Review Summary: Much to the chagrin of technical value, Kanye creates his most interesting record of all time. OF ALL TIME!
Yes, everybody gets it, this isn’t the same man who made the more critically acclaimed albums
College Dropout and
Graduation. This is a totally different Kanye West: strange and unfamiliar in comparison to his previous work. But that is excusable. After his mother’s death and his unfortunate break up with his fiancée, he was bound to undergo
some personal and musical alterations. Described by West himself as a “melancholic pop album,” in
808s & Heartbreak, Kanye attempts to express his sorrow, but makes a few errors in his execution.
Not surprisingly, with the coming of his first pop album, also surfaces his first implementation of autotune and singing. While guys like T-Pain and Drake cannot get away with this, somehow, Kanye can – although barely – probably due to the fact he doesn’t heap on tons of vocoder. Through his singing, Kanye reminisces on topics such as heartbreak, loneliness, and love. Obviously distraught over a series of unfortunate events, Mr. West says at one point:
“
There is no Gucci I can buy/There is no Louie Vutton to put on/There is no YSL they could sell/To get my heart out of this hell/And my mind out of this jail.”
But the problem with
808s & Heartbreak is that West doesn’t connect to his own beats. Don’t get me wrong, the beats are fine, but with their electronica and pop influences, they just don’t fit. Technically speaking, the lyrics would have emotionally coincided much better with the instrumentals had Kanye adhered to his old soul-sampling ways. While good, the digitalized, muted drums, wandering piano sample and upbeat feel of “Love Lockdown” are too sweet to thematically co-operate with the lyrical discussion of love lost. More suited to the premise of the lyrical topicality are the orchestrative violins, downplayed thumping bass and sentimental twinkles in “RoboCop”, but such instrumentals are outnumbered by cuts such as the former “Love Lockdown”.
Although heartbreak and familial death are relatable topics to most, they aren’t subjects you’d mix in with pompous, own-ego-stroking rappers filling guest slots. Though not as disturbing on a listening level, I am seriously perturbed by the fact that trap rappers Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy appear on an album Kanye dubbed “melancholic”. Regardless of the fact that the old, supercilious West appears on only one song (“Amazing,”) it really dulls the already frail sense of deep emotion the album barely succeeded in creating.
In its technical form,
808s & Heartbreak is quite good, but when all of its constituents are blended together, they clash a bit in regards to feeling. Kanye definitely succeeded in making an interesting album, and getting his point across…in a way. But at what cost? Certainly at none to him, as this went RIAA-certified Platinum. Artistically though,
808s & Heartbreak just doesn’t hold up against a detailed observation.
