Kanye West Debuts 'Monster,' With Jay-Z and Bon Iver

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Kanye West delivered on his "G.O.O.D. Friday" promise last week by unveiling a brand new song called "Monster," featuring Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross and Bon Iver. The all-star track is the first from a five-song EP called Watch the Throne that Kanye and Jay-Z recorded. “Everyone knows I'm a motherfucking monster,” Jay-Z raps on his verse, referencing “Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Loch Ness, goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience.” Download the radio edit of "Monster" at Kanye University. and the explicit version at Nah Right.

Kanye and Jay-Z previously teamed for the remix of West's "Power," which will likely also appear on Watch the Throne. "Monster" is also one of at least 10 tracks Kanye recorded with indie-folk singer Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. “I called [Vernon] and we ended up becoming like really good friends, playing basketball together everyday, and going into the back studio and just recording his parts,” West told Rolling Stone when he visited our offices. “He's similar to me, where he just does shit just so people would be like, 'Oh shit, how did you do that? How did that happen?' He's just a really cool guy to be around.” Kanye will release his still-untitled new album on November 16th, but promises new songs every Friday until Christmas.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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