Review Summary: Don't say you will. I pray you will
808s and Heartbreak is the sound of a man falling apart at the seams. Recorded in a quick 3 weeks after a series of intense emotional stress and trauma for Kanye, 808s is a complete turn around from his previous work. While his first two records were lush, soulful upbeat hip hop and his third, a full on anthemic stadium rap album, 808s and Heartbreak takes a wildly different approach. Gone are the stylish beats and soul samples, the uplifting but at truthful lyrics. Instead, 808s takes on distorted icy synth landscapes, lead by West's robotic auto tuned voice. There's very little fun to be had in 808s and Heartbreak (bar maybe the surprisingly bombastic yet out of place 'RoboCop'). It's an album dealing with personal demons and West certainly had a few af this point. Recently, his fiancé Alexis Phifer had left him, ending a longtime relationship and worse yet, his Mother Donda, the inspiration for the track 'Hey Mama' from Late Registration, had passed away due to complications following plastic surgery. Now without the women he loved and the women who he idolised, Kanye was well and truly alone. Seeking change, Kanye had away with hip hop beats and samples, instead focusing on crafting a record vastly different from his previous. The famous TR-808 drum machine was vital to the album's construction and West's choice to use auto tune over his voice (mainly to produce a distorted robotic sound and to pitch correct some flat notes) was the source of some media scrutiny. Many felt Kanye had abandoned what had made him good and was now catering to a white audience with pop songs instead of rap. Never the less, 808s sold and was received well and recently has been credited as his most influential album, inspiring artists like The Weeknd and Drake.
Musically, 808s is a tough album to get down. The use of warped electronic landscapes, tribal drums and passionless singing manipulated through Auto-Tune can be a turn off to people expecting another College Dropout. Lyrically it's nothing alike. Kanye is dealing with a heavy load here and the lyrics show here. Similar in tone to his 2018 record 'ye', 808s is a sort of electronic emo-art-pop. Each track is peppered with angst and depression. The sprawling opener 'Say You Will' combines a steady electronic beat which Sounds suspiciously like a heartbeat and lyrics about the intense fear of losing a loved one. The monk choir in the background helps to create a haunting yet somehow beautiful tone. 'Welcome To Heartbreak' deals with Kanye having an existential crisis aboard a plane while talking with a happy family. Kid Cudi provides a beautiful hook and it all comes together along with a chilling string section to form one of the most depressing songs on the record. The lead singles off the record 'Love Lockdown' and 'Heartless' deal with West's romantic troubles, with Love Lockdown using a pounding bass synth and booming tribal drums, along with an aggressively desperate Vocal. Heartless is a more restrained affair which uses a beeping keyboard line and a lonely auto tuned vocal take to further express the almost inhuman, robotic feelings Kanye was dealing with. An interesting track from the record is 'RoboCop' which combines the album's usual distorted feel with an incredibly bombastic and over the top string section. It's oddly uplifting in a way, despite the fact it's jarring and out of place.
There's a dance element present on the album too. The Hip-House dance floor banger 'Paranoid' utilises some funky synth lines and rapping from Kanye, a rarity here. The emotional highlights of the album however are three tracks. 'Street Lights', 'Coldest Winter' and the hidden track finale 'Pinocchio Story'. 'Street Lights' is probably the most distressing and hopeless track on the album, with Kanye almost murmuring over a calming drum heavy track about how his life is going so fast he doesn't have time to appreciate it ("Seems like Street Lights, glowing, happen to be/just like moments, passing, in front of me'). It's calming, haunting and absolutely soul destroying. 'Coldest Winter' details Kanye mourning his mother, a death which still affects him to this day. He's crushed and the lonely, almost ambient like backing combined with screeching explosive industrial blaring and droning drum beats mixed around is nothing short of chilling. Then the grand finale, a track not credited on the back of the record. It's a live track recorded in Singapore called Pinocchio Story. The sound quality is unfortunately not the best, sounding as if it was recorded on a phone by a crowd member. The song is a lengthy, but lonely piano track. Kanye practically screams his heart out while the crowd cheers on, almost completely unaware of his suffering. He tears himself to shreds, blaming himself for the death of his mother and for his loneliness. He decries the lime lights he once longed for, the Gucci and Louis Vuitton he once flaunted means nothing to him. He's lonely, he's sad. He's lost. And he just wants to live a normal life, but it's too late now. He just wants to be a real boy. It's an absolutely haunting and soul crushing track yet it's the perfect end to the record.
808s and Heartbreak marked a massive turning point in Kanye's life. After 808s, he was finally willing to explore his more personal emotions in his music with MBDTF taking similar keys to this album and ye being more or less a less synth heavy and more optimistic version of 808s. Again, is it perfect? No. The Lil' Wayne duet (yes Weezy is singing too) 'See You In My Nightmares' is bogged down by Wayne's so-so singing voice and Young Jeezy's bizarre verse on 'Amazing', behind an almost chopped and screwed version of the track is... out there to say the least. Still, 808s is a vulnerable and honest look into a man normally with a face of stone, and it's a truly relatable one.
Standout tracks:
Say You Will
Welcome To Heartbreak
Heartless
Love Lockdown
Street Lights
Coldest Winter
Pinocchio Story
Standout lyrics:
"Seems like, street lights, glowin
Happen to be just like moments, passin
In front of me so I hopped in, the cab and
I paid my fare see I know my destination
But I'm just not there" - Street Lights
"My god sister gettin' married by the lake
But I couldn't figure out who I want to take
Bad enough that I showed up late
I had to leave 'fore they even cut the cake
Welcome to Heartbreak" - Welcome To Heartbreak
"When I grab your neck, I touch your soul" - Say You Will
"I just wanna be a real boy. They always say "Kanye, he keeps it real boy". Pinocchio's story, I just wanna be a real boy" - Pinocchio Story
"Life's just not fair" - Street Lights
