On a side note, if you have a few minutes to spare, read Lou Reed's review of Kanye's Yeezus: http://thetalkhouse.com/reviews/view/lou-reed
It's interesting to read a legend's opinion on a modern pop-star.
So, when he's praising the horns line, the piano line, or the complex electronic effects, it's not Kanye who's responsible for all of that, it's Daft Punk, it's Mike Dean, or Mohawke.
Anyway, I'm getting unnecessarily off-topic here. So to get back: Lou Reed was undeniably an innovator like no other, a true hacker. He knew how to play a mean guitar (jazz, blues, rock'n'roll and a whole lot else), he wrote great poetry. The greatest thing that's said about him is, indeed, as another commenter already has said: "Only about 3000 people bought Velvet Underground albums, but all of them started a band."
My two favorite songs of his: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffr0opfm6I4 and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wNknGIKkoA
To bring this round to tech I guess it's similar to Steve Jobs getting credit for the iPhone when a lot of the work was done by the engineers. In other words Kanye had to bring those people together and guide the creation of the music or it wouldn't have happened.
As with his music, Reed is assuming his audience isn't an idiot. In this case, Reed assumes that you can fully internalize what West's role was and understand his words accordingly.
There is absolutely no-doubt that Kanye is the ringleader in this. He puts a bunch of people in a room, and while he may not be the person pounding the keys, but he's putting it all together and making it cohesive.
I can listen to the Hudson Mohawke / TNGHT song that Kanye used in "Blood on the Leaves" and think it's an okay song. But the way it comes in on Blood on the Leaves with Kanye's rapping and the "Strange Fruit" sample left me floored the first few times I heard it. He made those TNGHT so much more powerful.
Kanye's influence over rap is enormous (the singing rap thing that Drake and others are using really didn't gain mainstream attention until 808's) and he's extremely successful commercially. It's not accident, nor is it the simple result of others' work. It's the work of someone who is meticulous in his craft, knows his limitations, and respects the work of others while pointing them in the direction he wants to move.
So we know Kanye isn't a great rapper (he's had many songs Ghost written and I think its a pretty common belief among hip-hop heads) and you say he can't produce well? What can he do well?
I don't have the time to go through it all unless you really want me to, but your last post was riddled with fallacies and pretty biased opinion.
Lou Reed was something else, Kanye is what he made himself (a pop star). I doubt anyone's going to pick up a copy of Yeezus in 40 years and be amazed in the way people continue to pick up copies of The Velvet Underground & Nico.
Kanye may not be the world's best rapper, but he is no slouch, and to be producing (both meanings) in the capacity he does at the same time is staggering. I like to tell people it's as if Martin Scorsese played the lead role in all of his own movies.
From everything I've read, Rick Rubin arrived late to the project and edited a mountain of work down into a short album.
I make music as a hobby, am fairly decent at it (IMHO, anyway) and listen to a lot of music. Kanye puts together songs, particularly on Yeezus, that are different than what else is out there and I have little doubt that Yeezus will influence a lot of rap over the next few years.
I never tried to equate Kanye West to Lou Reed.
But the thing is, people DO take Kanye seriously as an artist. His albums are constantly praised over and over again by critics. Even in places you wouldn't really expect it, there is a general acceptance that Kanye is leading the pack when it comes to innovation in pop music.
The common criticism with Lennon was that he was a bad husband and father in his first marriage -- but this part of his life was never publicized, indeed, it was actively suppressed by his PR managers. And for whatever it's worth, Lennon was in the process of making amends in his final days anyways.
Reading that is like watching Lou Reed mentally wrestle himself to the ground. He really doesn't like the record, but keeps rationalizing: the annoying synth sound as a "challenge"; the abrupt changes are challenging and keeping us "off balance. But soon after undermines his own rationalizations to note (correctly, in my view) that the real reason to make music is to make something beautiful, and hope that other people agree with you. And there he truly uncovers what's wrong with Kanye's music, and all that ilk: it's disdain of the listener. Anyone who listens to it is Kanye's bitch, willing to take all of his musical shit and like it, and Kanye knows it. And he definitely likes it.
Here we see clearly: Lou Reed isn't anyone's bitch, even when some egalitarian part of himself perversely really wants to be. We are witnessing, in black and white, his higher principles assert themselves even after he his lower ones sacrifice aesthetics and credibility on their petty alter named 'open-mindedness'. He means well here, but he just can't get away from his own good taste.
Makes me respect Lou Reed more, actually.
Then for this I would respect less Lou Reed: when it's crap just say crap. In music strong taste is expected and politeness is a loss of time.
People's relationship with music is an odd one - what you listen to you is meant to say something about who you are. You can't listen to classical because then you're an elitist snob. You can't like Justin Bieber because then you're a teenage girl. You can't like Kanye West because then you're an egomaniacal asshole. You can't like rap music in general because then you condone drugs, sex, objectification of women, electronic music and (gasp!) street slang. It's such a weird phenomenon, and it doesn't happen nearly to the same degree in other mediums. I can watch a horror movie without people thinking I'm a serial killer. I can watch a comedy without worrying that people will think I'm an idiot. I can read basically any novel on any subject without changing people's opinion of me, beyond "oh, he reads". But music is different. When I was in high school you could clearly identify social groups by what music they listened to, which also matched their fashion, and I think the majority of people don't move beyond that headspace ever.
At so many points in this album, the music breaks into this melody, and it's glorious — I mean, glorious. He has to know that — why else would you do that? He's not just banging his head against the wall, but he acts as though he is. He doesn't want to seem precious, he wants to keep his cred.
And sometimes it's like a synth orchestra. I've never heard anything like it — I've heard people try to do it but no way, it just comes out tacky. Kanye is there. It's like his video for "Runaway," with the ballet dancers — it was like, look out, this guy is making connections. You could bring one into the other — ballet into hip-hop — they're not actually contradictory, and he knew that, he could see it immediately. He obviously can hear that all styles are the same, somewhere deep in their heart, there's a connection. It's all the same shit, it's all music — that's what makes him great. If you like sound, listen to what he's giving you. Majestic and inspiring.
Where you think he's trying to rationalize feeling positive about the album, I think he's simply saying that there were some aspects of the album he didn't completely connect with, while other aspects absolutely floored him. On the whole, I'd say that's still a pretty stunning endorsement.
You should take a class or two on aesthetics. Beauty is, at most, a secondary goal in a multitude of art forms.