“Blame Game” is an epic battle for the last word, and though Kanye ultimately gets it, via Chris Rock (it’s Kanye’s album after all), he’s made a wise, ultimately even-handed, heavy sigh of a song that perfectly captures the off-the-rails feeling of an argument too loaded and wrapped inside itself to make sense anymore: “Who to blame? You to blame, me to blame.” Producer Kanye’s grabbing for any and every idea he’s got to make this song the immersive experience he intends it to be, and it’s markedly similar to Kanye, the spurned boyfriend, lobbing out every emotion inside his head, in hopes of keeping this argument afloat and the girlfriend right there where he can see her.
There’s that homesick Aphex Twin sample waddling along, John Legend’s restrained hook (between this and his quiet confidence on Wake Up!, he’s back to being interesting), some mournful strings, Kanye’s scatter-brained verses and the damaged vocal effects he’s placed on top of them, and then, a poetry reading, and an outrageous, outro skit featuring Chris Rock. The word “cinematic” is tossed-around in rap sometimes, usually to describe a detail-filled storytelling rap (think, Ghostface’s “Shakey Dog” or Yelawolf’s “Pop The Trunk,” though I’d call them “novelistic” for what it’s worth), but “Blame Game” is cinematic in the sense that it’s a cross-discipline, all-encompassing trip of a song–and in 2010, that kind of maximalist epic is something that only rap can do. Hip-hop’s grab-from-anything, do-whatever approach can stand up and improve upon the sort of ambitious statement music that progressive rock and art rock effectively killed three decades ago. MBDTF makes prog-rap an actually appealing sub-genre, and “Blame Game” in particular, has the kind of broad, silly, serious in-quotes grandiosity that say, My Chemical Romance’s Danger Days, another conceptual epic about America released last month, just doesn’t and can’t have anymore.
As Kanye’s relationship grows more complex and confused with each line, the beat sounds like it’s closer to falling apart. The drums shuffle and then clatter, in sharp contrast to the beauty of Aphex Twin’s “Avril 14th,” and Kanye’s raps, loaded up with effects (echoed, screwed, bouncing between the left and right speakers), sound like some malfunctioning S.O.S transmission from space. On the verses, Kanye eschews structure, even allowing his rhymes to fall apart. Verse one is a structured, well-composed, oddly poetic bunch of bars, while verse two is long and winding and pretty much stops making sense halfway through. We get the general picture, but there’s weird asides about his girlfriend’s brother buying coke with his money, paranoid references to abuse, and plenty of Kanye boasting, quickly followed up with wounded confessions. There’s a careening, mealy-mouthed, draft-like approach to the writing here, as he rhymes “you” with “you” and “girl” with “girl” over and over.
This verse, unclear, structurally a mess, but deeply moving, offers up a challenge to Kanye’s detractors, who lob charges of insincerity at Kanye’s ongoing “boast, then bemoan it all” schtick. We’ve all acted exactly like Kanye does here. We’ve all played “the blame game” at some point or another: Screaming then apologizing, whining and then joking, feigning arrogance, and then crumbling up in a ball like the world’s gonna end, all in a matter of minutes.
The third verse, a thoughtful poem that Kanye reads rather than raps, suggests months-later acceptance of the situation. Painful honesty aside, Kanye’s still an entertainer, so he ends “Blame Game” with a cruel joke worthy of 808s & Heartbreaks. Chris Rock voices the average joe that will date Kanye’s much “improved” ex next. This is a very male way to view a break-up: “How did I permanently change this girl and who’s going to get the rewards of it now that I’m outta the picture?” A silly, masculine view of a relationship for sure, but one that most dudes, no matter how evolved or whatever, adopt at some emotional breaking point or another. Though it’s mainly about sexuality here, this is really exactly the same as say, Ghostface on “Wildflower” reminding an ex, “I’m the first nigga that had you watchin’ flicks by Deniro” or some bitter bro in Brooklyn seeing his old girlfriend at some indie rock show and thinking, “Man she wouldn’t even know about Neon Indian if it weren’t for me.”
It would be great if Kanye could look at himself from this perspective (“Amber taught me”), but there’s not a single conflict on MBDTF that’s properly or appropriately resolved. And implicitly, there’s an awareness here, as Kanye’s very much capturing the feeling of being in the middle of a break-up, with lines like, “I’ll call you bitch for short, as a last resort,” doing a kind of A Lover’s Discourse deconstruction of the heartbreak’s cliches. This is not an angry song, but a song about anger and that makes it much more affecting.
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even though ye wins the battle, he loses the war. he too a b- type chick and made her an A. thats bragworthy, but he doesnt even get to enjoy the reupholstered pussy.
Marcus
14 Dec 10 at 3:13 pm
[...] reading Brandon Soderberg’s awesome analysis of Kanye’s track “Blame Game” I ran across this absolute gem of observance, Chris [...]
Yeezy Taught You Well « The Thread
16 Dec 10 at 12:38 am
Also, right before the Chris Rock monologue, Kanye drops the weird/funny detail about how he called her, the phone rings and rings, and then “your phone accidentally called me back and I heard the whole thing.” Anyone else think that Kanye is listening to the entire Chris Rock conversation, on his end of the line? it’s makes the bit extra brutal to listen to.
karl
16 Dec 10 at 11:44 pm
the best part about this song is the “i can’t love you this much” repeat that he says several times near the end. It starts out as telling the girl that Kanye can’t fulfill her needs, can’t be everything she needs, but then turns into Kanye trying to talk himself down, in clear denial. He can’t be this hurt, shes just some bitch, he cant love her this much.
Brendan
22 Dec 10 at 5:33 am
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Heike
29 Apr 16 at 8:35 am