Music Review: Kanye West

Kanye, Kanye, Kanye.  Don’t sing.  No, really.  The rap thing was going so well.  You’re at the top of the game, one of the best lyricists out there.  Please. Don’t. Sing.

Obvi, I was a little skeptical about Kanye’s new 808s & Heartbreak album.  Note the lack of apostrophe (because it’s correct).  In fact, I’m sure all of Kanye’s fans’ hearts dropped a little when they found out he was getting on the auto-tune train to gimmicks-ville (which is probably why he released the first two singles within 3 weeks of each other).  

To be honest, the only reason I bought the album was because I got a million gift cards to Borders, and I don’t read.  Even worse: I had to buy an actual CD because they don’t have iTunes hards there!  And the album art, while beautiful, makes the liner notes totally illegible.  This was not a great start to my 808s and Heartbreak experience.  But I’ve been a fan of his clever, satirical wordplay since Bernie Mac and the “faculty memb-huuuhs” asked him to “do som’n’ for the khiiiids.” so I indulged his little musical adventure.

West’s 4^th studio album leads off with “Say You Will”, a song that sets the tone for the minimalist nature of most of the album.  He contrasts choral chords with sine-wave-like electronic beeps (that evoke a sort of elektrinische Musik sentiment) over simple percussion.  Perhaps this is a tribute to the European beginnings of electronic music in the late 40s (though it could be a totally blind artistic choice).  There aren’t very many lyrics to this song either, another theme that carries throughout the album.  He borrows the André 3000 lyric “take off your cool” from The Love Below.  The song ends with over 3 minutes of instrumental; he has more runtime without lyrics than with lyrics.  West is preparing the listener for a non-traditional approach to music, and I like it.

From the title “Welcome to Heartbreak”, one may think that West uses this song to lament over a girlfriend he’s lost.  However, he chooses his distance from normal life and connection to family as a result of fame as his subject for this track.  While his friends talk about their kids’ achievements, all he can brag about are his material possessions.  Sonically, he contrasts orchestral instruments in octaves with a distorted clap snare.  He applies both distortion and auto-tune to his lead vocal, which adds even more contrast to this track.  The instruments’ main theme sounds 20^th century, but they don’t use a 12-tone scale (maybe modal?).  The theme says East Asian to me (but I can’t put my finger on why).  A very well-composed song.

“Heartless” was second single off the album, and at first, I thought it was T-Pain singing the hook.  It turns out it was just Mr. West showing us a higher part of his range. Most of the (very simple) instrumentation is executed through a Mayan-like flute, a classic 808 percussive bass, and a clap. What does it for me on this song is the bridge (most of which is damn near a cappella), especially when he says, “We just gon’ be enemies.”

Kanye West has a song called “Amazing”?!  No!  We couldn’t get through a Kanye album without some gloating, but at the end of the third verse, he turns it around, saying “the only thing I’m afraid of is me,” helping it to better fit into the concept of the album.  This is where Taiko(-like) drums make their first appearance on the album, which he juxtapositions nicely with a rap-ballad piano progression (adding choral oos for the chorus).  Right before Young Jeezy adds his 16 bars, the track stops almost completely (I thought the song was over).  Jezzy’s cadence is a perfect for this track, and his lyrics fit right in with West’s theme.

The Taiko drums make a glorious comeback in 808s' first single.  Again, West keeps it simple.  “Love Lockdown” starts out with the 808 bass, brings in the piano chords, and then brings in the drums.  And while the drums fill out the sound, they aren’t complex: they’re just loud.  He finally gives us a bit of complex layering at the end of the song after the vocals fade out, adding more percussions and synth, but it comes full circle.  And within 3 bars, he takes us from flourishing instrumentation back to just the 808 bass.

Who invited Stevie Wonder?  Even Mr. Hudson’s vocals on the hook of “Paranoid” (Mr. Hudson fronts a British band, Mr. Hudson and the Library, signed to West’s label) sound like he put on some braids and a pair of shades.  West's production evokes a very 80s sound with the synths, the extended whip-crack snare, and the slow drum roll at the end of each 12-bar cycle (who uses 12-bar cycles?!).  The somewhat lighthearted feel of the song is definitely a welcome change of pace.

“Robo Cop” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and of course, T-Pain co-wrote it (it’d be wrong for him not to have some contribution on this album).  The cheerful strings and high synth almost sound like an updated version of the Flight of Falcor.  It’s eerie with the electronic bass and the subject matter of the song, especially when West starts to make the Stephen King references.  I won’t give it away, but the last minute and a half of the song made me laugh out loud.  It was the satirical, hilarious side of West that we saw in “The New Workout Plan” and “Drunk and Hot Girls” from previous albums.

In “Street Lights”, West reverts back to a distortion filter for his voice, but he loses (most of) the auto-tune.  It’s an unusual choice for such a sentimental song.  One of the great things about his style is that he uses (other) singers for his background vocals, paying tribute to the artists who didn’t have the benefit/set-back of recording themselves on multiple tracks for background vocals. It definitely adds a certain depth to this song.  He uses the same verse over and over, and the repetition builds and releases tension through the instrumentation and slight variation.  I want to liken this technique to a rock song from the ‘60s, but again, I can’t put my finger on it (I’m claiming cultural disadvantage!).

The first thing I thought when I heard “Bad News” was “Dracula’s Wedding” by Andre 3000 (note: he does not use the accent over the ‘e’ in iTunes, but he is listed both ways on imdb).  West uses spaced out piano chords on top of a distorted kick drum and a Taiko-sounding snare in a Caribbean type of rhythm, creating an almost black-southern/cajun church-like sound.  It’s another not-so-complex but engaging instrumental.

“See You in My Nightmare” is in wonderful opposition to “see you in my dreams,” a common phrase for singers who are still in love.  When this song comes in, you’re waiting for the beat to drop and for it to turn into the next song that you championship high-school basketball team comes out to.  The intro passes.  The first verse goes through.  West sneaks into the chorus with no change in instrumentation. Finally at the beginning of the second verse you get it, and it’s kind of disorienting.  Somehow with absolutely no percussion, the song has forward motion and builds tension.  Lil Wayne does his auto-tuned singing thing *yawn*, but his verse is great.  Passionate, even.  I feel the pain, the angst.  Up until he says, “You think your ‘ish don’t stank but you are Missus Pee-yew!”  But Lil Wayne is worshiped best known for playful lines like that, so I’m obvi just not the target audience. 

I love the analogy West makes in “Coldest Winter”.  Ice and cold are associated with love and close proximity.  The inevitable coming of spring signifies the end of the couple’s love.  Again, West incorporates very traditional Taiko drumming.  In fact, I remember the Taiko drumming group at my college doing almost this exact same beat.

In the “Live Bonus Track”, also called “Pinocchio Story”, the Louis Vuitton Don laments that there’s no material thing that can replace having a “real life”.  He shows heaps of emotion in this song, seeming to regret his fame.  Meanwhile, throughout the song, the audience is going crazy for him.  Love the irony.  The phrase “be a real boy” replaces the role of a hook in this philosophical narrative.  According to Wikipedia, this song is a freestyle.  If that’s true (it does have that type of feel), I’m extremely impressed.

I picture Mr. West walking into the studio and saying, “Let’s do the exact opposite of what everything I’ve done before.”  We’re used to seeing him blinged out, sipping the most expensive of champagnes, and generally showing his wealth.  He doesn’t do that here, or if he does, it’s more to show how it doesn’t bring him the supposed happiness that everyone seems to think it does.  I’m sure the recent passing of his mother and the breaking off of his engagement had a huge influence on the direction of this album.

He recorded this album in Hawaii (area code 808).  There’s quite a presence of Japanese culture in the state (so I hear), so it’s no surprise that so many East Asian themes come up in the music.  He’s a major force in the producing arena (he got primary production [and writing] credits on every track… so basically, he could sell a third of the units Britney does and still make twice as money… not including touring), so this may be the start of a "new" trend (that never got beyond Missy in 2001).  Remember the whole South Asian/Middle Eastern trend in hip-hop and pop (look down, Dr. Dre ... you too, R. Kelly)?

I think this album is excellent.  It explores unique, fresh musical ideas (for pop music), and many of the lyrical subjects are far from hackneyed.  As a whole, this album is better than any one I listened to last year (admittedly, there weren’t many), and it's not easy to make a concept album work (take notes, Beyoncé/Sasha)  While none  of these songs sticks out among the 100+ singles and b-sides I jammed out to in ’08, all of the tracks are good individually, yet the album works so well as a whole!  Even though it's kind of useless:

Suggested Tracks:

Amazing

Paranoid

RoboCop

See You in My Nightmare

The Whole Album