Original Essay on Cafe Avant Garde
“Regrets” might be too harsh of a word for what I’m about to talk about.
On February 14th of 2016, Kanye West, recording artist, songwriter, record producer, fashion designer, and entrepreneur, releases his seventh studio album, The Life of Pablo on an exclusive music platform called Tidal. Generally, the album receives good reviews, but despite of the positive reception, West tweets the following on the same day of the release:
For those confused, Wolves was a song on the album. Immediately after the release, Kanye West publicly tells the world that he found a flaw with the album he decided to release.
On April 1, 2016, (not as an April Fools’ joke (Or wait,… WHAT IF IT WAS AND EVERYBODY JUST THOUGHT IT WAS… no nevermind)) West releases an updated version of the album on Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play.
And it’s full of changes including adding the vocals of Sia and Vic Mensa on Wolves. This didn’t cause any kind of huge outrage among fans (perhaps due to Kanye West’s intrinsic character of being controversial and constantly wanting to innovate and try new things), but this simple action made me start to question a lot of things concerning the relationship between the art and the artist (To clear the air, I thought the album was eh).
Obviously, this has a different connotation specifically for music because, unlike paintings, there isn’t only one authentic piece of music. And many artists are known for following the modern trends of technology from Tupac’s virtual reality appearance to more and more artists turning to streaming. But what does it mean for an artist to simply change their original art as easy as updating software?
The glaring problem is that the new piece of art might be even worse than the original. We have all heard countless remixes or recut versions of songs or movies that were simply worse than the original. A good example of this is the original Star Wars trilogy. From 1997 to 2011, the original trilogy, by its creator, George Lucas, has been altered using enhanced visual effects that didn’t sit too well with its fans. The changes were criticized for being unfaithful to the original trilogy, which is ironic because the artist that made those changes was the creator of the original art.
But whether good or bad, this kind of reviewing of past works and finding flaws within oneself is something that should be extremely encouraged. In 1984, Elvis Costello, musician, releases the album, Goodbye Cruel World. To this day, that album is known to be one of his worst albums. Notably the song, The Deportee’s Club, is absolutely horrendous.
This album was reissued in 1995 with the title, “Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career.” Except this reissue of the album didn’t have The Deportee’s Club. Instead, it had Deportee:
It’s slower, has a single acoustic guitar playing it, and it’s listenable. It’s actually more than listenable. It’s one of his very good songs. He found a flaw with the original song, then fixed it.
Paul Cézanne is another great example. He is just as much of an amazing painter as Picasso (coincidentally related to The Life of Pablo) is. Except, unlike Picasso, Cezanne is not a genius, or at least not a genius in the sense that Picasso is a genius. Picasso meticulously and carefully thinks about the art he wants to create, then creates that art. Cezanne, when drawing a portrait of his wife, drew four paintings. He constantly tries to find his flaws and tries to perfect the painting. He doesn’t even like to sign his paintings because he doesn’t like to admit to the prospect of being ever done. Cezanne was never finished.
Of course, not everyone is like Eric Costello or Cezanne (or Salieri, Mark Twain (Takes forever to finish The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), Alfred Hitchcock (reaches prime in his mid-50’s). There are plenty of artists that are simply born geniuses: Mozart, Picasso, Herman Melville (writes Moby Dick in a heartbeat), Orson Welles (makes Citizen Kane when he’s 24). Kanye West is not one of them; he’s a rapper that can’t even freestyle. But there’s a quality to him that extends beyond his famous ego that leads him to call himself a “god,” or a “genius,”. He had the willingness to point out the flaws in his work and fix them. And I realize that art is a very subjective thing. As I’ve stated, this change doesn’t always turn out good, but it always puts the art in the right path into being the best it can be. If Elvis Costello wasn’t satisfied with Deportee, he would be the kind of person to remix it again. If George Lucas wasn’t satisfied with the changes, he would be the kind of person to have altered it further. And if Kanye West wasn’t satisfied with the newest version of The Life of Pablo, or Wolves for that matter, he would be the kind of person to update it again.
During my freshman year on the senior night in a swim meet, one of the seniors said in his short 20-second speech, “Don’t live with regrets.” And this is the kind of message that we are fed in society today: “Put your failures behind you.” But I think a better message might have been, “Don’t forget your regrets,” or even,
“Encounter your regrets.”
⬛
