Kanye West has never gotten anywhere by following trends–he’s been setting them since debuting in 2004 with his album College Dropout. His debut single, “Through the Wire,” featured the Chicago rapper spitting the lyrics of the song, literally, through the wires that held his jaw shut weeks after a car crash nearly took his life. It’s that kind of boldness coupled with his spontaneous tantrums that has made West one of the most exciting artists to emerge this decade. He’s been rewarded handsomely for his out of left-field approach to music with three platinum-plus albums, 10 Grammys and countless other awards. His last album, Graduation, earned him a leading eight Grammy nominations in 2007 and the year’s highest debut on the Billboard 200 albums charts with nearly a million copies sold in its first week alone.
It would come as no surprise that some of West’s fans were disappointed to learn that an artist like West known for breaking new ground would be jumping on the Auto-Tune bandwagon for most of his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak. As scary as the thought sounds, surprisingly, West utilizes the tool in such a way that it doesn’t seem boring or recycled. And just as the first single, “Love Lockdown,” suggests, West does his best Chris Martin (or maybe T-Pain) singing on every track. Along with the ever-present vocoder effects, there’s also the 808 drum pattern throughout the entire album.
The album title pretty much lets you know that what you see is what you get. 808s & Heartbreak reflects a year of torrid ups and downs for West; he raps about the pitfalls of fame on “Welcome to Hearbreak” (“My friend showed me pictures of his kids/and all I could show him was pictures of my cribs….chased the good life my whole life long/look back on my life and my life’s gone”); laments his dear mother on “Coldest Winter” (“Goodbye my friend, will I ever love again?); and it’s anyone’s guess which of the love-scorned anthems go out to his ex-fiance, though, the best would be “Heartless” (“How could you be so Dr. Evil/You’re bringing out a side of me that I don’t know”).
Through all the…downers…there was some room made for some lighter, or just more upbeat, gems. “Paranoid” featuring Mr. Hudson is addictively funky with a sort of 80′s boom, and yet another tale of a crazy, possessive girlfriend, “Robocop,” is quite possibly the best song on the album. The synth-tastic, mechanical production almost sounds like a futuristic video game score from the 90′s (think Mega-Man X) but it works perfectly. Young Jeezy makes an appearance on the boastful “Amazing” (“It’s amazin’/I’m the reason everybody fired up this evenin’”) and Ye’s favorite rapper (other than himself) Lil Wayne jumps on “See You In My Nightmares,” though, it doesn’t quite live up to their monster mash-up “Barry Bonds” from Graduation.
Since West is coming off of a near-masterpiece in Graduation, fans are sure to be scared initially, but if you really listen with an open mind and understand that Kanye is an artist out to be more than just another run of the mill MC, you’d get what he’s going for on 808s & Heartbreak, or at the very least respect it. Even with the overused vocoder, he somehow does break new ground on this album. Looks like heartbreak brings out the best in Mr. West.
Hudson, can not wait to hear him!
Yo Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’ma Let you finish, but Beyonce has one of the best videos of all time!