I like Monster but at some point I’m going to have to penalize it for the parts that weren’t good. All Falls Down feels more consistent in quality to me.
Drive Slow vs Runaway
A fantastic song. Definitely one that would make it onto my Kanye Top 10.
Roses vs Good Life
Roses is definitely meaningful, but as a song I’ve gone back to Good Life a lot more. I realize that Good Life got a lot of radio play which is essentially the equivalent of a death sentence on this podcast (don’t think there’s been a single discussion yet for a popular song which didn’t lead to the phrase “important for Kanye’s career but”), but I hope it can at least have a nice eulogy.
Get Em High vs All of the Lights
For me, All of the Lights is a contender for the championship here. It won this quarter of the bracket for me anyway. It’s a showcase of audio production excess in a good way.
It’s funny cause I’d have The Glory make it through this round too
The further we go along the less I have to say, partially because I posted through most of the first round as well, but also because more and more I’m running into “well I wouldn’t have put this song through the first round so it’s definitely not winning the second”
Murder to Excellence vs Street Lights
I wouldn’t have voted for Street Lights, I forgot it existed until this podcast. Not much more to say. Still love Murder to Excellence’s beats.
We Major vs Stronger
I might have picked 30 hours over We Major. It’s fine but not one of my favorites off that album. Stronger is Pop Kanye at his best.
Gotta Have It vs No More Parties in LA
I think I’m a bigger WTT fan than I realized, if I didn’t think about it that hard I definitely would have went for No More Parties, but the more I think about the content of its verses the less I feel strongly about it.
Good Morning vs Power
A couple of weeks ago I might have gone the other way. When I think about Power it’s a good song, but maybe I’m suffering from fatigue due to how overplayed it was. I go back to Graduation to listen to Good Morning specifically all the time (and the Glory, which I completely disagree with Ali about, the beat is great). It gets the nod from me.
I love this podcast so much. Some days I like it better than FatT or Waypoint Radio, which is wild to even type but 100% true. I’m not even the biggest Kanye fan, it just rules.
Murder to Excellence vs Street Lights
This is hard because I do think Murder to Excellence is a better song than Street Lights. But I like it less. The sample gets old at the end of 5 minutes, surprisingly. Street Lights, however, really evokes my 808s nostalgia and lets me be sad, which I appreciate.
We Major vs. Stronger
I like the Daft Punk sample, and I think We Major is too repetitive, but Stronger is a much weaker song than I remember. We Major makes me want to listen to a better Kanye song, and Stronger makes me want to listen to Discovery.
Gotta Have it vs. No More Parties in LA
Wow the chop on that James Brown sample is so powerful. And Kanye and Jay-Z have such a solid back and forth. I really really wish Watch the Throne was on Spotify so I could put this on a playlist with 2 other songs and repeat it for an hour.
I also appreciate how much No More Parties has going on. It’s a fine song, but it feels both directionless and misogynistic which is just less fun to listen to. If I wasn’t coming down with a cold I’d probably be more generous since I do like Kendrick on this track, and think the sample is doing something unique.
Good Morning vs. Power
Well, Power is an anthem so jot that down. I don’t have anything bad to say about Good Morning, but Power is a contender for finalist for me (Basic? yes. Correct? Maybe.)
Stronger won the whole competition for me, but I guess that has a lot to do with how big a fan of Daft Punk I am. This version of Harder Better Faster Stronger is one of my most-listened songs of all time:
Whether that version or Kanye’s version of Stronger is the best remix of the song I’m not sure, but I’ve listened a lot to both of them.
Gotta Have It vs No More Parties in LA
As much as I like parts of Pablo, No More Parties isn’t one of my favourites. I do empathise with the premise of it though.
Good Morning vs Power
Power is iconic. It’s already been covered why by several people last round, but I’ll add that there’s a music video for it that’s the most Illuminati-looking thing I’ve ever seen.
I’d just like to say I know Kanye has been a miserable subject the entire Yandhi rollout and I hope the show continues even if you decide to abandon ship. If you don’t have the energy or time to write up a whole bracket yourselves, I’d recommend Rembert Browne’s classic OutKast bracket.
Did I miss any news that came out about them not continuing this show? I mean, I get it with how Kanye has been acting, but I’m tryna figure out what’s going on.
Nope, there hasn’t been any news about it being discontinued.
My best guess is that the team is just busy. Austin mentioned a few times on Waypoint Radio that he went to a tabletop event in Canada with the rest of Friends at the Table crew, so that had his focus for a while. Not to mention to the time and energy commitment involved in the recent 72-hour livestream, plus the prep for the Red Dead 101s.
Honestly at this point, I’m cool with One Song Only never coming back. It’s still indelibly linked to area badman Kanye West, and also the bracket was always kinda wack anyway. Like, a bunch of his best songs aren’t even on there, and the creators of the bracket even said that the list is heavily flawed because they chose songs they thought people would recognize and make them want to vote, instead of the songs they felt should actually be on there/the ACTUAL best Kanye tracks.
Now if you told me I’ma Fix Wolves was coming back…I thought that hip hop podcast from Dave Lang and Jeff Gerstmann was surprisingly decent and new listener friendly, and it’s a shame it’s on hiatus cause Dave is too busy jetsetting, wheeling, and/or dealing (woo).
OSO got me to finally listen to Kanye after having his work on my “to do” list for literally years, so I am grateful for it. I hope it returns, because I got opinions on what should win and I’m dying to know how some match-ups shake out. But I also will not be heartbroken if it’s on permanent hiatus.
I would love for it to come back but I also wouldn’t be upset if they pivoted to something else. I love their rapport and it’s always nice to hear Austin talk about things that aren’t games or listening to him GM. I love the FATT Patreon stuff and other things like Waypoints for that reason.
