Kanye West's 'Donda' + Guilty Pleasures

What’s your biggest fear as a concertgoer? For Steve, it’s having to do a Number 2 at a show — even nice venues with good toilets seem like a terrible place to spend any significant amount of time. This is perhaps the exact thought that went through the head of the person who had an unfortunate bowel movement in the mosh pit at a Turnstile show last week. Will people now feel empowered to do the same at upcoming Turnstile shows, like how Barenaked Ladies got Kraft mac and cheese thrown at them?

The meat of this week’s episode comes in the form of a discussion about Donda, the oft-discussed, perhaps anticipated new album from Kanye West. The thing about Kanye is that the music media once gave him the benefit of the doubt, and now they don’t. Nonetheless, like everything Kanye does these days, Donda has this huge gravitational pull, yet it feels somewhat marooned from what’s actually happening at large, with a narrative set almost entirely on planet Kanye. There’ss callbacks to some Yeezus and 808s-style electronic music, a lot of Jesus (the curses are bleeped out!), but rather than create trends, it turns away from them. Donda just sucks all the air out of the room.

In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is plugging Jail Socks, who just released the new album Coming Down while Steve wants to spread the good word about Other You, the latest LP from indie guitar god Steve Gunn.

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