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Brooksmatic
Joined: 06 Apr 2008
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 6:30 pm Post subject: Kanye West - 808's & Heartbreak |
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I've given this album three full listens now. I was pretty pissed at first but a lot of the tracks are growing on me. I like the 80's style beats like Paranoid but he screws up some of the other nicely-produced beats with the shitty auto-tune voice and really really shitty lyrics (the song Robocop is a perfect example). The album is mostly about this break up with fiance Alexis Phifer (hottie!) and I think there's one track about his mom's death from earlier this year.
Like I said, I hated this album at first but a lot of the tracks are growing on me now. I'm liking Paranoid, Amazing, Heartless, Love Lockdown, Street Lights, and See You in My Nightmare (ft. Lil Wayne). Damn, that's half the album.
I might be too big of a Kanye fan to give this album a legit review but I wanted to know what other people who have given it a listen think.
You can check out the video for Heartless (directed by Hype Williams) here: http://therapup.uproxx.com/2008/11/kanye-west-heartless-video.html
And here's the Rolling Stone review:
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Kanye West announced long ago that mere hip-hop superstardom was not enough for him � he wanted to be "the number one artist in the world." So it's no surprise that his untrammeled egotism has led him well beyond the usual limits of his genre. With Kanye largely abandoning rapping in favor of digitally altered crooning, his fourth album represents a cultural high-water mark for Auto-Tune, that now ubiquitous pitch-correction technology. But Auto-Tune isn't totally to blame for 808s & Heartbreak. A bold, fascinating, foolhardy, occasionally unlistenable Kanye West record was inevitable, with or without the cyborg-soul software.
So blame it on the heartbreak. The record arrives in the wake of a year in which Kanye lost his mother and split with his fianc�e, designer Alexis Phifer. But aside from one bleak song written for his mom ("Coldest Winter"), 808s & Heartbreak is a breakup album � it's Kanye's would-be Here, My Dear or Blood on the Tracks, a mournful song-suite that swings violently between self-pity and self-loathing. "The coldest story ever told/Somewhere far along this road he lost his soul....How could you be so heartless?" he sings in "Heartless." Kanye has often chosen introspection and self-exposure to the usual gangsta posturing. But here, the drear never lifts, and he never stops wallowing.
Thankfully, there are those 808s. Kanye constructed the songs using a classic Roland TR-808 drum machine, and the results are a pleasant shock: stark, spacey tracks, which owe far more to Eighties electro and synth pop than anything on hip-hop radio. In "Street Lights," a haze of distortion floats above tolling keyboard chords and a hammering beat. The hit "Love Lockdown" is powered by thundering tribal drums and vocals that slide from digitized trills into strangled squeals.
Kanye can't really sing in the classic sense, but he's not trying to. T-Pain taught the world that Auto-Tune doesn't just sharpen flat notes: It's a painterly device for enhancing vocal expressiveness, and upping the pathos. In "Bad News," Kanye's digitized vocals are the sound of a man so stupefied by grief, he's become less than human.
Like many sad sacks, Kanye likes the sound of his own whimper, and mistakes sentiments such as "I could never seem to find what real love was about" for profundities. Many of his best songs have focused on his ambivalence about materialism, but on 808s & Heartbreak, the theme has hardened into schtick. "My friend showed me pictures of his kids/And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs." The low point is the freestyle "Pinocchio Story," recorded live in Singapore, which finds Kanye bellowing, "There is no Gucci I could buy...there is no Louis Vuitton I could put on...to get my heart out of this hell."
Of course, Kanye has always been emo. But in his most touching songs � "Through the Wire," "Family Business," "Hey Mama" � he tucked his confessions in between boasts and jokes. Kanye the Songbird has forgotten the lesson that Kanye the Rapper taught his listeners: Heartbreak is not incompatible with wit, or with sharply drawn details, or with a buoyant beat. This noble failure of an album might easily have been a noble success if he had tweaked the Fun-o-Meter just a bit. A slight pitch correction could have done the trick. |
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cj1976
Joined: 26 Oct 2005
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:00 pm Post subject: |
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| I love it. Really different from his other work, but still every bit as good. One of the best albums I've listened to this year. |
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DrOctagon
Joined: 11 Jun 2008
Location: Chicago
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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It's very boring and repetitive. The singing is very amateur, computerized, and simple. I think Kanye took a HUGE step back in making good music with this half-assed, artificial, copy-cat album. If you're Kanye, who has made great albums like college dropout, why would you want to follow in the footsteps of P. Diddy (sang on his last album) and T-Pain? I just don't get how someone of his caliber would stoop so low? 
Last edited by DrOctagon on Thu Nov 27, 2008 9:06 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Brooksmatic
Joined: 06 Apr 2008
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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| DrOctagon wrote: |
| It's very boring and repetitive. The singing is very amateur, computerized, and simple. I think Kanye took a HUGE step back in making good music with this half-assed, artificial, copy-cat album. If you're Kanye, who has made great albums like college dropout, why would you want to follow in the footsteps of P. Diddy (sang on his last album) and T-Pain? I just don't get. That someone of his caliber would stoop so low? |
He's coming out with a regular album in '09 but I think this album is a product of where he's at in his life right now. His mom died and he broke up with his woman. I admit, he could have made a much better album, but I don't think you should have expected a College Dropout, Late Reg, or Graduation type of album. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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samd
Joined: 03 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 8:14 am Post subject: |
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| I was shocked when I heard it, as I hadn't read any reviews and expected more of the same, but I quite like it also. |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: |
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Sorry, Kanye West sucks plus he is beyond egotistical. Humbleness would earn him more money. I must ask, what does this Scarface song have to do with Kanye West? Did he rip it off? |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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| Bibbitybop wrote: |
Sorry, Kanye West sucks plus he is beyond egotistical. Humbleness would earn him more money. I must ask, what does this Scarface song have to do with Kanye West? Did he rip it off? |
As I said, Kanye made the beat. Scarface is the rapper. He would have bought the beat from kanye.
Producers make beats for rappers. Different producers have signature styles. Kanye normally uses lots of soul samples for the hooks.
It is common practice for rappers to rap over a beat from another guys song. Alot of rappers actually make their name from albums of them rapping over beats from recent hits and a few original tracks(a mixtape). Lil Wayne for example is famous and very good at this. Here he is over 'Hustlin', originally a rick ross song. the beat in this song is by 'The Runners'.
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=cH2M_wG2-io
This song contains one of my all time favorite lines..
" murder scene, tape it off, red rum, tomato sauce"
Wayne is a great stream of consciousness rapper when he is on. |
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Bibbitybop
Joined: 22 Feb 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 7:09 pm Post subject: |
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| I only got into Lil Wayne with his latest album. Are his previous 2 also creative and good? |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2008 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Bibbitybop wrote: |
| I only got into Lil Wayne with his latest album. Are his previous 2 also creative and good? |
I would recommend his mixtapes for a few reasons. They are more spontaneous. In an album you normally have to make a 'love song' and a few 'club songs'.
His latest album is good I have to say though..interesting production and that is a lot of what makes a rapper great: picking good beats(jay z:prime example).
For Lil Wayne I;d recommend
Da Drought 3
Dedication 2 w/ DJ drama.
He talks about the same things as every other rapper but in a very visual way and he has great voice control and flow.
If you like great production that is consistent throughout an album, then go with 'the clipse'. Most of their work is produced by 'The Neptunes'.
Grindin
http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ6SYuEWOTs |
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Shauneyz
Joined: 26 May 2008
Location: The land of Nod
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 8:32 am Post subject: |
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| I haven't really given a thorough listening to the album, but I really am stuck on "Love Lockdown." |
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CeleryMan
Joined: 12 Apr 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 9:56 am Post subject: |
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| Weezy and Yeez is straight pop music as in Jonas Bros., T-Pain, etc. There's nothing hip-hop about nut hugger jeans or pink V-necks, no homo. Broke unsigned rappers stand up!!! |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| CeleryMan wrote: |
| Weezy and Yeez is straight pop music as in Jonas Bros., T-Pain, etc. There's nothing hip-hop about nut hugger jeans or pink V-necks, no homo. Broke unsigned rappers stand up!!! |
Got to say broke unsigned rappers are usually broke and unsigned for a reason.
lol on the no homo, that does get annoying.
Weezy has evolved over the years and has noticeably improved. This is the exact opposite of almost every other rapper. Wayne's first album and cash money stuff was very weak. Most guys come out with their grimiest hottest stuff first album, then slowly fall off. In that sense yes, he is not hip hop. |
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CeleryMan
Joined: 12 Apr 2007
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Thank the promethazine for that so-called 'noticeable' improvement. |
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JMO
Joined: 18 Jul 2006
Location: Daegu
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| Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: |
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| CeleryMan wrote: |
| Thank the promethazine for that so-called 'noticeable' improvement. |
hopefully it helps those broke unsigned rappers get through their days. |
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