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I've been spoiled by Kanye West big time. Every album has a range of hues, and every time they generally coalesce into one overall "vibe" or color. Folks were comparing 808's, MBDTF, Yeezus to Picasso's blue, rose & cubist/crustal periods, respectively, when Pablo's title was leaked. His music is nothing if not colorful. As a result, I have come to expect hip hop to work as more than just beats and rhymes. In fact, beats and rhymes have become secondary to me, and as I venture deeper into electronic music, I find that I'm more interested in emotional experiences, and musical/sonic diversity.
So maybe I treated Earl's album unfairly. For the record, though, Louder, I did listen to it. Not just once, though not many times after the initial release. I will say that the Jazz-y, frenetic musical outros that have been part of his music for some time do kick ass, and that was one thing I appreciated about "Grief" from IDLS... and that song also had a mellow synth line in the background that was easy to miss when watching the video, which made me feel kind of gross.
But when I listened on record, that synth gave a cohesive beauty to the song.
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