You’re titillated for sure, but can’t decide if you’re lucky or embarrassed to be there. Often (like on “Bad News” or “Paranoid”), you’re left anxiously conflicted, with the weird sensation that you’ve somehow stumbled onto a boys-only Kanye karaoke party, where he’s trashed on Baileys and inexplicably crooning the Ne-Yo songbook.
Or that women just don’t get it or worse, that they’re out to get him. West won’t take it to the next step he won’t concede that his obsession with possessions is part of the trouble (or even entertain the possibility with a joke or punch line) he just sounds like he’s whining that he can’t have it all. “Say You Will” at least has a couple of memorable lines - “My friend shows me pictures of his kids/ And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs” and “He said his daughter got a brand-new report card/ And all I got was a brand-new sports car” - but even these come off as self-serving. Most of the songs have hooks or rhythmic twists that other artists would bid Sotheby’s prices for, and even a few (“Heartless,” “Love Lockdown,” and “Amazing” featuring the welcome bluster of sodium-deficient thug-you-can-hug Young Jeezy) may end up on a greatest-hits comp one day and be accepted as Kanyeezy standards. At his best, West once showed vulnerability, and as a result, drew you in here, he signifies his narcissistic despair with Auto-tune’s kooky wail, while remaining the distant, misunderstood pasha roaming his palace.Īlso Read Adidas Terminates Kanye West Partnership Over Antisemitic Remarks Auto-Tune’s vocoder function phases his strained croon so that it wobbles vulnerably, emphasizing his role as the wounded courtier, but he admits little or no blame for his romance’s decline in “Pinocchio Story,” he says Pinocchio was punished for telling a lie, but he, Kanye, is punished for telling the truth. (While his cadences and flows as an MC have improved measurably, his singing calls to mind a rudimentary, indie-rock naïf following the melody around blindly). Virtually all the songs establish a simple thematic flourish that repeats statically, with West intoning variations on pro forma romantic sentiments. Though the content - our hero purging his heart, a la Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear - ordinarily would be the focus of discussion for a platinum rapper, the musical structure overshadows his attempts at introspection. The full album is a dislocating listen, which was clearly West’s intention he’s asserted loudly that he expects extra kudos for pushing creative boundaries. 808’s and Heartbreak, Kanye West’s fourth solo record was released yesterday, after months of hype and debate, and weeks of leaked tracks, all of which feature the stricken producer/MC singing and half-rapping about lost love (primarily his broken engagement to designer Alexis Phifer) via the audio processor infamously known as Auto-Tune.
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