a bunch of lesser versions of such a fantastic record. I want to hear the fantastic record. While borrowing and taking inspiration is fine, I want other people to formulate their own recipes as well.

But if there is one thing I would love for the music industry to broadly take away from Brat, it's that you don't need to water your shit down as far as pop and electronic music and dance music goes in order to reach a mainstream and a passionate audience.

I feel like when you take into account everything, again, songwriting, album quality, consistency, wordplay, production talent. The only thing Eminem clears El-P on totally and without debate is just that he raps fast. I think one more thing that you could really give to Eminem over El-P, and maybe this is only because he's just more consistent with it, is that Eminem is much more, I think, thorough of a storyteller and narrative builder. Eminem's works and albums consistently over the years tend to be a lot more dramatic and theatrical. He's playing narrative angles and in character. There's usually layers and different perspectives to what he's trying to get across in his tracks lyrically. There's a lot more deep lore to the Eminem canon, you could say.

It's funny. I feel like I'm out arguing the point I was originally going to make here slowly. But as far as just making straight heat and bangers, just rippity rap, rap, rapping over some stellar instrumentals and just coming together with a catchy song that really sticks with you. I feel like El-P is consistently more the workhorse.

Though, look, you're entitled to your opinion on which one you prefer over the other.

I can't necessarily speak to Eminem versus Denzel Curry, per se. I don't even know if Denzel Curry would put himself against Eminem in a greatest of all time debate. But I do agree with your assertion that influence isn't everything and shouldn't be a primary decider as to whether or not an artist is the greatest of all time or worthy of being in such discussions. Because really, what is influence at the end of the day and how do we typically gage that? How many lesser, way more boring rappers are out there and are willing to just copy and rip your shit endlessly? Which may not even necessarily be a good thing, especially in the case of Eminem, because it's pretty widely understood that most of the rappers out there that copy his whole shtick, his style, his delivery, his everything, most of them suck and are annoying to listen to. Why should your influence be a big deal when most of that influence results in the proliferation of just a bunch of terrible copycats?

I'm going to say this. I remember a time on the internet where that was the resounding narrative and general understanding, and I'm glad we don't live in that time anymore.

I think that is going to be it for this episode of Let's Argue.

Anthony Fantano. Argue. Love you. You're the best. Forever.