Honestly this, along with a few of his last albums are very accessible, if you are looking for deep, you are honestly doing yourself a disservice by not listening to his catalog from Float (his first official album, or better yet Labor Days) onward. This guy has been ahead of his time for years and I feel like these last few albums are victory laps for an underappreciated rapper who has been an underground legend for damn 20 years.
Facts bro facts! I don’t know how many people I have asked “do you listen to Aesop Rock” and they almost always think I’m talking about asap rocky 🤦🏻♂️🤣
Aesop said in an Instagram post "garbology is defined as the study of material discarded by a society to learn what it reveals about social or cultural patterns." He then goes on in the post to explain how both himself and blockhead find parallels in themselves with this idea. If that helps gives some insight into the reasoning behind the album name.
That' not what it's about. It's about Rumpelstiltskin theory of Dualism and how he came to believe he was being punished by a lesser god. The trails and tribulations of booger selling and of course Kant's dialectic.
Your comment about hip-hop being the voice of the voiceless really resonates, and Aes actually is that: he represents the introvert, the depressed, the mentally ill, the seeker of a higher truth who has absolutely no certainty that such a thing actually exists. He's the spokesman for people who don't shower, brush teeth, brush hair, do laundry, eat, clean the apartment, take out the trash, etc. not because they don't want to, but because they have executive function issues. He's a dreamer, and his dreams are strange and sometimes disturbing. He is the voice of the high functioning agoraphobic, the scary smart person who never speaks for fear of being judged. His vocabulary is that of an avid and voracious reader, but never comes across as being a show off or as a pointless thesaurus. What he says matters, at least to him, and very often to the people who feel the way he expresses himself through his lyrics. Aes is deeper than any other musical artist I can think of, because you can tell he means what he's saying and has lived the experiences he describes.
the one that hit me the hardest to do with that was 'get out the car' it's wrong, it's all wrong and he knows it, he's essentially self destructing on a slow scale and just because he knows it doesn't mean that it's right or good, pointing out that people like him will move on one day or end up in an early casket. I almost see it as the parallels of 'cycles to gehena' almost directly saying he can't judge the death wish.
@worstwizzard I so greatly appreciate your comment. Because not only is it factually true, it rings that exceedingly specific bell-tone that can only ever sound this very one singular note of °soul-deep true° I resonate so so much with Aes' semi-functional/paranoid aggressive solitude and ya, incidentally, most anyone would regard me, also, as certifiably bug-nuts; however, when it is a matter of survival to excerpt one's person from the greater social matrix, as one might cut a horoscope from a huge sprawling urban hellscape's Sunday paper, in order to further their intent to continue breathing, it's an entirely separate list of the most fundamental priorities, without. which. they. could. not. live. °Alone° MUST head that list. So, I had so many more points that I agreed with and wanted to thank you for making, but I think I spent quite some time elucidating on this one patch of weeds that for me, brings out deeply martial, threat alerts within me, that evoke requisite protocols for my last man standing drills/syndrome, et al. For this, I apologize. Your words were impeccably well spoken, and your points were eloquent, yet concise, and nuanced enough to communicate the innumerable subtle facts innate within the myriad °soul-deep truths° This is not my phone, more like a couch-surf identity. But if you chose to respond, I would likely hear of it. Muchlove, Suki Marmelaide
Aesop rock has definitely been deep throughout his career, and is not just giving the impression of being deep. You should listen to labour days, or none shall pass. He has many songs with social commentary on the state of modern capitalistic society.
Came to the comment section to say this. Labor days is where he should go next. Songs like No rEgrets, Daylight (and nightlight), 9-5 anthem and I am realizing I was about to list every song on the album just about. Labor Days, Labor Days and Labor Days. Or at the very least, he needs to hear Daylight followed directly by Nightlight.
I almost guarantee this guy won't feel the same way about those albums as you do. You probably heard them at a point in your life where they just hit different. I think he'd feel like taking a step back to those albums. Aes has grown lyrically, both in his ability to express a thought and to pull together a coherent theme without being entirely on the nose or too abstract since those days.
Couldn't agree more and I'll add that "No Regrets" from Labor Days says so much so well and has personally impacted me in what I'd consider very deep ways beyond the few relatively shallow topics mentioned in the video.
@Jen Psaki fair enough. I haven't listened to No Regrets in a long time but I do think it's extremely accessible (it was one of the first songs I heard of his as well). Because of that, and the fact that it's certainly deep in the way the video is discussing deep (i.e., not necessarily degree of technical skill, rhyming, word choice, etc. but rather a message with a deep meaning), I think it's a great example and certainly had a deep impact on me when I listened to it. Personally I think the whole concept of depth can only be discussed coarsely anyway. I definitely disagree that it's one of his worst songs but that's probably a matter of personal preference as well (and I've listened to a lot of Aes in my life so it isn't a question of exposure).
The way you approach this review is the best way to consume Aesop Rock in my opinion. Don't listen to it and actively go searching for deeper meaning. Just let the words fly by. Its not even listening to it in a shallow way because at some point you'll be listening to one of his songs and some lyric will just hit you. Right in the face. The meaning suddenly apparent, you'll have it in your head for the next hour and it'll be the coolest/cleverest thing you've ever heard for all that time.
🍋👌🔥perfect way to speak as a fan... one doesn't understand everything but eventually it will hit you and u will dig deep and formulate a strong bond with Aes. But this guy here thinks he is the Wiz of hiphop and thinks he knows what rappers mean when they write each line. I'm a rapper... there's things I can say that he won't be able to dissect or interpret incorrectly.🙌
Here's the thing about Aesop Rock. I was still picking up clever wordplay and metaphors, 5 years down the road from when I first started listening to Aesop Rocks first two mass distributed albums (Float and Labor Days). As an Aes Stan, trust me when I say that his music has actually gotten much more digestible and less coded in recent years. Some things I think we weren't meant to understand as well. A couple years ago I heard him say in an interview that sometimes he will include lyrics that just mean something to him. One thing I truly love about Aes is the fact that even if you're only catching every third word or every other partial bar, Aesop will always get across the song's exact vibe and mood even if you're not understanding every bar. I can always connect to an Aes song with not just beats and lyrics but also his delivery, tone, and overall cadence. Dudes a true musical genius of our time.
Abandoned Malls slays me. It's so beautiful in its devastating expressions of melancholy. There's a lot going on in there, and it would be virtually impossible to fully understand for those without solid knowledge of Aesop's history. One of those details that hits me the hardest: "I been trying to teach your kid to ollie. She got the basic motion and glow when she show her mommy". Aesop is sitting there "logging (his) Hayashi pics", talking to his recently-deceased dear friend (videographer, Kurt Hayashi, rip) about teaching his daughter to skateboard. Absolutely heartbreaking and thoroughly wholesome.
You missed it on Jazz Hands. The heart of it is literally a sequential story about him driving to, witnessing, documenting, and perhaps participating in the recent demonstrations: “I can draw a roof on fire from memory” “Can’t treat it as a job at the stock yard/ And feign shock when they turn a block to a pockmark” - translation: can’t treat policing like working at the slaughterhouse wrangling pen, then act surprised when city streets end up getting destroyed… ish “Stock parks knocking on mach” - transalation: my assembly line car is driving as fast as possible to the protests…. Think of the layers in that “simple” half line alone. “Ring around the king of pain: Bring acetaminophen/ You either see division/ Or dinner with Demolition Men” -translation: picture demonstrators dancing around burning effigies of militarized police forces. And if you stay long enough you’ll either see division in the republic, or eventual goodwill between demonstrators and police dressed in riot gear like the movie Demolition Man. This is all sandwiched between him visiting family, and ends with comments on anonymous activism (sort of). “We can build forts while the pigs court civil war” -translation: play childlike with his niece instead of running into battle with gusto to come out on top, like families arguing about politics. “Walk into the room shoot an arrow with an arrow… I will not be aiming for the apple” -translation: after describing the demonstrations, we’re back wit his family, where he “demonstrates” his knowledge, but then declines to participate in the family arguments… Pigs from the beginning with apple in mouth after mutual destruction… Yet also about how dope of a rapper he is, as you said. All of it is. Last line is simultaneously insulting those who practice anonymous activism, while also empathizing with them, while also threatening them, while also referencing/threatening billionaires flying to space for thrills while streets are burning: “Some days I want to build a rocket to the karmen line/ 10, 9, 8 keep your head and arms inside” Listen again and it appears like a Dickinson poem. Listen again and your brain turns around when you realize the entire narrative could be from the perspective of a police officer and song works EXACTLY the same. Dude deep like a maphucka!
🍋💯🥵He has ties to everything bruh, no one compares. But I have an opinion that Illogic murdered him in "One Brick"🙆♂️😹 although Aes is better by overall
Great review! I love to be made to think of a song or a lyric in a way that I didn't consider before. When you elaborated on "a blue that really wasn't" , it really scratched that itch. All of your videos have that quality because you only review popular music that is interesting and you can either draw comparisons or make good points with. This review chanel is really the only place you can get that with any real depth. I really appreciate you making these!
The reason More Cycles never references the title in the lyrics is because it's referring to another song about riding a motorcycle called Cycles to Gehenna from Skelethon. Great breakdown!
I have watched this video once in every few months. It's always a fun and insightful take on the record. You deliver intelligently and honestly which is also fun to watch.
Aesop Rock is not deep in the sense that the subject matter is usually very accessible (he has a song about his cat, about therapy, basic cable, painting and drawing...). What is deep about his lyrics are his reference points, which are either to obscure or to personal for you to get.
I think one of the big contributing factors to the depth, which I think is more a byproduct than an intention, is his sincerity. He just has an idea, writes it, and people relate and draw their own conclusions of meaning from it
Great review, been anticipating this one. Fun fact, Blockhead once worked with a pre-fame Lana Del Ray. So now, the cypher is complete. Favorite line on the album, “He flees Rome between seizures, still talking grease, launching tees into bleachers, take him to your leader’s leader’s leader, even the redeemer like “I need to speak to senior”, ey!”
the deepest part of Aesop and what puts together at least a quarter of the initially impenetrable lines is realising he's often talking about capitalist and liberal society from the perspective of a non-liberal leftist. one of his older songs, "Klutz" really outlines how he feels about this stuff. absolutely love Jazz Hands, because it builds up the image of a dude who knows society won't be fixed before his time is up, and he's talking about how hard change will be. "can't treat it like a job at the stock yard and feign shock when they turn a block to a pock mark" is probably reference to the 1985 MOVE bombing, and sets up the idea that "Patsy, the revolution won't have jazz hands", as in something like that level of counter-rebellion will be deployed to absolutely demolish revolution. you can imagine he could've been thinking about these things since the Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone spectacle, as well as all other sorts of "performative revolutionary moments" have happened i don't think he's super deep honestly and I like how you talk about that. i'm not sure he's trying to be deep. lately his stuff is much less esoteric than a decade ago. you're right in that the album does deal with "modern democratic party liberal leftism" quite a bit in a way that goes over a lot of heads. but the whole thing, it's like anything you get very familiar with. it's not super hard to see where its use and depth ends. Aes is absolutely an artist, is the thing. once you understand the songs somewhat approximate to how he might, every one of them becomes tapestries. he's a rebellious aging old school rapper who's still shouting into the void
"You wont be laughing when your covered wagons crash, you wont be laughing when the buzzards drag your brother's flags to rags, you wont be laughing when your front lawns spangled with epitaphs." Aes 20 years ago.
He's more like a liberal from 20 years ago where people weren't so pearl clutching and sensitive, which makes sense since he is in his 40s. "Volley with the quintessential Digital anger, I'm offended by everything My opinions come in a manger, oh boy" Everyone always imagines themselves as being on the cutting edge, the revolutionary youth, until they get older and see the same themes repeat again remixed in a slightly different way
🍋You know I like how you all classify a rapper just from a picture he paints, notice the word Garbology may mean that that its lyrics he has written and discarded for ages to come, to feed them all to u now because all he is saying with my knowledge for now is not totally morden, unfortunately you won't understand because he's not making music for you. GO LISTEN TO ONE OF FOUR.
Easiest way of listening to Aesop is assuming he's talking about the rap game and using it as a sample size of modern society. Aes is first n foremost a NY inspired rapper spawned from the rap battle post-grunge youth, influenced by 80s Cali culture.
My favorite project by Aesop Rock is Malibu Ken where he worked with producer Tobacco to make one of the coolest form of hip hop I heard in a while. Don't know if you had a chance to check that out.
So white dudes don't struggle in the world and can't make music about it? Or even the USA? And Ghostface is killing it for you cause he just throws words that sound cool together? Son, so many logical fallacies in the first 3 minutes of the video; judging deepness whilst straight up lacking it...priceless.
I been an Aesop fan for years and this prob my favorite one from him in a while. Since like Impossible Kid. I love the way hes flowing on the beats on here that kinda calmer more measured flow like on Difficult and the last track Abandoned Malls for instance. Oh and the piss thing you talk about I didn't notice it til I watched this video and going back and listening now almost every single song has some kinda piss reference lolol
If you’re interested in hearing another rapper who’s pretty esoteric you should check out Deca. He’s esoteric in a very different way, and often speaks on spiritual subjects in a way that even I as an atheist find intriguing. I’d recommend you start with his album “the ocean”, I’ve heard it so many times I know >90% of the words to the whole thing. Busdriver is great too. Anyway great review as always. Thanks.
was thinking the exact same, he doesn't represent himself as a white guy rapping with braggadocio quite as much as Prof. Skye implies. he's always talking about how much he understands and relates with alienation, and the fact that he understands the conditions that have caused such a massive wave of alienation. "Bent Life" is probably his most direct statement about this
I'm not sure how you say there isn't great depth in his writing. Garbology is Aes at his height. Where his old albums are more cryptic, his latest works has him boiling away some of the verbosity, to focus on succinctly deep and potent narratives. For instance, one thing you said about Jazz Hands: His William Tell story isn't him JUST saying he's "a baddass". Yes it absolutely is playing on classic braggadocio rap, and if it was just that, what a cool and obscure way to do it....but it acually plays into the whole theme of this song (and album) which was written during the pandemic and civil unrest of 2020-2 (His "love note" to the "whole fuck show".) That stretch of verses in Jazz Hands is about the riots, fighting the powers that be...just like Tell, who's legend is of tyrannicide. Tell refused to pay homage to the local feudal enforcer, Gessler, and was imprisoned and told if he shoots the apple off his son's head they would both be sparred. He does so but Gessler noticed a second arrow held by Tell, which Tell explains if he had missed the apple, the second arrow was for Gessler. Apt allegory describing the divisive infighting and culture wars of our time, when it should really be all of us, the servants, aiming for the masters.
I know it’s not in the style of your videos but I hope at some point you go back and listen to at least Skelethon and The Impossible Kid. I feel those two albums along with Spirit World Field Guide make up an over arcing journey of Aesop dealing with the loss of his friend Camu Tao. From recognizing pain, to getting help, and eventually working to overcome and deal. Also Skelethon has two songs named Crows, so there’s that going for it
You seem a bit annoyed by the vocab. Thats just his style of rapping tho. He's not trying to have more words than anyone. He's just rapping in his style. Thats what he's always been. People think he's deep because they don't really understand what he's saying, but on some level he is deep af.
Appreciate when you analyze Aes’ work. I enjoy hearing some of the actual terminology associated with the structure of language and poetry. The mechanics of what he’s actually doing. More of that… Being a little younger than Aes, similarly growing up in that era, building forts and stuff. Definitely has a way of subtly reminiscing to those moments in time. Mom telling you to fix a cowlick, or helping fix, before you walked into a public setting. My brother, the rest of the neighborhood kids, and I, grabbing Fizz for 25 cents from the ice cream man or nearby convenient store. Fizz is a fruit flavored hard candy with some type of alka-seltzer like sour additive in the center of the candy. When you got to it, it’d fizz up. Hence the name. Lol It came sealed in a plastic strip, each candy separated individually in the strip, and color coated to each candies flavor. To get a laugh, as young punks, always pissing on something, daring a buddy to piss on something. A rather idiotic action that calls back to so many memories and laughs in a group of peers. The collective Garbology of it all. I more so relate to all his work, once being the life of the party, to becoming an introvert in my late 20’s, also being a fine artist and a lover of Hip-Hop. And the reference to motorcycles. Check out Aesop Rock - Cycles to Gehenna. Similarly referenced. Ties in a bit. Saw Ghost live with a 10 piece band, LA Allstars. Mind blowing. Not only that, but he opened for Rakim. Once in a lifetime shit… And I understand your white rapper statement. I take no offense as a white male. It’s a black art form. No one can take that away from them or deny that. It originated from there. It told and tells their stories and culture. It is and was rebel music that spoke to their unheard culture. A voice of the often disenfranchised and oppressed. Boy did they ever find a voice! Fuckin’ love Hip-Hop. Suppose that’s an element that makes Aes, Aes. He’s using that medium, but he doesn’t try to be something he isn’t. He uses his own subject matter. He’s genius in the medium, but he’s not stealing a subject matter that he doesn’t personally know. That lifestyle in which Hip-Hop culture originated from. He has his own lane, and he knows that and uses it accordingly. One more thing, suppose related to those statements. A piece I really think you’d thoroughly enjoy. It’s kind of gone unheard, and it’s an absolute stellar piece, that speaks to the element of Hip-Hop now being a universal language, often being exploited and refaced. You have to analyze in its totality, down to how Naz is vocally delivering the song. That bootlegging, prohibition era. He’s even cleverly calling to specific moments in time and songs in the commercialization of Hip-Hop. He’s using song titles as lines to actually tell the story. It’s unbelievable stuff. You have to listen to it and come back with a response, even if it’s just a response here. Would love to hear some of the elements you’re able to depict from it. If not, you’ll still thoroughly enjoy it, none the less.
density and depth are two different units of measurement. I still appreciate your point of view. First video I have watched of yours and Aesop just so happens to be my favorite artist to hear others perspective about upon early listening. cheers
Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of your generalized criticism seems to stem from not recognizing the statements being made, the reference to real world events or stories and how they relate. 15:24 "All he's saying is I'm badass" no, the original telling of William Tell had two arrows against the lord's instructions, One for the shot, and one for the lord if he was betrayed or failed. "I will not be aiming for the apple" is a statement of intent, not a statement of prowess. It is a threat against careless authority. 16:26 The Revolution will not have Jazz Hands is specific criticism of the Occupy movement, which uses Jazz Hands or "Up Twinkles" as one of their hand signals to indicate agreement.
I love that you have fair criticisms of the album or aesop rock's style in general. A lot of other people just get wrapped up in the vocabulary, and even if they never understand the concepts they give it praise because it's "dense" and he uses a lot of metaphors. Despite a good amount of his song and certain lines amounting to some mundane topics and something that just circles around to meaning nothing or not as deep as he describes it with his vocabulary, I enjoy the artistry of explaining something so insignificant with as much color as a kid scribbling in a notebook. I remember I took me a while to fully grasp the song fryerstsrter, thinking there must be some deeper meaning, only to find out "nope, he just wants to talk about his favorite donut shop" and how I view him changed a lot. Where a lot of rap focuses more on "if you are saying something" more than "how you say it", aesop does the opposite.
Aesop Rock is most definitely more explicitly deep in his earlier work (labor days, impossible kid, etc.) However, I think more lately his depth is a bit more hidden. Take Jumping Coffin from his last album. It took me a lot of listening to the song over and over and over again, really taking in the lyrics, before I noticed a constant theme of the lyrics in that song referring to his being not just introverted, but being afraid of stepping outside of his comfort zone, breaking routines, etc. I can go more in depth if you wish, but that song, on a wider scale, is about the fear of trying something new and letting down your walls, and the idea that once they've been dropped it's difficult to push everything out and raise them up again. I think That Is Not A Wizard is the most obviously deep song on this album. At a cursory glance it's seemingly a drug trip with the hook. However, it's quite apparent that the whole song is anti-authority. It has a heavy emphasis on the fuck the rich, fuck the people that start endless wars for money, fuck people that think they're better because of their blood, etc. It's very much a song that, to me at least, highlights a sort of left wing talking point, but is also juxtaposed by his apathy in some of the last lines. Fizz is quickly becoming one of my favourites on this album. The sound is fantastic, but the lyrics really lost me the first like 10 times I listened to it, until I read someone's interpretation of it. They said that Fizz is giving a voice to the US political climate, or perhaps even the country itself. "Unabashed do-nothings who do nothing but multiply" is an exceptionally right wing talking point, and resembles the USA's visceral opposition to welfare and helping the less fortunate. Most of the song Fizz is about talking himself up and talking others down. It's insults and bragadocious lyrics, and the hook highlights it best. "We are not the same. Heaven is a lie. I think you are lame. Lemme get a fry". It's silly, but to me, it's giving a voice to a country that is oppressive to the less fortunate, it berates them, and yet still asks favours. It's saying "you are lesser than me, there's nothing good for you to look forward to, I think you're worthless, but can I take something from you?" Maybe I search too deep for meaning in his lyrics, but having listened to his older music, I really struggle to think he isn't pumping them full of hidden meaning like he always has. Sorry for the extremely long comment. Enjoy your reviews a lot.
Yes! I’m glad I found this video, and this comment. While I don’t think this dude is a yellow sweatered moss muncher, or whatever, but he’s not up to speed (by his own admission). Jazz Hands is, for me, now my favorite song of all time. It completely encapsulates the tension I feel between the real life in front of me, and the absolutely horrific promise of tomorrow: climate change, civil war, resource scarcity, social upheaval. How can you enjoy building forts with your niece while the pigs court civil war? I guess by making songs that explore your impotent rage, disappointment, and quasi-optimistic nihilism. I also think there’s not so subtle hints in these songs of him performing praxis. He’s verbally doing it through these songs, unless, like you, I’m searching too deeply for meaning that isn’t there. But the dude proclaims to spray piss, put up stickers, etc. Rage against the machine type shit. I almost think he’s a dyed in the wool anarchist after this album.
@@treybob333 Totally, and I have no doubt he's of an anarchist mindset. So much of his music focuses on struggles of the less fortunate, be that classism, racism, etc. His music has always been very focused on feelings, namely his own struggles with mental health and the poor treatment of mental health. Listening to older, incredibly deep tracks like None Shall Pass, which talks frequently about institutional abuse of power and the atrocities done in the name of the rich making more money, and it's hard to imagine that in this economic climate he's suddenly not raging at the oppressing class of the ultra wealthy. I think it's naive to imagine he's not embedding deeper meaning, especially when it can be found so abundantly with a little digging.
I am compelled to get all up in these comments, you yellow-sweatered, dunderheaded, moss-eating, troglodytic nincompoop. Just kidding. ;) I mostly want to help with engagement, as I greatly appreciate your reviews. Particularly in the efforts you make to elaborate on individual lines & your personal connections to them, along with the depth of knowledge you express regarding language and historical references. Whether they be literary, visual art, or Play-Doh. I'm thrilled to see you enjoying Aesop Rock so much more on this second album. I think you touched on many key points in this review, including your assessment that much of his popularity comes from reaching introverts in a very different way than most hip hop artists. One note that ties into another of my favorites among your reviews - Billy Woods provided additional vocals on the hook of Legerdemain. They have collaborated on a few songs in the past. I know you don't generally do reviews of older projects, but I'm electing to pursue the topic below because you strike me as one of very few reviewers - especially on this platform - with the knowledge and format to thoughtfully and eloquently lecture about what I and many others consider to be classic works of hip hop art. What if someone told you that Aesop's bizarre usage of vocabulary in his latest works, though clearly masterful and arguably quite a bit more refined, is also markedly less extreme and more straightforward than in his earliest works? Perhaps quite comparable to Jackson Pollock's Black & White series versus many of his earlier paintings, as noted in an appreciation piece by Lupe Fiasco. Would that make you more intrigued or less intrigued to give one of those earlier projects a shot? I see this as the key factor in determining which of the following projects to recommend. Float (2000) and Labor Days (2001) are likely his most linguistically and poetically complex projects. The Impossible Kid (2016) is, in my own (and I think Lupe Fiasco's) opinion, the approximate equivalent of the Black & White period. Or Skelethon (2012), which is my favorite on many days, and in some ways a stylistic bridge between the two eras. This project also contains the other most prominent feature of crows in his career prior to Garbology. I bring this up because I suspect there may be an even more direct connection between your shared relationship with crows than is readily apparent. The two times they've made such strong thematic appearances have been on the projects subsequent to the deaths of friends who were very near and dear to him. Thank you, and keep up the great work!
Although I think it’s a stretch, the “lion-hearted pioneer of high garbology” line could be a part of the wizard of oz theme running through the album (“behind the curtain the merlin is all jellyfish”; “my storm got plans for the dorothies”). If society, or the “current social architecture,” is Oz, he may be comparing himself to the cowardly lion, in that although he feels out of place, alienated, or “cowardly,” he still acts against social structures with his garbology, or by highlighting and valorizing other rejects, or just the idea of being a reject. I agree though, that he’s not that deep. I don’t really think he writes albums where every song connects to the other songs on the album, so I’d be surprised if that’s what he intended.
Hey ben, you might enjoy knowing that the majority of Aes's work does in fact connect and play off of his older works. Every song is a bit more graffiti on the same wall so to speak. The pictures made by different groups of songs become their own picture. For me, 20+ years digesting everything single song he's in, I hear a lot of call backs to his older work in Garb, so much in fact that I had talked with some folks about this album serving as a hook to get people into his old stuff.
this is a good observation I took it to mean that in terms of "lion heartedness" he's lion hearted in terms of his relationship to being a pioneer of garbology, rather than being lion hearted in general and also pioneering garbology
@@oranjedrurgen8934 Aes had referenced his Lion heart about 20 times over the years. He mocks others by calling them Tin men. His very first song in fact-Abandon all hope.
I also came to the comment section to point out that Skye missed the Wizard of Oz theme (adopt dogs just to tell them they're not in Kansas, the title "That is Not a Wizard"). It's actually crazy how many times he's referenced it throughout all his works, and I only really realized after listening to Garbology
Yo, I really enjoy your channel man! Wish I had listened to this a year ago when it popped up on my feed,I hadn't listened to the album much at the time. At one point you asked why Aes fans love him so much, and you know the wordplay and baritone voice got me listening to him back in highschool, but what kept me listening into adulthood was his perspective on normal everyday life. I wouldn't say it's deep in the same way that like Brother Ali, or Lupe or other folks are, but Aes has a knack for taking the most regular-ass shit like going to your favorite donut shop and making it into a profound experience. To me he does the same thing with words that a graffiti artist does with spray paint, where an ugly abandoned lot becomes an insane technicolor art gallery. I think that's why the concept of Garbology struck a cord with him and Blockhead, not because it's about taking trash and elevating it, it's more about digging through trash and finding the little lost treasures. He's not the first to do it, it's a tradition that goes back to the beginning of hip-hop when kids where trying to find beauty in the post-apocalyptic setting that was the Bronx. It feels like he's deliberate and ernest when he does this and I think he does it inspite of the fact that he has (or his rap persona at least has) this sort of cynical, curmudgeonly disposition.
Nothing lends credibility to your click bait, blanket statement like, "This is my 2nd time listening to Aesop..." Also, "Voice to the voiceless", at least to Aesop's credit here, could easily be in reference to those dealing with mental health issues, (See: Hey Kirby, Shrunk, ETC) My humble 2 cents.
you said he's padding his vocab stat with "acetaminophen"; i actually had the opposite impression with "thermals over thermals..", "cut through a graveyard just to cut to through another graveyard..", and "leader's leader's leader". to me, it felt as if he were self conscious of his vocabulous reputation and was trying to dilute it a little. or it's just in theme with 'Garbology'.
Aes uses repetition and onomatopoeia a lot to give punch to some of his lines- "airhorn airhorn airhorn airhorn" from Molecules, "meow meow meow meow" from Cat Food, "tchk tchk tchk tchk feet on leaves" from Dog at the Door, "click click clack in territorial syntax" from Saturn Missiles etc. I'm pretty sure he's said before he doesn't really focus on using big words, just writing something that he thinks sounds good. Regardless his vocabulary is astonishing; maybe he reads a lot of books
If you feel the itch for more Aesop, I strongly recommend checking out his album "Bestiary", with longtime collaborator Rob Sonic. I'd love to hear your thoughts on their rhyme schemes and how well they bounce off each other.
FAVORITE TH-cam CHANNEL OF ALL TIME but worried youll never hear Hemlock Ernst’s Back At The House cuz its 2019 have you heard it have you heard it?! )’,:
Roughly speaking, " I didn't appreciate white rappers because i felt they had a voice." Followed by "i found an appreciation for those who have a voice but make hip hop" then you end with "i learned to like aesop rock (not "white rappers", in which you were fixated on) . You studied English as a way to masquerade your misunderstanding of the world. You exposed yourself as a college teacher without needing explanation within the first 3 minutes. Wont change your stance that there may be white people without a voice but quick to throw Aesop up as the outlier. I hope your students learn better than you at the language you claim to profess.
I love this review. You are quite an interesting, and oddly educated in the hip hop game. kudos! Also, I'm not saying this to haha correct you, but on the song legerdemain he says "marching out the army surplus" rather than munching. Like he's walking out of the surplus store. Great job either way
Finally felt like I had enough of the lyrics in my brain for the quotes! Great review. REI on me if you roll through Salem (just kidding, I can’t move like that)
I think "More Cycles" is essentially part two of cycles to Gehenna. A song about riding a motorcycle wrecklessly to process grief over the death of a friend. And about how if you died doing that, nobody would ever know or care what you were going through or why. It's actually one of my favorite songs because it's so chilling.
Get your whole road map Pac man’d is a reference to his song The Greatest PacMan Victory In History. “Get up to get down now (like this) Get up to get down now (alright) I don't wanna do it anymore Couldn't do it if I tried, wouldn't do it if I wanted it Hey I don't wanna do it anymore Couldn't do it if I tried...” Farther in he elaborates on the block in transition to “pock mark”. It’s sickening to behold; he drowns out his disgust via substance and self-isolation. “Teetering….” There is no metaphor he uses that doesn’t touch on a deeper meaning. To hear you write him off as being deep without purpose, without diving into his discography, is amusing to say the least. Even the jump off the bridge in the video for Jazz Hands is referencing 9-5ers Anthem. “I'll take my seat atop the Brooklyn Bridge With a Coke and a bag of chips To watch a thousand lemmings plummet just because The first one slipped” (Aes is the first to have slipped btw. That’s what makes him the Lionheart) I really recommend you start with Float and work your way through his work as a whole. Really fills in the gaps you think he’s leaving. I’d also like to point out the irony in your opinion that hip-hop artists mainly portray an “I’m cool” vibe. And you start a course at your university based on looking deeper into hip-hop. Lol
Ay man, i love that an academic person is analysing hip hop, the best album to start listening to Aesop Rock is definitely The Impossible Kid, it's the most personal and straight forward album he ever released
OMG YOU DON'T GET IT!! Just STOP! How do you opine and guess about his Crow talk WHEN YOU'VE NEVER LISTENED TO HIS SONGS CROWS 1+2?? I can't continue. Seeing you completely miss the sarcasm/irony is impossible, kid.
Everyone pointing to older work for depth is on point. I think there is something to aging and perspective that Aes has been trying to stick to the last half of a decade. The kind of depth you are referencing is for the young or those yet unexposed to those deep notions, the kind of deep happening here is a journal of observation reaction from a place of a matured perspective... I feel like it assumes depth and knowledge to even unpack it, if that makes any sense at all.
Duuude, a 45 minute video on Aesop!! He deserves it but jeez. I get how you got there. If you don't understand his references to history, art, or philosophy you're going to be missing out.
I think you'd like Impossible Kid. But as others have said check his stuff out from the begining cuz he makes references to them, also blockhead produced most of his albums
3 critical things that I think will help you in this "spiritual journey" you're on to discover what makes Aes so magnetic. 1. This and the direct previous album can be seen as Aes' "winter. Prior to them Impossible Kid and Skelethon are in essence his fall to late summer. Tinged with death and decay but also blissfully nostalgic. Where it has the rally and joy of being reverent and inspired while also being haunted and decrepit, often by the same source. Garbology and SWFG are essentially age overcoming the brilliance of art and humanity. A certain destruction in spite of a lifetime of creation in the face of loss. (In my opinion) 2. More Cycles can be seen as a "spiritual successor" and/or sequel to the Skelethon magnum opus "Cycles to Gehenna." But where Gehenna is beautiful and tragic on an intensely personal level being one part hip-hop, one part intricate and magnificent ballet of rock More Cycles is an almost dystopian moody jazz(?) track reminiscent of not only Tron (the remake not the original) but also neo-noirs like Blade Runner and Disco Elysium. 3. You may be a poisy-decorated dummy with a collar like a boa's spine but you're also the idea target to explore Aes's mind. I think your perspective is as valid and sincere as his or mine. This album is NOT his deepest work but it certainly has merit. Love rap, love discussion, and rock on.
i think Oh Fudge is equating aging with feeling like you're becoming a monster who understands less each year rather than just saying he's cool. hes a cool old dude who feels like shit I guess
Good video. As a long-time fan of Aesop, I’ve always thought the vocab stuff has become a bit of a red herring. Aes uses a lot of words but it’s more about the inventory than the expanse. As for depth, I think Aesop can be deep in spurts, however, I don’t really think it’s the intention of his music (and certainly not to curate his image as “smart” anyway). Recently, maybe from The Impossible Kid onwards, I feel like Aesop’s USP has shifted from dazzling the listener with the might of his vocabulary to instead, stacking miniature epiphanies in subversive metaphor (Hot Dogs, Klutz, Purple Moss, Jumping Coffin, That is Not a Wizard). I guess for me, the “depth” of Aes isn’t at the forefront of my enjoyment. It’s his basic rhyming skill, flow, voice, mic presence and overall sound. One of the things I love about Aes’ music is his faithfulness to his influences (Saafir, Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang, DOOM, Camp Lo). In some ways, it’s compositionally conventional (in terms of the nuts and bolts) hip-hop with an unconventional facade. Also, your initial point about white rappers and the incompatibility with hip-hop’s tenet as “voice of the voiceless” is completely valid. However, hip-hop (if you read historians of the genre like Dart Adams) is rooted in inclusivity (as a founding value) and it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker providing certain participants are respectful and conscious of their status/privilege - and the artform as a whole. And this is also true for the ears of the eared.
Speaking of the global phenomenon, our Council member Five Steez has dropped his new LP "Quietude" today and its all produced by a beat maker from Brazil - SonoTWS... the call of the Tunderground strikes again, and it also features a guest verse from Tha God Fahim - you should load it up on spotify for a listen and see how ya feel Prof. Nuff Respect and salute.
i'm brazilian and i can tell u that SonoTWS is one of the best producers right now here. also check out vhoor's new project, "baile", it's miami bass influenced and really dope
"Im not looking for anything deeper" Proceeds to miss the point of half the songs. "I prefer this other rapper because he puts more meaning into his work" 👁👄👁
In my opinion, if you sit, read, and think, Aesop is eventually coherent. Some bars can be needlessly opaque, but they ultimately make sense... After you study it like it's a homework assignment, or after you start to pick up on his internal references and his consistent themes, his bars just makes sense. Not all of them are deep, though, and he's pretty fuckin' funny imo. But one needn't understand every bar to enjoy it, and I still find new meaning in songs I've been listening to for years. All of that said, excellent video so far. 👌
@ 5mins in: ARGH what is this yellow sweater man saying @ 30mins: Wow, I've really gained a better insight of one of my favourite rappers Garbology and Spirit World Field Guide are so much more accessible than his earlier works though. Labour Days is a personal favourite (I know you're a big Nic Craven fan, PLEASE review YOD Wave by Your Old Droog X Nicholas Craven coming out Friday 4th March)
I loved the use of acetaminophen. First listen I missed how complex a rhyme scheme that really was. Also against the backdrop setting of the track it is in context. I am sure he challenges himself to see what un-rhymable (is that a word?) words he can drop in :) He is down in Portland so Jazz Hands is that backdrop.
I feel like everyone in the comments is sleeping on Malibu Ken. Outside of Impossible Kid, maybe his best combination of accessibility, personal vulnerability, and social commentary (the last two, plus layered wordplay, constituting "depth")
Like the review. One thing I will say about the "Deep" topic is he usually reserves his "Deepest" work for his full length solo projects. This project was marketed as "garbage" tracks that weren't ever going to see the light of day but they decided to release them so that alone means you shouldn't expect this to be the deep content and connections that he makes in his usual solo albums.
Listen to the song Strange Hours (Aesop Rock remix) You're gonna love it, as an art hystorian. Here is a sample: _Da Vinci gave him muscle, drunken Vinny took his ear_ _Mondrian and Rothko made him feel like a square_
I actually agree that it's helpful to enjoy Aes from a shallower perspective. I think I would say that he tends to be less "deep" on collaboration albums, or at least less so than he tends to be on his solo works. Just my two cents though.
Managing the stereo field in music production is actually quite difficult. A great many systems (such as your phone, a lot of club systems, some car systems, etc.) play music back in "mono", as opposed to stereo. When a track has a prominent stereo image and is played back in mono, the volume of the stereo parts tend to be drastically different than they were originally, which leads to a lot of producers avoiding a lot of stereo imaging. This disinclination towards the stereo field is largely genre dependent, and as systems improve, the ability to convey stereo information appropriately is improving. But for now, the answer to the question of why most artists don't employ the stereo field more often is simply that it makes the music sound bad in certain contexts.
I think the hook in Fizz actually reflects his self awareness of exactly what Skye is saying. I picture someone at a fast food chain ranting about meaningless “deep talk” then ends with “let me get a fry”. It shows what Aesop thinks of his own contemplation at times.
I appreciate your beginning to see Aesop as a fantastic addition to the list of influential artists; as a long time fan of the musician of reference, I love when people discover his work. I can see your point of view on a good number of things, but I would love to know more like when you broke down Spirit World Field Guide. You came across much better in that regard, it was more personal. All of us breakdown the albums, as you did here, and we call agree that Aes is ridiculously good at saying how badass he is (especially his vocabulary), but your introspect is behind it. Your feeling is hidden behind you responding to the troll aspect of fandom saying "you don't get it." Clearly, you do. But please, please, please give more of the personal and professorial breakdown because that's how real fans get educated. We listen to the opinions of others. We want to grow as artists. We want to grow as musicians. We want to grow as people. I appreciate you're self awareness in regard to the hip hop culture and to the relationships of society, I recognize the hard art of self deprecation, but allow your voice to heard in that regard. We grow through understanding one another because of difference of opinion. Producing content is hard because people are ruthless, but keep spreading the message: Education equals Growth. Go dig in the Aes crates and see the growth as you have other artis, and enjoy.
I agree! Aesop Rock is deep. But he's also not. He'll have songs where he blends together philosophical ideas and dips into the human condition and pulls apart emotion and life and all of that. But then he'll also release a song about a frog that can jump really high.
Don't mind me I'm just going to keep commenting. When it comes to "Flamingo Pink", I think the opening line is painting a picture of a prison escape, or a successful heist of some sort. Rope over the wall, down river by the time they radio for the dogs...and the "Wooly Willy" I presume to mean like removing a mustache...changing appearance after the escape.
That’s why I love Aesop. Rather than “change your appearance,” he references wooly willy. Every line of an Aesop song has something to decode. Especially his older stuff. It’s so dense that it almost defies casual listening.
Honestly this, along with a few of his last albums are very accessible, if you are looking for deep, you are honestly doing yourself a disservice by not listening to his catalog from Float (his first official album, or better yet Labor Days) onward. This guy has been ahead of his time for years and I feel like these last few albums are victory laps for an underappreciated rapper who has been an underground legend for damn 20 years.
Well said
Float to this day. One of the best albums
🍋🙈"I Float, While Everyone Around Me Is Busy Drowing"
And still easily some of the greatest albums of all time
Facts bro facts! I don’t know how many people I have asked “do you listen to Aesop Rock” and they almost always think I’m talking about asap rocky 🤦🏻♂️🤣
Aesop said in an Instagram post "garbology is defined as the study of material discarded by a society to learn what it reveals about social or cultural patterns." He then goes on in the post to explain how both himself and blockhead find parallels in themselves with this idea. If that helps gives some insight into the reasoning behind the album name.
@Jen Psaki it's possible.
Exactly! it's a study in real time archeology.
That' not what it's about. It's about Rumpelstiltskin theory of Dualism and how he came to believe he was being punished by a lesser god. The trails and tribulations of booger selling and of course Kant's dialectic.
Your comment about hip-hop being the voice of the voiceless really resonates, and Aes actually is that: he represents the introvert, the depressed, the mentally ill, the seeker of a higher truth who has absolutely no certainty that such a thing actually exists. He's the spokesman for people who don't shower, brush teeth, brush hair, do laundry, eat, clean the apartment, take out the trash, etc. not because they don't want to, but because they have executive function issues. He's a dreamer, and his dreams are strange and sometimes disturbing. He is the voice of the high functioning agoraphobic, the scary smart person who never speaks for fear of being judged. His vocabulary is that of an avid and voracious reader, but never comes across as being a show off or as a pointless thesaurus. What he says matters, at least to him, and very often to the people who feel the way he expresses himself through his lyrics. Aes is deeper than any other musical artist I can think of, because you can tell he means what he's saying and has lived the experiences he describes.
the one that hit me the hardest to do with that was 'get out the car'
it's wrong, it's all wrong and he knows it, he's essentially self destructing on a slow scale and just because he knows it doesn't mean that it's right or good, pointing out that people like him will move on one day or end up in an early casket.
I almost see it as the parallels of 'cycles to gehena' almost directly saying he can't judge the death wish.
💯
@worstwizzard
I so greatly appreciate your comment.
Because not only is it factually true, it rings that exceedingly specific bell-tone that can only ever sound this very one singular note of °soul-deep true°
I resonate so so much with Aes' semi-functional/paranoid aggressive solitude and ya, incidentally, most anyone would regard me, also, as certifiably bug-nuts;
however, when it is a matter of survival to excerpt one's person from the greater social matrix, as one might cut a horoscope from a huge sprawling urban hellscape's Sunday paper, in order to further their intent to continue breathing, it's an entirely separate list of the most fundamental priorities, without. which. they. could. not. live.
°Alone° MUST head that list.
So, I had so many more points that I agreed with and wanted to thank you for making, but I think I spent quite some time elucidating on this one patch of weeds that for me, brings out deeply martial, threat alerts within me, that evoke requisite protocols for my last man standing drills/syndrome, et al.
For this, I apologize.
Your words were impeccably well spoken, and your points were eloquent, yet concise, and nuanced enough to communicate the innumerable subtle facts innate within the myriad °soul-deep truths°
This is not my phone, more like a couch-surf identity.
But if you chose to respond, I would likely hear of it.
Muchlove, Suki Marmelaide
Aesop rock has definitely been deep throughout his career, and is not just giving the impression of being deep. You should listen to labour days, or none shall pass. He has many songs with social commentary on the state of modern capitalistic society.
Came to the comment section to say this. Labor days is where he should go next. Songs like No rEgrets, Daylight (and nightlight), 9-5 anthem and I am realizing I was about to list every song on the album just about. Labor Days, Labor Days and Labor Days. Or at the very least, he needs to hear Daylight followed directly by Nightlight.
@@ryanmcfunisher985 Yep I agree 100%!!
I almost guarantee this guy won't feel the same way about those albums as you do. You probably heard them at a point in your life where they just hit different. I think he'd feel like taking a step back to those albums. Aes has grown lyrically, both in his ability to express a thought and to pull together a coherent theme without being entirely on the nose or too abstract since those days.
Couldn't agree more and I'll add that "No Regrets" from Labor Days says so much so well and has personally impacted me in what I'd consider very deep ways beyond the few relatively shallow topics mentioned in the video.
@Jen Psaki fair enough. I haven't listened to No Regrets in a long time but I do think it's extremely accessible (it was one of the first songs I heard of his as well). Because of that, and the fact that it's certainly deep in the way the video is discussing deep (i.e., not necessarily degree of technical skill, rhyming, word choice, etc. but rather a message with a deep meaning), I think it's a great example and certainly had a deep impact on me when I listened to it. Personally I think the whole concept of depth can only be discussed coarsely anyway. I definitely disagree that it's one of his worst songs but that's probably a matter of personal preference as well (and I've listened to a lot of Aes in my life so it isn't a question of exposure).
The way you approach this review is the best way to consume Aesop Rock in my opinion. Don't listen to it and actively go searching for deeper meaning. Just let the words fly by.
Its not even listening to it in a shallow way because at some point you'll be listening to one of his songs and some lyric will just hit you. Right in the face. The meaning suddenly apparent, you'll have it in your head for the next hour and it'll be the coolest/cleverest thing you've ever heard for all that time.
🍋👌🔥perfect way to speak as a fan... one doesn't understand everything but eventually it will hit you and u will dig deep and formulate a strong bond with Aes. But this guy here thinks he is the Wiz of hiphop and thinks he knows what rappers mean when they write each line. I'm a rapper... there's things I can say that he won't be able to dissect or interpret incorrectly.🙌
Here's the thing about Aesop Rock. I was still picking up clever wordplay and metaphors, 5 years down the road from when I first started listening to Aesop Rocks first two mass distributed albums (Float and Labor Days). As an Aes Stan, trust me when I say that his music has actually gotten much more digestible and less coded in recent years. Some things I think we weren't meant to understand as well. A couple years ago I heard him say in an interview that sometimes he will include lyrics that just mean something to him. One thing I truly love about Aes is the fact that even if you're only catching every third word or every other partial bar, Aesop will always get across the song's exact vibe and mood even if you're not understanding every bar. I can always connect to an Aes song with not just beats and lyrics but also his delivery, tone, and overall cadence. Dudes a true musical genius of our time.
Abandoned Malls slays me. It's so beautiful in its devastating expressions of melancholy. There's a lot going on in there, and it would be virtually impossible to fully understand for those without solid knowledge of Aesop's history. One of those details that hits me the hardest: "I been trying to teach your kid to ollie. She got the basic motion and glow when she show her mommy". Aesop is sitting there "logging (his) Hayashi pics", talking to his recently-deceased dear friend (videographer, Kurt Hayashi, rip) about teaching his daughter to skateboard. Absolutely heartbreaking and thoroughly wholesome.
that's what I love about Aes, the wordplay and mysticism plays second fiddle to his expressiveness and sincerity
That's beautiful. Well said.
yeah that track has already made its way into my favorite Aesop tracks ever.
You missed it on Jazz Hands. The heart of it is literally a sequential story about him driving to, witnessing, documenting, and perhaps participating in the recent demonstrations:
“I can draw a roof on fire from memory”
“Can’t treat it as a job at the stock yard/
And feign shock when they turn a block to a pockmark”
- translation: can’t treat policing like working at the slaughterhouse wrangling pen, then act surprised when city streets end up getting destroyed… ish
“Stock parks knocking on mach”
- transalation: my assembly line car is driving as fast as possible to the protests…. Think of the layers in that “simple” half line alone.
“Ring around the king of pain:
Bring acetaminophen/
You either see division/
Or dinner with Demolition Men”
-translation: picture demonstrators dancing around burning effigies of militarized police forces. And if you stay long enough you’ll either see division in the republic, or eventual goodwill between demonstrators and police dressed in riot gear like the movie Demolition Man.
This is all sandwiched between him visiting family, and ends with comments on anonymous activism (sort of).
“We can build forts while the pigs court civil war”
-translation: play childlike with his niece instead of running into battle with gusto to come out on top, like families arguing about politics.
“Walk into the room shoot an arrow with an arrow…
I will not be aiming for the apple”
-translation: after describing the demonstrations, we’re back wit his family, where he “demonstrates” his knowledge, but then declines to participate in the family arguments… Pigs from the beginning with apple in mouth after mutual destruction… Yet also about how dope of a rapper he is, as you said. All of it is.
Last line is simultaneously insulting those who practice anonymous activism, while also empathizing with them, while also threatening them, while also referencing/threatening billionaires flying to space for thrills while streets are burning:
“Some days I want to build a rocket to the karmen line/
10, 9, 8 keep your head and arms inside”
Listen again and it appears like a Dickinson poem.
Listen again and your brain turns around when you realize the entire narrative could be from the perspective of a police officer and song works EXACTLY the same.
Dude deep like a maphucka!
🍋"We can build forts while the pigs court civil war"😭😭😭🔥❤💯
🍋💯🥵He has ties to everything bruh, no one compares. But I have an opinion that Illogic murdered him in "One Brick"🙆♂️😹 although Aes is better by overall
@@Respectthemynd illogic was so corny in one brick imo, i loved aes in there but i find the song almost unlistenable due to the feature
Absolutely. It's Aes writing during the pandemic and protests. "Love note to the whole fuck show..."
Great review! I love to be made to think of a song or a lyric in a way that I didn't consider before. When you elaborated on "a blue that really wasn't" , it really scratched that itch. All of your videos have that quality because you only review popular music that is interesting and you can either draw comparisons or make good points with. This review chanel is really the only place you can get that with any real depth. I really appreciate you making these!
The reason More Cycles never references the title in the lyrics is because it's referring to another song about riding a motorcycle called Cycles to Gehenna from Skelethon. Great breakdown!
I have watched this video once in every few months. It's always a fun and insightful take on the record. You deliver intelligently and honestly which is also fun to watch.
Aesop Rock is not deep in the sense that the subject matter is usually very accessible (he has a song about his cat, about therapy, basic cable, painting and drawing...). What is deep about his lyrics are his reference points, which are either to obscure or to personal for you to get.
I think one of the big contributing factors to the depth, which I think is more a byproduct than an intention, is his sincerity. He just has an idea, writes it, and people relate and draw their own conclusions of meaning from it
Great review, been anticipating this one. Fun fact, Blockhead once worked with a pre-fame Lana Del Ray. So now, the cypher is complete.
Favorite line on the album, “He flees Rome between seizures, still talking grease, launching tees into bleachers, take him to your leader’s leader’s leader, even the redeemer like “I need to speak to senior”, ey!”
the deepest part of Aesop and what puts together at least a quarter of the initially impenetrable lines is realising he's often talking about capitalist and liberal society from the perspective of a non-liberal leftist. one of his older songs, "Klutz" really outlines how he feels about this stuff. absolutely love Jazz Hands, because it builds up the image of a dude who knows society won't be fixed before his time is up, and he's talking about how hard change will be. "can't treat it like a job at the stock yard and feign shock when they turn a block to a pock mark" is probably reference to the 1985 MOVE bombing, and sets up the idea that "Patsy, the revolution won't have jazz hands", as in something like that level of counter-rebellion will be deployed to absolutely demolish revolution. you can imagine he could've been thinking about these things since the Seattle Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone spectacle, as well as all other sorts of "performative revolutionary moments" have happened
i don't think he's super deep honestly and I like how you talk about that. i'm not sure he's trying to be deep. lately his stuff is much less esoteric than a decade ago. you're right in that the album does deal with "modern democratic party liberal leftism" quite a bit in a way that goes over a lot of heads. but the whole thing, it's like anything you get very familiar with. it's not super hard to see where its use and depth ends. Aes is absolutely an artist, is the thing. once you understand the songs somewhat approximate to how he might, every one of them becomes tapestries. he's a rebellious aging old school rapper who's still shouting into the void
"You wont be laughing when your covered wagons crash, you wont be laughing when the buzzards drag your brother's flags to rags, you wont be laughing when your front lawns spangled with epitaphs." Aes 20 years ago.
@@mrc3885 he's absolutely had that materialist dialectic crystal ball for at least a couple decades
He's more like a liberal from 20 years ago where people weren't so pearl clutching and sensitive, which makes sense since he is in his 40s. "Volley with the quintessential
Digital anger, I'm offended by everything
My opinions come in a manger, oh boy" Everyone always imagines themselves as being on the cutting edge, the revolutionary youth, until they get older and see the same themes repeat again remixed in a slightly different way
🍋You know I like how you all classify a rapper just from a picture he paints, notice the word Garbology may mean that that its lyrics he has written and discarded for ages to come, to feed them all to u now because all he is saying with my knowledge for now is not totally morden, unfortunately you won't understand because he's not making music for you. GO LISTEN TO ONE OF FOUR.
Easiest way of listening to Aesop is assuming he's talking about the rap game and using it as a sample size of modern society. Aes is first n foremost a NY inspired rapper spawned from the rap battle post-grunge youth, influenced by 80s Cali culture.
My favorite project by Aesop Rock is Malibu Ken where he worked with producer Tobacco to make one of the coolest form of hip hop I heard in a while. Don't know if you had a chance to check that out.
My all time favorite
So white dudes don't struggle in the world and can't make music about it? Or even the USA?
And Ghostface is killing it for you cause he just throws words that sound cool together?
Son, so many logical fallacies in the first 3 minutes of the video; judging deepness whilst straight up lacking it...priceless.
seems like u didnt hear out his point ironically
I been an Aesop fan for years and this prob my favorite one from him in a while. Since like Impossible Kid. I love the way hes flowing on the beats on here that kinda calmer more measured flow like on Difficult and the last track Abandoned Malls for instance. Oh and the piss thing you talk about I didn't notice it til I watched this video and going back and listening now almost every single song has some kinda piss reference lolol
I agree. I like this one a lot. There is something magical about it.
Say the lyrics went over your head without saying the lyrics went over your head.
There are Aesop Rock songs that I've been listening to for almost 20 years and I'll still catch something new. This man is his own genre.
If you’re interested in hearing another rapper who’s pretty esoteric you should check out Deca. He’s esoteric in a very different way, and often speaks on spiritual subjects in a way that even I as an atheist find intriguing. I’d recommend you start with his album “the ocean”, I’ve heard it so many times I know >90% of the words to the whole thing. Busdriver is great too. Anyway great review as always. Thanks.
Yo I heard Waiting by chance months ago, and i’ve been meaning to check out more of his shit!
deca is dope
@@Markblood889 You definitly should just listen to the ocean, ideally in order in one go.
2:00 before I hear more, I wanna say Aesop is the voice of the alienated.
was thinking the exact same, he doesn't represent himself as a white guy rapping with braggadocio quite as much as Prof. Skye implies. he's always talking about how much he understands and relates with alienation, and the fact that he understands the conditions that have caused such a massive wave of alienation. "Bent Life" is probably his most direct statement about this
I'm not sure how you say there isn't great depth in his writing. Garbology is Aes at his height. Where his old albums are more cryptic, his latest works has him boiling away some of the verbosity, to focus on succinctly deep and potent narratives.
For instance, one thing you said about Jazz Hands: His William Tell story isn't him JUST saying he's "a baddass". Yes it absolutely is playing on classic braggadocio rap, and if it was just that, what a cool and obscure way to do it....but it acually plays into the whole theme of this song (and album) which was written during the pandemic and civil unrest of 2020-2 (His "love note" to the "whole fuck show".)
That stretch of verses in Jazz Hands is about the riots, fighting the powers that be...just like Tell, who's legend is of tyrannicide. Tell refused to pay homage to the local feudal enforcer, Gessler, and was imprisoned and told if he shoots the apple off his son's head they would both be sparred. He does so but Gessler noticed a second arrow held by Tell, which Tell explains if he had missed the apple, the second arrow was for Gessler. Apt allegory describing the divisive infighting and culture wars of our time, when it should really be all of us, the servants, aiming for the masters.
I know it’s not in the style of your videos but I hope at some point you go back and listen to at least Skelethon and The Impossible Kid. I feel those two albums along with Spirit World Field Guide make up an over arcing journey of Aesop dealing with the loss of his friend Camu Tao. From recognizing pain, to getting help, and eventually working to overcome and deal. Also Skelethon has two songs named Crows, so there’s that going for it
Getty image green cheese moon dead of winter shit
@@zacharymedeiros8045 graveyard *chk chk* shifter shit
You seem a bit annoyed by the vocab. Thats just his style of rapping tho. He's not trying to have more words than anyone. He's just rapping in his style. Thats what he's always been. People think he's deep because they don't really understand what he's saying, but on some level he is deep af.
Basically the TLDR of my entire video. 😀
Spider breaking the 4th Wall
Appreciate when you analyze Aes’ work. I enjoy hearing some of the actual terminology associated with the structure of language and poetry. The mechanics of what he’s actually doing. More of that…
Being a little younger than Aes, similarly growing up in that era, building forts and stuff. Definitely has a way of subtly reminiscing to those moments in time. Mom telling you to fix a cowlick, or helping fix, before you walked into a public setting. My brother, the rest of the neighborhood kids, and I, grabbing Fizz for 25 cents from the ice cream man or nearby convenient store.
Fizz is a fruit flavored hard candy with some type of alka-seltzer like sour additive in the center of the candy. When you got to it, it’d fizz up. Hence the name. Lol It came sealed in a plastic strip, each candy separated individually in the strip, and color coated to each candies flavor.
To get a laugh, as young punks, always pissing on something, daring a buddy to piss on something. A rather idiotic action that calls back to so many memories and laughs in a group of peers. The collective Garbology of it all.
I more so relate to all his work, once being the life of the party, to becoming an introvert in my late 20’s, also being a fine artist and a lover of Hip-Hop.
And the reference to motorcycles. Check out Aesop Rock - Cycles to Gehenna. Similarly referenced. Ties in a bit.
Saw Ghost live with a 10 piece band, LA Allstars. Mind blowing. Not only that, but he opened for Rakim. Once in a lifetime shit…
And I understand your white rapper statement. I take no offense as a white male. It’s a black art form. No one can take that away from them or deny that. It originated from there. It told and tells their stories and culture. It is and was rebel music that spoke to their unheard culture. A voice of the often disenfranchised and oppressed. Boy did they ever find a voice! Fuckin’ love Hip-Hop.
Suppose that’s an element that makes Aes, Aes. He’s using that medium, but he doesn’t try to be something he isn’t. He uses his own subject matter. He’s genius in the medium, but he’s not stealing a subject matter that he doesn’t personally know. That lifestyle in which Hip-Hop culture originated from. He has his own lane, and he knows that and uses it accordingly.
One more thing, suppose related to those statements. A piece I really think you’d thoroughly enjoy. It’s kind of gone unheard, and it’s an absolute stellar piece, that speaks to the element of Hip-Hop now being a universal language, often being exploited and refaced. You have to analyze in its totality, down to how Naz is vocally delivering the song. That bootlegging, prohibition era. He’s even cleverly calling to specific moments in time and songs in the commercialization of Hip-Hop. He’s using song titles as lines to actually tell the story. It’s unbelievable stuff. You have to listen to it and come back with a response, even if it’s just a response here. Would love to hear some of the elements you’re able to depict from it. If not, you’ll still thoroughly enjoy it, none the less.
Fucking love this comment
But bro you didn’t say which Nas project you’re talking about at the end there
loved reading this, cheers to you
density and depth are two different units of measurement. I still appreciate your point of view. First video I have watched of yours and Aesop just so happens to be my favorite artist to hear others perspective about upon early listening. cheers
"All dressed up, like a spider in a cup." - Aesop Rock
Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of your generalized criticism seems to stem from not recognizing the statements being made, the reference to real world events or stories and how they relate.
15:24 "All he's saying is I'm badass" no, the original telling of William Tell had two arrows against the lord's instructions, One for the shot, and one for the lord if he was betrayed or failed. "I will not be aiming for the apple" is a statement of intent, not a statement of prowess. It is a threat against careless authority.
16:26 The Revolution will not have Jazz Hands is specific criticism of the Occupy movement, which uses Jazz Hands or "Up Twinkles" as one of their hand signals to indicate agreement.
i appreciate this review more than other aes reviews
I literally was typing and stopped when you said "and I know you're probably typing right now" lmao. Great videos. Thank you for making these.
My favorite albums of Aes are his least deep- The Impossible Kid and slightly deeper Skelathon
Please review The Impossible Kid. Its his best work!
I love that you have fair criticisms of the album or aesop rock's style in general. A lot of other people just get wrapped up in the vocabulary, and even if they never understand the concepts they give it praise because it's "dense" and he uses a lot of metaphors. Despite a good amount of his song and certain lines amounting to some mundane topics and something that just circles around to meaning nothing or not as deep as he describes it with his vocabulary, I enjoy the artistry of explaining something so insignificant with as much color as a kid scribbling in a notebook.
I remember I took me a while to fully grasp the song fryerstsrter, thinking there must be some deeper meaning, only to find out "nope, he just wants to talk about his favorite donut shop" and how I view him changed a lot. Where a lot of rap focuses more on "if you are saying something" more than "how you say it", aesop does the opposite.
Aesop Rock is most definitely more explicitly deep in his earlier work (labor days, impossible kid, etc.)
However, I think more lately his depth is a bit more hidden. Take Jumping Coffin from his last album. It took me a lot of listening to the song over and over and over again, really taking in the lyrics, before I noticed a constant theme of the lyrics in that song referring to his being not just introverted, but being afraid of stepping outside of his comfort zone, breaking routines, etc. I can go more in depth if you wish, but that song, on a wider scale, is about the fear of trying something new and letting down your walls, and the idea that once they've been dropped it's difficult to push everything out and raise them up again.
I think That Is Not A Wizard is the most obviously deep song on this album. At a cursory glance it's seemingly a drug trip with the hook. However, it's quite apparent that the whole song is anti-authority. It has a heavy emphasis on the fuck the rich, fuck the people that start endless wars for money, fuck people that think they're better because of their blood, etc. It's very much a song that, to me at least, highlights a sort of left wing talking point, but is also juxtaposed by his apathy in some of the last lines.
Fizz is quickly becoming one of my favourites on this album. The sound is fantastic, but the lyrics really lost me the first like 10 times I listened to it, until I read someone's interpretation of it. They said that Fizz is giving a voice to the US political climate, or perhaps even the country itself. "Unabashed do-nothings who do nothing but multiply" is an exceptionally right wing talking point, and resembles the USA's visceral opposition to welfare and helping the less fortunate. Most of the song Fizz is about talking himself up and talking others down. It's insults and bragadocious lyrics, and the hook highlights it best. "We are not the same. Heaven is a lie. I think you are lame. Lemme get a fry". It's silly, but to me, it's giving a voice to a country that is oppressive to the less fortunate, it berates them, and yet still asks favours. It's saying "you are lesser than me, there's nothing good for you to look forward to, I think you're worthless, but can I take something from you?" Maybe I search too deep for meaning in his lyrics, but having listened to his older music, I really struggle to think he isn't pumping them full of hidden meaning like he always has. Sorry for the extremely long comment. Enjoy your reviews a lot.
Yes! I’m glad I found this video, and this comment. While I don’t think this dude is a yellow sweatered moss muncher, or whatever, but he’s not up to speed (by his own admission).
Jazz Hands is, for me, now my favorite song of all time. It completely encapsulates the tension I feel between the real life in front of me, and the absolutely horrific promise of tomorrow: climate change, civil war, resource scarcity, social upheaval.
How can you enjoy building forts with your niece while the pigs court civil war? I guess by making songs that explore your impotent rage, disappointment, and quasi-optimistic nihilism.
I also think there’s not so subtle hints in these songs of him performing praxis. He’s verbally doing it through these songs, unless, like you, I’m searching too deeply for meaning that isn’t there. But the dude proclaims to spray piss, put up stickers, etc. Rage against the machine type shit. I almost think he’s a dyed in the wool anarchist after this album.
@@treybob333 Totally, and I have no doubt he's of an anarchist mindset. So much of his music focuses on struggles of the less fortunate, be that classism, racism, etc. His music has always been very focused on feelings, namely his own struggles with mental health and the poor treatment of mental health. Listening to older, incredibly deep tracks like None Shall Pass, which talks frequently about institutional abuse of power and the atrocities done in the name of the rich making more money, and it's hard to imagine that in this economic climate he's suddenly not raging at the oppressing class of the ultra wealthy. I think it's naive to imagine he's not embedding deeper meaning, especially when it can be found so abundantly with a little digging.
I am compelled to get all up in these comments, you yellow-sweatered, dunderheaded, moss-eating, troglodytic nincompoop. Just kidding. ;)
I mostly want to help with engagement, as I greatly appreciate your reviews. Particularly in the efforts you make to elaborate on individual lines & your personal connections to them, along with the depth of knowledge you express regarding language and historical references. Whether they be literary, visual art, or Play-Doh. I'm thrilled to see you enjoying Aesop Rock so much more on this second album. I think you touched on many key points in this review, including your assessment that much of his popularity comes from reaching introverts in a very different way than most hip hop artists. One note that ties into another of my favorites among your reviews - Billy Woods provided additional vocals on the hook of Legerdemain. They have collaborated on a few songs in the past.
I know you don't generally do reviews of older projects, but I'm electing to pursue the topic below because you strike me as one of very few reviewers - especially on this platform - with the knowledge and format to thoughtfully and eloquently lecture about what I and many others consider to be classic works of hip hop art.
What if someone told you that Aesop's bizarre usage of vocabulary in his latest works, though clearly masterful and arguably quite a bit more refined, is also markedly less extreme and more straightforward than in his earliest works? Perhaps quite comparable to Jackson Pollock's Black & White series versus many of his earlier paintings, as noted in an appreciation piece by Lupe Fiasco. Would that make you more intrigued or less intrigued to give one of those earlier projects a shot? I see this as the key factor in determining which of the following projects to recommend.
Float (2000) and Labor Days (2001) are likely his most linguistically and poetically complex projects.
The Impossible Kid (2016) is, in my own (and I think Lupe Fiasco's) opinion, the approximate equivalent of the Black & White period.
Or Skelethon (2012), which is my favorite on many days, and in some ways a stylistic bridge between the two eras. This project also contains the other most prominent feature of crows in his career prior to Garbology. I bring this up because I suspect there may be an even more direct connection between your shared relationship with crows than is readily apparent. The two times they've made such strong thematic appearances have been on the projects subsequent to the deaths of friends who were very near and dear to him.
Thank you, and keep up the great work!
Aes has covered every subject out there.
He's one of my favorite musical artists.
He covered a lot of subjects that really weren't, too.
Aes also LOVES jars lol I’m keeping a log of all the times he mentions jars 😂 this seems like the space to confess that
Dog star in a jar, bordering unsustainable...
@@theologicalmonochromaticbo2102 adding it to my list
Fantastic review man I really enjoyed your take on this album! Keep up the good work.
Although I think it’s a stretch, the “lion-hearted pioneer of high garbology” line could be a part of the wizard of oz theme running through the album (“behind the curtain the merlin is all jellyfish”; “my storm got plans for the dorothies”).
If society, or the “current social architecture,” is Oz, he may be comparing himself to the cowardly lion, in that although he feels out of place, alienated, or “cowardly,” he still acts against social structures with his garbology, or by highlighting and valorizing other rejects, or just the idea of being a reject.
I agree though, that he’s not that deep. I don’t really think he writes albums where every song connects to the other songs on the album, so I’d be surprised if that’s what he intended.
Hey ben, you might enjoy knowing that the majority of Aes's work does in fact connect and play off of his older works. Every song is a bit more graffiti on the same wall so to speak. The pictures made by different groups of songs become their own picture. For me, 20+ years digesting everything single song he's in, I hear a lot of call backs to his older work in Garb, so much in fact that I had talked with some folks about this album serving as a hook to get people into his old stuff.
this is a good observation
I took it to mean that in terms of "lion heartedness" he's lion hearted in terms of his relationship to being a pioneer of garbology, rather than being lion hearted in general and also pioneering garbology
@@oranjedrurgen8934 Aes had referenced his Lion heart about 20 times over the years. He mocks others by calling them Tin men. His very first song in fact-Abandon all hope.
I also came to the comment section to point out that Skye missed the Wizard of Oz theme (adopt dogs just to tell them they're not in Kansas, the title "That is Not a Wizard"). It's actually crazy how many times he's referenced it throughout all his works, and I only really realized after listening to Garbology
Yo, I really enjoy your channel man! Wish I had listened to this a year ago when it popped up on my feed,I hadn't listened to the album much at the time. At one point you asked why Aes fans love him so much, and you know the wordplay and baritone voice got me listening to him back in highschool, but what kept me listening into adulthood was his perspective on normal everyday life. I wouldn't say it's deep in the same way that like Brother Ali, or Lupe or other folks are, but Aes has a knack for taking the most regular-ass shit like going to your favorite donut shop and making it into a profound experience. To me he does the same thing with words that a graffiti artist does with spray paint, where an ugly abandoned lot becomes an insane technicolor art gallery. I think that's why the concept of Garbology struck a cord with him and Blockhead, not because it's about taking trash and elevating it, it's more about digging through trash and finding the little lost treasures. He's not the first to do it, it's a tradition that goes back to the beginning of hip-hop when kids where trying to find beauty in the post-apocalyptic setting that was the Bronx. It feels like he's deliberate and ernest when he does this and I think he does it inspite of the fact that he has (or his rap persona at least has) this sort of cynical, curmudgeonly disposition.
I really appreciate the quality of this video
AVAA. Could be possibly that you someday review some of Aesop's side projects? Like the collaboration album with tobacco "Malibu Ken"?
I was about to throw hands until I reread the title.
Nothing lends credibility to your click bait, blanket statement like, "This is my 2nd time listening to Aesop..."
Also, "Voice to the voiceless", at least to Aesop's credit here, could easily be in reference to those dealing with mental health issues, (See: Hey Kirby, Shrunk, ETC)
My humble 2 cents.
And in my experience, "humor abandons you when you need it most" is because you aren't good at it.
you said he's padding his vocab stat with "acetaminophen"; i actually had the opposite impression with "thermals over thermals..", "cut through a graveyard just to cut to through another graveyard..", and "leader's leader's leader". to me, it felt as if he were self conscious of his vocabulous reputation and was trying to dilute it a little. or it's just in theme with 'Garbology'.
Aes uses repetition and onomatopoeia a lot to give punch to some of his lines- "airhorn airhorn airhorn airhorn" from Molecules, "meow meow meow meow" from Cat Food, "tchk tchk tchk tchk feet on leaves" from Dog at the Door, "click click clack in territorial syntax" from Saturn Missiles etc. I'm pretty sure he's said before he doesn't really focus on using big words, just writing something that he thinks sounds good. Regardless his vocabulary is astonishing; maybe he reads a lot of books
If I am not mistaken, I believe he was going to be a painter, studied painting, etc. Anyway, as usual, great review. I now look forward to these now
If you feel the itch for more Aesop, I strongly recommend checking out his album "Bestiary", with longtime collaborator Rob Sonic. I'd love to hear your thoughts on their rhyme schemes and how well they bounce off each other.
Aes must be pretty deep since the only decent analysis I find of him on youtube is by college professors lmbo
Iktómi visit when you come back to Aes?
Yeah, that's us
I wonder if you heard of Shahmen. You might like reviewing his work, and I would like hearing your review of his work.
You mention your connection to Crows. He actually has two songs called Crows and Crows 2 you should check out ✌
FAVORITE TH-cam CHANNEL OF ALL TIME but worried youll never hear Hemlock Ernst’s Back At The House cuz its 2019 have you heard it have you heard it?! )’,:
Roughly speaking, " I didn't appreciate white rappers because i felt they had a voice." Followed by "i found an appreciation for those who have a voice but make hip hop" then you end with "i learned to like aesop rock (not "white rappers", in which you were fixated on) .
You studied English as a way to masquerade your misunderstanding of the world. You exposed yourself as a college teacher without needing explanation within the first 3 minutes. Wont change your stance that there may be white people without a voice but quick to throw Aesop up as the outlier. I hope your students learn better than you at the language you claim to profess.
hands down my favourite i am all lyric is: all and all i am all things lawless
I love this review. You are quite an interesting, and oddly educated in the hip hop game. kudos!
Also, I'm not saying this to haha correct you, but on the song legerdemain he says "marching out the army surplus" rather than munching. Like he's walking out of the surplus store.
Great job either way
Finally felt like I had enough of the lyrics in my brain for the quotes! Great review. REI on me if you roll through Salem (just kidding, I can’t move like that)
I think "More Cycles" is essentially part two of cycles to Gehenna.
A song about riding a motorcycle wrecklessly to process grief over the death of a friend.
And about how if you died doing that, nobody would ever know or care what you were going through or why.
It's actually one of my favorite songs because it's so chilling.
" I'm not here to pull scarves out, I'm here to pick tumblers under water with his arms bound." - Jazz Hands Nuff said!!!!
Get your whole road map Pac man’d is a reference to his song The Greatest PacMan Victory In History.
“Get up to get down now (like this)
Get up to get down now (alright)
I don't wanna do it anymore
Couldn't do it if I tried, wouldn't do it if I wanted it
Hey
I don't wanna do it anymore
Couldn't do it if I tried...”
Farther in he elaborates on the block in transition to “pock mark”. It’s sickening to behold; he drowns out his disgust via substance and self-isolation. “Teetering….” There is no metaphor he uses that doesn’t touch on a deeper meaning. To hear you write him off as being deep without purpose, without diving into his discography, is amusing to say the least. Even the jump off the bridge in the video for Jazz Hands is referencing 9-5ers Anthem. “I'll take my seat atop the Brooklyn Bridge
With a Coke and a bag of chips
To watch a thousand lemmings plummet just because
The first one slipped” (Aes is the first to have slipped btw. That’s what makes him the Lionheart)
I really recommend you start with Float and work your way through his work as a whole. Really fills in the gaps you think he’s leaving. I’d also like to point out the irony in your opinion that hip-hop artists mainly portray an “I’m cool” vibe. And you start a course at your university based on looking deeper into hip-hop. Lol
Ay man, i love that an academic person is analysing hip hop, the best album to start listening to Aesop Rock is definitely The Impossible Kid, it's the most personal and straight forward album he ever released
OMG YOU DON'T GET IT!! Just STOP! How do you opine and guess about his Crow talk WHEN YOU'VE NEVER LISTENED TO HIS SONGS CROWS 1+2?? I can't continue. Seeing you completely miss the sarcasm/irony is impossible, kid.
Everyone pointing to older work for depth is on point. I think there is something to aging and perspective that Aes has been trying to stick to the last half of a decade. The kind of depth you are referencing is for the young or those yet unexposed to those deep notions, the kind of deep happening here is a journal of observation reaction from a place of a matured perspective... I feel like it assumes depth and knowledge to even unpack it, if that makes any sense at all.
Duuude, a 45 minute video on Aesop!! He deserves it but jeez. I get how you got there. If you don't understand his references to history, art, or philosophy you're going to be missing out.
More cycles.
A motorcycle song by Aesop rock that doesn't say motorcycle... wait a minute that sounds like..
I think you'd like Impossible Kid. But as others have said check his stuff out from the begining cuz he makes references to them, also blockhead produced most of his albums
You should listen to Labor by Aesop. It sums up my feelings about my relationship with work. It's so good.
3 critical things that I think will help you in this "spiritual journey" you're on to discover what makes Aes so magnetic.
1. This and the direct previous album can be seen as Aes' "winter. Prior to them Impossible Kid and Skelethon are in essence his fall to late summer. Tinged with death and decay but also blissfully nostalgic. Where it has the rally and joy of being reverent and inspired while also being haunted and decrepit, often by the same source. Garbology and SWFG are essentially age overcoming the brilliance of art and humanity. A certain destruction in spite of a lifetime of creation in the face of loss. (In my opinion)
2. More Cycles can be seen as a "spiritual successor" and/or sequel to the Skelethon magnum opus "Cycles to Gehenna." But where Gehenna is beautiful and tragic on an intensely personal level being one part hip-hop, one part intricate and magnificent ballet of rock More Cycles is an almost dystopian moody jazz(?) track reminiscent of not only Tron (the remake not the original) but also neo-noirs like Blade Runner and Disco Elysium.
3. You may be a poisy-decorated dummy with a collar like a boa's spine but you're also the idea target to explore Aes's mind. I think your perspective is as valid and sincere as his or mine. This album is NOT his deepest work but it certainly has merit.
Love rap, love discussion, and rock on.
i think Oh Fudge is equating aging with feeling like you're becoming a monster who understands less each year rather than just saying he's cool. hes a cool old dude who feels like shit I guess
Im sold!
Wait you're in Rochester? Like Rochester NY? That's my hometown!
Legerdemain sounds like they found a body in the woods
Good video.
As a long-time fan of Aesop, I’ve always thought the vocab stuff has become a bit of a red herring. Aes uses a lot of words but it’s more about the inventory than the expanse.
As for depth, I think Aesop can be deep in spurts, however, I don’t really think it’s the intention of his music (and certainly not to curate his image as “smart” anyway).
Recently, maybe from The Impossible Kid onwards, I feel like Aesop’s USP has shifted from dazzling the listener with the might of his vocabulary to instead, stacking miniature epiphanies in subversive metaphor (Hot Dogs, Klutz, Purple Moss, Jumping Coffin, That is Not a Wizard).
I guess for me, the “depth” of Aes isn’t at the forefront of my enjoyment. It’s his basic rhyming skill, flow, voice, mic presence and overall sound.
One of the things I love about Aes’ music is his faithfulness to his influences (Saafir, Beastie Boys, Wu-Tang, DOOM, Camp Lo). In some ways, it’s compositionally conventional (in terms of the nuts and bolts) hip-hop with an unconventional facade.
Also, your initial point about white rappers and the incompatibility with hip-hop’s tenet as “voice of the voiceless” is completely valid.
However, hip-hop (if you read historians of the genre like Dart Adams) is rooted in inclusivity (as a founding value) and it’s not necessarily a dealbreaker providing certain participants are respectful and conscious of their status/privilege - and the artform as a whole.
And this is also true for the ears of the eared.
good commentary
Wow! I was impressed by your nuanced understanding of hip hop before you even got into the review ❤️ love my enlightened nillas 🔥🔥
Speaking of the global phenomenon, our Council member Five Steez has dropped his new LP "Quietude" today and its all produced by a beat maker from Brazil - SonoTWS... the call of the Tunderground strikes again, and it also features a guest verse from Tha God Fahim - you should load it up on spotify for a listen and see how ya feel Prof. Nuff Respect and salute.
i'm brazilian and i can tell u that SonoTWS is one of the best producers right now here. also check out vhoor's new project, "baile", it's miami bass influenced and really dope
"Im not looking for anything deeper"
Proceeds to miss the point of half the songs.
"I prefer this other rapper because he puts more meaning into his work"
👁👄👁
If you haven't listened to Aesop Rocks first three albums. It's hard to understand how deep he is.
if you haven't listened to "Rings" by Aes that really reinforces your idea that he's perfect for your brother
In my opinion, if you sit, read, and think, Aesop is eventually coherent. Some bars can be needlessly opaque, but they ultimately make sense... After you study it like it's a homework assignment, or after you start to pick up on his internal references and his consistent themes, his bars just makes sense. Not all of them are deep, though, and he's pretty fuckin' funny imo. But one needn't understand every bar to enjoy it, and I still find new meaning in songs I've been listening to for years. All of that said, excellent video so far. 👌
I think, Sir, you might just be mocking us
@ 5mins in: ARGH what is this yellow sweater man saying
@ 30mins: Wow, I've really gained a better insight of one of my favourite rappers
Garbology and Spirit World Field Guide are so much more accessible than his earlier works though. Labour Days is a personal favourite
(I know you're a big Nic Craven fan, PLEASE review YOD Wave by Your Old Droog X Nicholas Craven coming out Friday 4th March)
More cycles is a follow up to 'cycles to Gehenna'
THANK YOU SKYE!
I loved the use of acetaminophen. First listen I missed how complex a rhyme scheme that really was. Also against the backdrop setting of the track it is in context. I am sure he challenges himself to see what un-rhymable (is that a word?) words he can drop in :)
He is down in Portland so Jazz Hands is that backdrop.
I feel like everyone in the comments is sleeping on Malibu Ken. Outside of Impossible Kid, maybe his best combination of accessibility, personal vulnerability, and social commentary (the last two, plus layered wordplay, constituting "depth")
Like the review. One thing I will say about the "Deep" topic is he usually reserves his "Deepest" work for his full length solo projects. This project was marketed as "garbage" tracks that weren't ever going to see the light of day but they decided to release them so that alone means you shouldn't expect this to be the deep content and connections that he makes in his usual solo albums.
Listen to the song
Strange Hours (Aesop Rock remix)
You're gonna love it, as an art hystorian.
Here is a sample:
_Da Vinci gave him muscle, drunken Vinny took his ear_
_Mondrian and Rothko made him feel like a square_
What do I think of your review? I liked it. It went deep. Like being in the shallow end on your knees.
You definitely need to do Labor Days and Float.... If you like Aesop now... You'll really like him after that.
one of his old ones that really get into his attitude and relationship with religion is "Holy Smokes"
Yeah I can understand a lot of where his attitudes are coming from on garbology based off the holy smokes record
I actually agree that it's helpful to enjoy Aes from a shallower perspective. I think I would say that he tends to be less "deep" on collaboration albums, or at least less so than he tends to be on his solo works. Just my two cents though.
Managing the stereo field in music production is actually quite difficult. A great many systems (such as your phone, a lot of club systems, some car systems, etc.) play music back in "mono", as opposed to stereo. When a track has a prominent stereo image and is played back in mono, the volume of the stereo parts tend to be drastically different than they were originally, which leads to a lot of producers avoiding a lot of stereo imaging.
This disinclination towards the stereo field is largely genre dependent, and as systems improve, the ability to convey stereo information appropriately is improving. But for now, the answer to the question of why most artists don't employ the stereo field more often is simply that it makes the music sound bad in certain contexts.
I think the hook in Fizz actually reflects his self awareness of exactly what Skye is saying. I picture someone at a fast food chain ranting about meaningless “deep talk” then ends with “let me get a fry”. It shows what Aesop thinks of his own contemplation at times.
I appreciate your beginning to see Aesop as a fantastic addition to the list of influential artists; as a long time fan of the musician of reference, I love when people discover his work.
I can see your point of view on a good number of things, but I would love to know more like when you broke down Spirit World Field Guide. You came across much better in that regard, it was more personal. All of us breakdown the albums, as you did here, and we call agree that Aes is ridiculously good at saying how badass he is (especially his vocabulary), but your introspect is behind it. Your feeling is hidden behind you responding to the troll aspect of fandom saying "you don't get it." Clearly, you do. But please, please, please give more of the personal and professorial breakdown because that's how real fans get educated. We listen to the opinions of others. We want to grow as artists. We want to grow as musicians. We want to grow as people.
I appreciate you're self awareness in regard to the hip hop culture and to the relationships of society, I recognize the hard art of self deprecation, but allow your voice to heard in that regard. We grow through understanding one another because of difference of opinion. Producing content is hard because people are ruthless, but keep spreading the message: Education equals Growth.
Go dig in the Aes crates and see the growth as you have other artis, and enjoy.
I agree! Aesop Rock is deep. But he's also not. He'll have songs where he blends together philosophical ideas and dips into the human condition and pulls apart emotion and life and all of that. But then he'll also release a song about a frog that can jump really high.
I'm all play-doh (plato) is my favorite all line. The whole song, I believe, is about tripping on acid.
He makes another reference to art in Jazz Hands! He makes a reference to Van Gough
Listen to Legerdemain and think skateboarding, it will change the song for you.
Don't mind me I'm just going to keep commenting. When it comes to "Flamingo Pink", I think the opening line is painting a picture of a prison escape, or a successful heist of some sort. Rope over the wall, down river by the time they radio for the dogs...and the "Wooly Willy" I presume to mean like removing a mustache...changing appearance after the escape.
That’s why I love Aesop. Rather than “change your appearance,” he references wooly willy. Every line of an Aesop song has something to decode. Especially his older stuff. It’s so dense that it almost defies casual listening.
22:37 - "good for abso-smurfly-nothing"
Also
"With regards from the king of e-fucking-quality"