Apparently, this whole kerfuffle started when Marcus Troy started making noise about the possibility that Kanye might have had some blogging help:

This shit is a full time job at times, keeping people updated on all types of stuff. So many people start blogs and update for like 3 months and fall off the face of the earth. There are countless of blogs in my rss reader that never get updated (shame on you guys) cause this is time consuming. I know I'm a busy guy and I still find time to get my blog work in. How the Hell does Kanye have time to update his blog with 10 new post a day? while touring, making beats, sexing, looking at porn, shopping, creating vodka commercials, attending fashion shows and whatever else a dude of his caliber is doing? The only way I see it happening is with a "Ghost Blogger". I know by some of his post it seems like he is the one finding all the cool stuff and writing all those post, But we don't believe you, you need more people. My other pet peeve about my "speculated ghost bloggers" and some bloggers in general, is that they don't credit the sites where they get their information from. I am starting the blogfirm! You can post info 4 times a month without giving credit, but after that your getting blacklisted! Ok ,so I don't really have any power to do this, but you get my point.

This led gossip blogger Sandra Rose to posit that Troy was actually Kanye's ghost blogger, a theory that I suspect she came up with in part because Troy is into posting results of cool-hunting expeditions like the man he's supposedly writing for. Kanye, needless to say, was not pleased by the allegations, throwing up a post titled "I DON'T KNOW WHO THE HELL THIS IS... BUT I COVERED HIS NAME AND FACE SO HE WOULDN'T GET THE PUB HE WAS OBVIOUSLY LOOKIN' 4!" that was full of whited-out pictures of Troy and blogging-action shots like the one above.

As of now, Marcus and Sandra seem more flattered and amused by Kanye's attention than anything else. Sandra claims that the wordless nature of Kanye's "response" post would seem to put the nail in the ghostwritten coffin, but those who follow his blog closely know that he generally takes a long time to respond to criticism. So... let's just say this story is "developing," although if you see a marked change in tone over the next few weeks or so of Kanye postings, we'll all know why.

Ghost Blogger: For The Right Price I Can Make Your Blog Tighter [Marcus Troy]
Meet Kanye West's Ghost Blogger [Sandra Rose]
I DON'T KNOW WHO THE HELL THIS IS... BUT I COVERED HIS NAME AND FACE SO HE WOULDN'T GET THE PUB HE WAS OBVIOUSLY LOOKIN' 4! [kanYe West: Blog]

I was talkin' with some friends last night and we were shaking our heads wondering when Joe became a rock historian. Well, Joe, when did ya? Do you think saying bad things about another band makes people like your band more? Oh, no. Can't be it. Let me guess, "You were JUST being honest." Look, I have always enjoyed Def Leppard. But, as of late that pre-programmed, Mutt Lang live record you guys are doing out there on tour is anything but "substance". JUST being honest.

Joe! I'd be hurt if this were coming from John Lennon. Listen up, you are not quite that important there fella! Ya know, just like you I put my pants on one leg at a time, but when I put mine on Joe, they are cooler than yours! But, does it really matter? So it takes about 1 minute and 45 seconds to put on eyeliner. I suppose during that same time you were writing the next "Imagine". In the words of the great Aerosmith, "Get a grip!" Oh, and by the way, just to add to your royal information pool of rock history, Sir Joe, in the 70's it was "Glitter Rock", in the 80's it was Glam Rock.

"Pre-programmed, Mutt Lang live record you guys are doing out there on tour"—those are (misspelled) fighting words! (Albeit probably true ones, since I doubt Elliott and his cronies can hit those multi-octave harmonies the extra octave every night.) Meanwhile, Bret Michaels responded to Elliott's allegations by slamming his lip-syncing on Dancing With The Stars and, perhaps more damningly, not saying that this fight was "turning him on a little bit":

Clearly, there's only one way that this will be solved: A Rock Of Love-off where the women have to choose between members of Def Leppard and members of Poison. (Oh, you know it's inevitable. Just give Vh1 a season or two.)

Joe Elliott (Def Leppard) Slams Poison! [Rikki Rockett's MySpace Blog via Sleaze Roxx]
Michaels (Poison) answers to Elliott's comment (Def Leppard) [YouTube]
Earlier: Def Leppard Will Not Be Tackling "Seventeen" On Its Next All-Covers Album

Nowwwwwwww...... Jermaine Dupri...... I hear you was on Hot 97 in New York... Talking bout how I was ungrateful............. And Miss Jones was FIRED right after dat!!!!!! If I'm ungrateful about anything its about the fact of how I SAVED the day for JANET..... And I couldn't even be in the VIDEO.....But dats old news so why are we even still talking about it????? Janet's album Flopped and DATS dat!!!!! I'm sorry....... Janet.....I hear you been going thru the CHANGE.... So maybe dats why you were MOODY and didn't want me in the VIDEO dat day!!!! I guess 40 is not the new 20????



If I am disappointed about anything......... Its because you DIDN'T sign me, after I had already proven to you that I can sell records!!!! Is it because I am not little like BOW WOW??? Is it because I don't wear my pants backwards with my boxers showing like Kriss-Kross??????..... You are Michael Jackson's little sister's boyfriend!!!!!! Is Chris Stokes your cousin??? Now dats the REAL disappointment!!!!! Are you gonna join Janet at the Jungle dis weekend, the hot GAY bar in Atlanta?? If so, I will see you then!!!! SOUND OFF....... And Noooooooo...... I don't wanna buy no DAMN BOY SCOUT COOKIES!!!! It's something funny bout GROWN men running around with little boys in uniforms..... Tell Janet to lay off the HUSTLER and COCO DORM SEX Tapes!!!!! Another man is beating YOUR TIME!!! Give it to em raw and RINSE dat strap off.........Now run and tell dat!!!!!! Nasti Muzik 08!!!!!

While Khia may be "sick and tired of FUCK Niggas claiming to produce albums and take credit for shit dat dey wish dey could do," she does still dream that someday her prince may come.

50 cent where you at??????? At least then I couda got a DAMN VIDEO!!!!!! GGGGGGG-UNIT!!!!!!!! Im da BITCH ya need... But dats okay cuz after Nasti Muzik drop on July 22nd, I aint gone need nann nigga for shit!!! If I make it....... We all make it.... Nasti Muzik 08!!!!!!

Hell, her prince may have already came.

...All yall dats leakin the album.... Thank you.... Cuz all yall leakin is dat straight fye.......... Yall haterz leaked my baby's album too and he sold a 1Million copies the first week!!!! Yall heard what my baby Weezy said......... Yo neck, Yo back..... It's funny how dat song aint got old yet????? To us......It's only just begun....... Thank you for the plug.... DADDY!!! I love licking the RAPPER....... Forward and backwards.......Nasti Muzik 08!!!!!!!!

Trina has yet to comment on that one.

Big Cat BROKE ASS RECORDS, Jermaine Dupri and Wacky Hoe done tried the QUEEN!!! [Khia's MySpace]

Aside from her singing, melodic and non-rhythmic elements in the arrangement have a somewhat subliminal effect on the listener, guiding and emphasizing dynamic shifts without distracting attention from its primal hooks. As the song approaches its climax, it gradually adds more textural elements without crowding out its abundant negative space and emphasis on percussion. (As far as I can tell, there is no guitar in the song whatsoever until its final minute.) Jam and Lewis' track is a masterpiece; a virtuoso performance that achieves an immediate, forceful physical effect via subtlety and nuance.

I suggest that musicians focus their attention on the arrangement of "Miss You Much" rather than Jackson's vocal performance or persona, but I would be remiss not to mention that her presence is essential to the success of the piece. Her voice effortlessly transitions from a rhythmic toughness to soulful emoting to a flirty softness without overselling any aspect of her performance, lending the song a continuum of emotions and attitudes that add up to the impression that we're listening to the expression of a fully-formed human being with contradictions and complexities.

I have to say that I would be much more likely to listen to indie that had the sort of backbone and physicality of "Miss You Much"; part of the reason that I was so down on that CSS album was that for a dance record, it was pretty lifeless, which contributed to the overall feeling of meh given off by it. (I'd also posit that the recent blogosphere frenzy around my personal favorite track of the year, Ida Maria's "Oh My God," is a direct result of that track taking some of the lessons of "Miss You Much" to heart, particularly when it comes to aural texture and shading.) The relegation of pop in indie culture to "semi-ironic whispery cover" is something that's continually irritated me, because it implies a knowledge of popular music without any further engagement with what musical mechanisms turn those songs into "pop, and I'm definitely looking forward to future installments in the series.

Also it would be great if Janet somehow found Perpetua's post and took his advice to heart, but I guess you can't have everything.

Janet Jackson - Miss You Much [YouTube]
Your New Influences No. 1 [Fluxblog]

To begin: Fuck Digg and those 100% tiresome Human Giant guys.
Apparently this particular tirade was finally, belatedly set off by Kanye finding a link to this FunnyOrDie video starring Paul Scheer on the nerd circle-jerk Digg. And honestly, if I found that particular combination of Internet peanut galleries mocking me with comments like "I missed Ghostland Observatory for his sorry ass"? I'd probably go off on an Internet tirade, too. (Although I'd just write it in all-lowercase.)

Apparently Kanye has never been this mad before in his entire life, even when he got jobbed at the European VMAs or when he got snubbed at the VMAs or etc., etc. But see, that's what happens when you let anger fester for nearly 240 hours!
"But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I've ever had in my life. This is the most offended I've ever been... this is the maddest I ever will be. I'm typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! Call me any name you want.... arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of.... BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! NEVER SAY I DIDN'T GIVE MY ALL! THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN!"

Bonnaroo did not have Kanye's back.
"BONNAROO SHOULD HAVE RELEASED A STATEMENT IN MY DEFENSE BUT SINCE THEY HAVEN'T LET'S BREAK DOWN THE WALLS ON THIS TRUMAN SHOW AND LET YOU KNOW WHAT REALLY OCCURRED!!! FOR OVER A MONTH WE WENT BACK AND FORTH ON WETHER OR NOT WE COULD EVEN FIT MY STAGE AT THE FESTIVAL. ONE DAY THEY WOULD SAY YES... WE'D SEND THEM OUR SPECS THEN THEY THEY'D SAY OK... THEN THEY WOULD SEND SPECS BACK THAT DIDN'T FIT THE STAGE. WE WERE OBVIOUSLY DEALING WITH FUCKING IDIOTS WHO DIDN'T REALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO REALLY PUT ON THIS SHOW PROPERLY. THEY TRIED 2 GIVE ME A TIME SLOT WERE IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUTSIDE ... I HAVE A FUCKING LIGHT SHOW DUMB ASS, IT'S NOT CALLED GLOW IN THE DARK FOR NO REASON SQUID BRAINS!"

This mess is also Pearl Jam's fault. With exclamation points. Not that you Ghostland Observatory-fellating kiddies would care.
"MY PRODUCTION MANAGER TRIED TO LOAD IN FOR 24 HOURS BEFORE I WENT ON STAGE BUT THE FESTIVAL WOULDN'T ALLOW US TO DO ANYTHING UNTILL PEARL JAM LEFT THE STAGE. PEARL JAM ENDED ONE HOUR
LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT THAT POINT WE'RE RACING AGAINST THE SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AT 4:20AM DON COMES BACK 2 THE BUS AND TELLS ME, " IT WOULD TAKE 45 MORE MINUTES TO PUT ALL YOUR PYRO IN!" I SAY I HAVE TO GET OUT THERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE . I"

He was really upset about "Stronger" being performed in less-than-optimal conditions, given that he's so fussy about it. (OK, so he's fussy about everything.)
"I CUT A FEW SONGS FROM THE SET BECAUSE I WANTED PEOPLE 2 EXPERIENCE STRONGER WHILE THERE WAS STILL SOME DARKNESS TO PERFORM IT IN. I'VE STRUGGLED WITH STRONGER FROM IT'S CONCEPTION. REMEMBER LAST SUMMER WHEN I CANCELED SOME TV APPEARANCES. IT WAS BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT TO PERFORM STRONGER IN THE DAYTIME. ANYONE WHO CAME TO THE GLOW TOUR CAN UNDERSTAND WHY I WANTED PEOPLE TO SEE IT PROPERLY. IT BROKE MY HEART THAT I COULDN'T GIVE THESE FANS STRONGER IN IT'S GREATEST FORM... BY THE TIME I GOT TO STRONGER IT WAS DAYTIME AND IT BROKE MY HEART."

He is achy and broke. Can't you have a heart?
"WHEN I GOT 2 "THROUGH THE WIRE" I STEPPED ON THE FRONT PART OF MY STAGE AND THERE WAS SO MUCH LIQUID ON THE STAGE I COULDN'T MOVE WITHOUT SLIPPING. I HAD TO ADJUST MY WHOLE PERFORMANCE STYLE BECAUSE OF IT." ...
"I'M SORRY TO EVERYONE THAT I DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY 2 GIVE THE PERFORMANCE I WANTED TO. I'M SORRY... SOMETIMES I GO 2, 3 DAYS W/O SLEEP WORKING ON MY PERFORMANCE... I HAVE TO ICE MY KNEES AFTER EVERY SHOW AND THEY HURT WHEN I WALK THROUGH THE AIRPORT... HAVING AN EXPENSIVE STAGE CUTS MY PAYDAY IN HALF... "

Aw. Although maybe he should hold back on posting any more $650,000 watches until this whole thing has blown over a bit? (Just trying to help!)

UNTITLED [kanYe West: Blog]
Earlier: Bonnaroo: Kanye West Gets Up With The Sun

The key piece in this equation is, of course, RCRD LBL, the free-music-via-widgetry site that got a fair amount of press at its launch because it was founded in part by minor blogging deity Peter Rojas. (Who apparently learned all he needed to know about music blogging from running gadget-blog heavyweights Gizmodo and Engadget.) Since its launch, the site's offerings have mostly specialized in what would be considered bonus tracks by boutique-ish indie acts that would, well, be covered by The Fader; not that I don't like Bat For Lashes or Wye Oak, but for a site that made such a big deal about making the money it was paying artists back via ads, it sure did seem like it was forcibly constraining its demographic via its musical offerings.

Note that a Santogold song posted six weeks ago is still at the top of the site's most-downloaded list after all this time; she's one of the few artists on the site who's actually exhibited some sort of mainstream appeal. Of course, part of that could be because she's one of the few artists with said appeal whose labels have allowed her to be on the site. (Being signed to RCRD LBL partner Downtown records surely helped.) That starpower might increase soon: According to Fortune Rojas et al are talking to "a big act" about releasing their next album, two tracks at a time and underwritten by a single sponsor. (Odds on said "big act" being one whose career was shepherded to breaking-even-on-the-advance stardom by a major label: 6-1. Odds on it being Gnarls Barkley: As close to even as you can get.)

Add all those factors up and you'll see why I've been generally skeptical about the whole venture, why I haven't really had much reason to visit it (although I heard the Santogold song was pretty great), and why after all this time I've found its two most notable aspects to be been the fact that it got as much traction as it did despite requiring so many clicks to get from a blog post to a song, and the fact that bloggers actually seemed to be honoring the site's simple "Please don't repost these songs, thx" request. One wonders if advertisers are starting to see the site's drawbacks as well, and that part of the reason the ad-network idea (and its faulty math) seems like a good idea now is the fact that "curated" aspect of the site is starting to lose its appeal as the overall ad market weakens, and as the seemingly desirable demographic that needs the latest A Place To Bury Strangers download simultaneously shrinks and becomes less and less golden in the eyes of advertisers.

Music blogs' network effect [Fortune]

we dont care if your from Iceland, if we can listen to you play and PLAY BRILLIANTLY well fly you in from anywhere! hurry! an dont be shy, someone will get back to you )( named Chris) IF your at the level we NEED!!!!!
GO LISTEN to ZEPPELIN 2 and 3 and Verve "Urban Hymms" and Blood On The Tracks and dare i say it Nevermind, and the Sp early early Gish nineties song "Rhinocerus" wich has the most pinpointed perfect dynamics EVER and if you can compete with THAT bunch get back to us asap!

Nevermind, huh? I guess Krist Novoselic is too busy reviewing R.E.M. albums to apply. But any excuse to post "Rhinoceros" is OK by me:

BASSIST PLEASE! [Courtney Love's MySpace Blog]
Smashing Pumpkins - Rhinoceros [YouTube]

Don't believe the hype! When I started the show the other night we were having a lot of technical issues due 2 the heat. The 2 huge screens on both sides of the stage were glaring bright blue like when your DVD player acts up at home. I asked for them 2 turn the screens off 3 times because it was distracting 2 the show. The fans were not getting what they paid for. I admit, in my frustration, I did use profanity on the 4th time I asked. I stopped the show 2 go over and check it out myself. After the screens were turned off I started the same song from the beginning. The screens were eventually fixed 5 songs in but it was definitely better 2 have them blacked out rather than bright blue. Unfortunately for certain media outlets, you will never be able 2 'Michael Jackson' me. That means 2 make it seem like everything I do is so weird or out of place... they always try 2 make it seem like everything is about my ego! That joke is getting old. At a certain point you have 2 respect that I'm one of the last artist that still cares about the fans having the best time of there lives! Thanks 2 Bossip and Perez for taking it easy on me on the EW spaz... I did go in a little 2 much on that one. I'm sure there are some cool people who work over there and had nothing 2 do with that review. With all that said.... "I'm still the greatest!!!" lol!! Oh and I was in the studio with T.I. last night.... so get ready!!!

Somehow Kanye's definition of "Michael Jackson" hasn't cracked the UrbanDictionary.com top 10 descriptions for the term yet, but give it time.

Kanye West and his surreal, sci-fi odyssey [HandStamp]
HOUSTON I LOVE YOU! [kanYe West: Blog]

1. Call Pitchfork a music blog. Never mind that it's been around, as you point out in your article, since 1995—two years before the term "weblog" was invented, and four before Peter Merholz coined the shorter version; never mind that the only aspects of the site that vaguely resembles a music blog are the Forkcast and the News section, neither of which have the coronation power of a "Best New Music" from its reviewers. Who aren't bloggers (well, at least not for Pitchfork, anyway).

2. Use as your new media "expert" a futurist whose recent forays into the digital-music world ended in failure. Remember the guy who coined the term BlogJ? Yeah, his "blogs will be the next record labels" spiel is quoted here, although left out of the piece is the fact that his recent experiment in Web 2.0 widgetry went tits-up last week.

3. Fill your story with data-free anecdotes, because they make lovely window dressing. Music blogs apparently have "young readers." How is Sandoval aware of this? We don't know, because there aren't any actual numbers in the story at all aside from the number of unique readers Pitchfork gets a month (1.5 million) and the number of words Rolling Stone's Nathan Brackett thinks that the average Man Man blurb has (50).

4. On that note, never, ever press for details. Would you be interested to know that eMusic's Yancey Strickler (who, it should be known, is a friend), who's given space to pontificate on music blogging, writes a music blog for his employer, which could make for some interesting discussion of blogging-for-dollars in a story that mentions corporate influence? Want to know how BrooklynVegan "developed a reputation for being the must-read blog for concert information"? Like to know what, exactly, was inaccurate in the reporting about Stereogum's sale, as Scott Lapatine claims? Too bad, because Sandoval isn't interested in making those details known. (At least not yet! Maybe there's a sequel to this piece coming—Music Blogs II: Return To WordPress!)

5. Get an old-media type to comment on how the blog kids should get off his fact-checked lawn—and then fail to fact-check his comments. "The blogs do the really quick 50-word update on what a band's doing," Brackett tells Sandoval. "They'll write about (singer) Lilly [sic!!!] Allen releasing a new EP or (the band) Man Man is preparing an album. The way Rolling Stone competes is we pick up the phone and bring original reporting. We take advantage of our access. Most blogs don't have the staffs to pick up the phone." Well, most blogs also aren't subsidiaries of huge magazines that can be sources for repurposed content. And really, does recapping a reality TV show count as "original reporting" these days? I guess it's a good thing that I got cable in my office after all.

Music blogs: The new wall of sound [CNet]

ONCE AGAIN ON APRIL FOOLS DAY, EVEN THOUGH I KNEW IT WAS A JOKE. I GOT OUT OF MY BED, PUT ON MY STILLETTO'S AND WENT TO TARGET TO GET DA NASTIEST BITCH'S ALBUM!!!!!! I HOPE DAT BITCH DOES DA SAME. SEE...... WE HAVE TO STICK TOGETHER!!!! REMEMBER??????? SO I DID..... I BOUGHT IT!!! AND ONCE AGAIN IT WAS A DISSAPPOINTMENT!!! MY RECOMMENDATION...... PLEASE DONT WASTE UR TIME OR UR MONEY!!! BURN IT, BOOTLEG IT, RIP IT BUT PLEASE DONT WASTE UR MONEY. GO GET A 7 WIT DAT!!! I SUFFERED FO YALL.....ITS OK..... I GOT YALL.... NASTI MUZIK O8!!!!! HERE IS MY REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!



...TRACK 4: SINGLE AGAIN



HATED IT!!!! WE GIVE DAT SHYT TWO THUMBS DOWN!!!! U SINGLE AGAIN BUT NOT BY CHOICE...... HOE WEEZYYY WOKE UP!!! HE DONT LUV U HOE!!!! U SINGLE AGAIN CUZ HE LEFT UR DOG ASS!!! HOE WHAT U GONE NAME YA BABY? BABYYYY? CUZ IN 98 U WAS FUCKING BABY!!! U AINT MARRIED YET????? U CANT TURN A HOE INTO A HOUSEWIFE. CUZ U LOOKED A HOT MESS IN DAT WHITE WEDDING DRESS!!! ALL WHITE IS NOT FO U!!! STICK TO DA STRIPPA SHOES!!! OR WRITE A BOOK LIKE UR TWIN SISTA....SUPAHEAD!!! CUZ ITS OBVIOUS U CANT SELL NO RECORDS. MY RECOMMENDATION..........PORN!!! OH, MY BAD, UR BODY IS DETERIORATING AND NOBODY WANNA FUCK U NO MOE!!! TRY A BLOW UP BOBBLE HEAD TRINA DOLL!!! CUZ UR PERFUME AINT SELLING EITHER!!!

Why couldn't Biggie and Tupac have settled it like this? Maybe Trina will walk down to Best Buy later this spring and give Khia's Nasty Muzik similar consideration.

TRINA STILL DA NASTIEST ALBUM REVIEW [Khia's Myspace Blog, via Oh No]
What's Beef? (NSFW) [Shan2001's Journal]
[Photo: Getty Images]

Wayne's drastic improvement from his Cash Money days, coupled with the South's moment in the sun, ensured that narrative-hungry writers would annoint someone sub-Mason-Dixon as the new king of hip-hop. With Scarface and Andre 3000 falling back and half of UGK locked up, Wayne seemed like the best bet. In a way, his rise seemed tailor-made for the zeitgeist of this jangled Internet age, his songs blessed with a sense of ephemera that jibes with the notion of constant content fit to be devoured and forgotten ten minutes later. There are as many Wayne songs as there are blogs, and like the blogosphere, the quality is wildly uneven. For every show-stopping moment like "Cannon" or "Upgrade U," there are ten tracks filled with repetitive simile-laden boasts that Wayne's champions would like to call free-associative genius, but really just prove that it is somehow possible to be both the hardest working man in hip-hop and incredibly lazy at the same time.

Given the chance to appear on Graduation and American Gangster, two rap albums from 2007 that were good enough to receive burn beyond the turn of the decade, Weezy whiffed—squandering the rare opportunity to broaden his fanbase beyond his key constituency of Southerners, 13-year olds, and white music critics with 180+ IQs, prestigious liberal arts degrees, and questionable taste in hip-hop. Wayne apologists scoffed that their hero had already had so many great moments that year, but his detractors sagely pointed out that anyone purporting to be the best rapper alive shouldn't suck this much on both of the year's big-ticket rap records.

That's perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Wayne question: only two opinions seem to exist, both of which are wrong. (Wayne is neither savior nor Satan. What he is a talented rapper with absolutely no concept of quality control.) The first swallows his hyperbole and concludes that he is the greatest rapper alive, a prolific, infallible genius who operates in a Bizarro galaxy heretofore reserved for such king weirdos as Mike Tyson, Cam'ron, and Kim Jung-Il. The other labels him complete garbage, a walking, talking, Baby-kissing plague on humanity responsible for SARS, Ebola, and the assassinations of both Kennedys.^** Ultimately, what this yields is bad criticism, with his admirers refusing to acknowledge his myriad atrocious moments and his "haters" never conceding an inch, with both teams waiting for the "classic" album that will either confirm his place in the pantheon or halt the critical love train.

The notion of needing to drop a classic album seems slightly antiquated, but in fact it isn't. While short stories, short films, and single MP3s obviously have their merits, no amount of postmodernist revision will ever alter the fact that the novel, the feature film, and the album will remain the standard-bearers of art. (Sorry.) Lil Wayne has not dropped a classic album, though if you lopped 20 minutes off Carter II, you could arguably state your case. Logically, Carter III would be make-or-break time, the chance for Wayne to either shut up the peanut gallery^*** or leave the heads of the hype machine with a whole lot of omelet on their face. Neither of these two things will probably happen.

While it remains to be seen what exactly would convert Wayne's naysayers, it is certain that no matter how bad Carter III is, some corners of the critical community will stop at nothing to convince you of its greatness. In particular, no two critics have been more strident in their homerism than Tom Breihan, of the Village Voice and Pitchfork and Marc Hogan, the main writer of Pitchfork's Forkcast. ReadBreihan's love letter to "Lollipop," a song that he himself manages to call

a blatant sellout-move capitulation to everything lame in today's pop-music world: gallingly obvious central lyrical sex-as-candy analogy, T-Pain-esque layered-up autotuned vocals, simplistic snap-music drum-pattern, hushed trancey synth-whooshes playing something that sounds suspiciously like the melody to Flo Rida's "Low," no rapping whatsoever and... screaming butt-rock guitar solos.

Forget the fact that "Lollipop" does have rapping, however terrible it may be; forget the fact that Breihan somehow manages to compare "Lollipop" to Earth Wind & Fire's "Let's Groove," a piece of spin that would make James Carville smile. The review concludes by telling us that we should "celebrate the fact that Lil Wayne has made his "Candy Shop" without compromising his inner weirdness."

In fact, there is nothing weird about "Lollipop," a song that feels more cynically calculating than almost anything released in 2008. It's lyrical content is a clumsy homework assignment from 50 Cent's School Of How To Write Songs For 14-Year-Old Girls With Tacky Sex Metaphors For Hooks. (In particular, "Shorty Want a Thug/Bottles in the Club/Shorty Need a Hug" makes Benzino look like Arthur Rimbaud.) Meanwhile, it completely style-jacks T-Pain, a guy who stole every one of his ideas from Roger Troutman, never mind Snoop Dogg's "Sensual Seduction." Hell, even the "Lollipop" video is corny, a glitzy, formulaic romp through Las Vegas that feels suspiciously like a cliched combo of the videos for 112's "Only You" and 2Pac's "How Do U Want It."

Incidentally, there is one defense for "Lollipop": It's a big, absolutely retarded pop song that you enjoy dancing to at clubs. This is its sole intent. As rap music, it's garbage; as pop, it's middle-of-the-road filler fit to be played until Labor Day and not a moment later. What it isn't is "sly, heady... melodrama," as Breihan puts it, or a "savvy pop move," as Hogan calls it. What Snoop did was a "savvy pop move," the sort of desperate sellout look that artists need to do when there's nothing left in the well; "the greatest rapper alive" shouldn't have to resort to singles you can Xerox (no Hillary Clinton).

If "Lollipop" is a shameless, poorly executed, but well-thought out play for the charts, "A Millie" is the opposite, a half-baked and sloppy street single with Wayne once again in mixtape mode, stringing together simile after simile for five and a half minutes of banal shit-talking. Of course, there are a few clever lyrical turns. "I don't owe you like two vowels" is as good as anything Lupe Fiasco has written, but like Weezy's entire discography, "A Millie" is maddeningly inconsistent. Its beat is a hiccuping, overly repetitive, minimalist mess that sounds like it could only have been selected by someone under the influence of too much drank and drugs. Meanwhile, Wayne attempts to mask his empty-calorie lyrics by relying on his now-familiar grab-bag of vocal tics, forcing syllables to stretch that shouldn't stretch, modulating his voice without purpose, everything strictly for schtick and effect. At one point, he even boasts that "none of this shit is written down," but that goes without saying. After all, any rapper who writes a lyric as lazy as "we pop 'em like Redenbacher" deserves his MC pass revoked. (Can we all admit that Jay and Big's claims that they never wrote down lyrics have caused more harm than any trivia tidbit in music history?)

But Hogan dismisses anyone with a gripe: "haters are already foaming at the mouth... the rest of us know better than to rush the flow." God forbid, anyone gets between Hogan and Wayne's uh..."flow." "A Millie" is just mediocre, a boiler mix-tape track that would be met with yawns were it released by Papoose, most frustrating than is the one-sided nature of its criticism, with its arrogant tone and nebulous taunts at "haters." Flip through the Pitchfork archives, and you'll be hard-pressed to find inasmuch as a negative word about Wayne, with the one universally loathed Wayne record, Like Father Like Son, weirdly never getting a review despite its single, "Stuntin' Like My Daddy," receiving a glowing, four-star review from Breihan.

Granted, Wayne's detractors are notoriously venomous and often misguided, but their anger partly stems from a critical vogue that refuses to praise anything that isn't crack rap and/or nakedly commercial. In the past six months, hip-hop has seen strong output from a new generation of rappers—Jay Electronica, Wale, The Knux, Pacific Division, Blu and Clean Guns—yet not one of these worthy artists has gotten their own post on the Forkcast or Status Ain't Hood, despite obviously needing the exposure a whole lot more than the platinum-plus "Young Money Millionaire." It remains to be seen whether Carter III will be the masterpiece capable of validating the slavish Wayne worship that has taken place over the past few years. But what is certain is that judging from the reviews of its first two singles, you'll be hearing the praises of its unmistakable brilliance.

Besides, no matter what, it can't be worse than Mike Jones or Paul Wall.

^* On another note, if "Loungin" is not the most quintessential mid-'90s rap video, than what is?
^** Though if one were to judge Wayne strictly off his appearance—which is not unlike that of a drank and pills-addled Whoopi Goldberg—SARS seems like a reasonable guess.
^***Likely filled with fans of Peanut Butter Wolf.