Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Music Review: Kanye West: 808's & Heartbreak




Kanye West: 808's & Heartbreak

9.5/10


After a turbulent year, super producer/rapper and artist Kanye West returns with the dark, emotionally charged and ultimately groundbreaking "808's & Heartbreak", an album that strips away the labels and braggadocio that West is known for in return for a cold hard look at how someone in the public eye can deal with loss.

The concept of "emotional nakedness" keeps being thrown around by West during the promotion for this album, and the term is actually less of a buzz word than it seems. Accompanied by the Roland TR-808 drum machine and the polarizing pitch correction program Auto Tune (popularized by T-Pain, who contributes to the songwriting of a few tracks on the album) Kanye has developed a sound that betrays his usually sample driven creations to one that is half Portishead, and the other half Phil Collins in terms of minimal sounds juxtaposed with strong songwriting.

And the songwriting serves as the album's best quality; such as "Welcome To Heartbreak" ("my friend showed me pictures of his kids/all i could show him was pictures of my cribs") and the Young Jeezy assisted "Amazing" ("im the only thing that i'm afraid of") which portrait West cracking under the loneliness that his fame has brought him. The ode to the cell phone/PC password checking stalker girlfriend "RoboCop" is a particular standout, as well as having the distinction of being one of the album's most complex and peculiar productions.

"808's" is also particularly effective in that there is no rapping on it whatsoever, save a few verses. Armed with Auto Tune, Kanye puts caution to the wind and actually (gasp) sings or harmonizes most of the tracks on the album. It's a jarring change at first, but it changes the energy of the album. Kanye has transformed from a mere MC, to a pop artist, and as per his claim of "emotional nakedness", he is baring his soul through a method that is of course, uncomfortable (trust me, he's no Luther Vandross).

Though dedicated to his own losses, "808's & Heartbreak" is Kanye's most down-to earth offering yet, trading the Goyard trunks and the Black cards for a chance to sit in on his own therapy session.

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