Steven Hyden on Kanye West and Elvis Costello

Remarkably, someone has written a lengthy comparison of Kanye West's 808s and Heartbreaks and Elvis Costello's first two albums, My Aim is True and This Year's Model. In my opinion, those albums, Costello's, are much better than 808s. But that doesn't matter so much as the argument: Kanye projects his vulnerability and self-hatred onto the women who have spurned him, outwardly displaying a "mean streak toward women" that mirrors Elvis in the early days.

I do see the point about Kanye's portrayal of and attitude toward women. (Recent creepy, controlling lyric from Watch the Throne: "Don't ever fuck nobody without telling me.") But I think it's rather harmless, especially compared to the last 20 years of popular rap and hip hop, and more unique than anything for the level of revulsion projected inward. I disagree with Hyden on Costello, though. I see the role of women in his early songs certainly as people who have rejected him, which is the source of his cynicism, but I don't think he is out to get them so much as himself. Even when he gets creepy ("I'm afraid I won't know where to stop" on "I Want You"), he's self-aware enough to know that obsessing in the shadows is no way to win someone back.



What's weird, I first heard "Alison" as a song comforting a woman who had been sexually abused. I thought "somebody better turn out the big light" meant to get this person out of the spotlight so she could heal after somebody had taken "off her party dress". Hyden sees it as a straight murder plot. "My aim is true"? I was thinking about Cupid arrows. Hyden was thinking crosshairs.



C'mon. On the early promos for My Aim is True, just look who's at the center of that bullseye.