If you were in touch with the news at all this summer, you’ve heard that these days, not many people are cooperating. Russia and the Ukraine? Not friendly. Republicans and Democrats? Try again. Israel and Hamas? Nope. Wait though – there’s hope on the horizon. Out of the American music industry, we’ve been hearing whispers of a collaboration so important, so massive as to possibly wipe the earth clean of conflict forever. Kanye West, the rapper, and Paul McCartney, the Beatle are collaborating. Yes, you just read that correctly. According to The New York Post, the guy who wrote “Yesterday” and the guy responsible for the “Bound 2” music video have somehow found common terms to work together, and on apparently more than one track. West’s “people” have “refused to address the rumor”, which is pretty much industry speak for “yes”, so I’d call it pretty safe at this point to begin grieving/celebrating the loss of Paul Mccartney’s musical “innocence”.
This has apparently been a long time coming. A close listen at McCartney’s last album “New” revealed hip-hop influence, and he himself claimed that he nearly recruited a rapper for his single “Appreciate”.
One rumored collaboration is aggressively titled “Piss on My Grave”, which, if accurate, raises the question: where are all of McCartney’s haters, and why does he feel like, at this point in his career, he needs to team up with West to address them?
I’ve never really thought him much of a rebel, and now I’m getting this rancid image in my head – MC McCartney: snapback and gold chains and all, outraging parents, rolling with Odd Future, ruining award shows… Eww.
I’m hoping that at least this means that I won’t have to continue to defend myself from my hoard of hardliner Classic-Rock-Rules-Rap-Isn’t-Music friends when they question why there’s a copy of Yeezus wedged all up in my CD player where Abbey Road is supposed to go.
On a larger scale though, it’s truly going to be a trip to see the community of nostalgic, tunnel gazing Beatles fans deal with this predicament. All this time, they thought that the only way to stand up for righteous rock and roll music was to attack everything that made the 21st century.
Just last week, Kiss rocker Gene Simmons told Esquire that “Rock is Dead” and that the “craft” of good music is no more “thanks to technology”. But now here’s Paul McCartney apparently “experimenting with Auto-Tune” and *gasp* he LIKES it. It’s stuff like this that will probably make McCartney’s core fan base wish that he would behave a little less like a tech savvy grandpa that’s just figured out how to work an iPad, and just stick to his bass guitar. I don’t even wholly blame them. It’s hard not to wince a little to the thought of McCartney’s iconic voice squeezed á la T-Pain through a pitch corrector. I’d be prepared depending on how much West lets McCartney’s hands on these tracks, everybody could be in for a pretty awkward ride.
And yet, there’s probably an equally good chance the result will be phenomenal. West has certainly made strange sounding contributions work before. Bon Iver’s sweet folk croon was first tastefully featured on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, and now he’s apparently a sort of regular contributor. In fact, if there’s any rapper qualified enough to attempt the oft cringeworthy rap-rock collaboration, its probably West. If this works well, it could set a new standard for cross-genre, cross-generational team-ups, and probably open equally as many minds as it repulses. Musical toleration will prevail! Maybe there’s hope yet for the Middle East.
Fraumeni is a member of
the class of 2017.
