New Music: Kanye West [ft. Peter Bjorn and John]: "Young Folks" [MP3]
Leave it to Kanye West to turn one of our favorite songs of 2006 into just another song about how great Kanye West is. Peter Bjorn & John's lip-puckering, TV commercial-rocking "Young Folks" was already so inescapable that we've heard people who love the song skip past it on shuffle, just to give the thing some space. I mean, we smiled at the bluegrass version. We chuckled at the German version. We even heard at least one decent hip-hop track based on "Young Folks".
On West's latest mixtape, Can't Tell Me Nothing, the Plain Pat-constructed Can't Tell Me Nothing, the producer/rapper offers perhaps the song's least inventive borrowing yet, doing little more than set some lazy, life-of-a-preppy-celebrity braggadocio over that unmistakable PB&J whistle and rhythm section. "You think you really know but you have no idea," West keeps repeating, sounding pretty oblivious himself. It's unclear who's doing the shark-jumping on this one. People, please PLEASE use "Young Folks" responsibly.
MP3: > Kanye West: "Young Folks"
[from Can't Tell Me Nothing mixtape]