I Know, I Look Better In Real Life

Kanye West “The Glory” – Just like “School Spirit” and “Gone” before it, “The Glory” is Graduation‘s version of The Song On The Kanye West Album That Is Obviously Superior To The Rest And Basically Sums Up The Major Themes Of The Record, But For Some Reason Will Never Be Released As A Single. Graduation is one long victory lap of an album, but its rampant self-regard and perky, opulent sound is slightly off-putting — at times it’s like being unable to fall asleep in an overly comfy bed, or sitting through a slide show of someone’s fabulous vacation and trying to feign enthusiasm for their good fortune.

Weirdly, the best track on the record happens to be the one where this sort of ostentatious bragging hits its saturation point, and I start to wonder “Hey Kanye, it’s really awesome that you’ve got all this success and money, but uh, is there anything more to you these days than working hard and buying stuff?” I guess his answer to that could be “Well Matthew, I do claim to spend a lot of time with lesbians, primarily of the blonde variety,” which just makes me wonder why the hell he’s so sexually obsessed with women whose sexuality excludes him from play. (I realize that he’s probably talking about bi girls, but c’mon, he consistently uses the word “dyke,” and that has its connotations.) Nevertheless, “The Glory” hits all the right marks, and every second of the track balances out its ecstatic boasts with a profound sense of relief that suggests what a horrible mess the guy would be if none of his plans ever worked out. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Hillary Brown is totally OTM about Hot Fuzz.

And: Dragons fucking cars. Self-explanatory, totally ridiculous, not safe for work unless your boss is cool with you checking out drawings of enormous scaled beasts double-teaming automobiles while on the clock. It’s really funny though, mainly because it puts you in the position where you have to think that the inclusion of the dragons is kinda sensible, like “okay, yeah, dragons are sexual creatures…” But the cars! It’s dragons fucking CARS.