808's and Heartbreak. Why Kanye, Why?

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fr0br0

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Edited By fr0br0

It's hard to believe that only one year ago Kanye West was in his "beef" with 50 Cent about who can sell more copies of their album. Loser would have to ditch the music business for good. In the end, Kanye won and 50 could never release another album again (Yay). But as no surprise, 50 Cent is schedule to release his album sometime this December (I think).

808's and Ballbreaks
808's and Ballbreaks


One year ago, if you would have told me that I would have wished 50 would have sold more records so Kanye couldn't release his next album, I would sock you. But that is exactly how I feel about it today. I have been listening to Kanye's newest album 1-900 and Sextalks and most of the time I am in pain. It isn't exactly the music that is so bad. Actually the beats on the album aren't too bad. I think Graduation was a great gateway to this Electro/Hip-Hop sound. But on this album, Kanye completely ditches any trace of Hip-Hop (except for 808 drum beats. And there are ALOT of those). Hip-Hop isn't the only thing Kanye is missing. There is no soul. I'm sure this is no surprise to anybody who heard Graduation, but I was hoping that Kanye would mix together his Electro/Soul/Hip-Hop into probably the most original and maybe best new sound to come out in a while. But no, instead of being classic Kanye, we get robo-Kanye. Instead of a good Hip-Hop album, we get Electro/Pop.

The beats, as bad as I might have made them sound, were actaully the best thing about the album. I haven't even begun to tear this album apart, but I'll try to keep it short. Just to get this out of the way, it is true, Kanye does not rap ONE SINGLE BAR in this entire album. Instead...he sings. I have heard Ye try to sing in some of his other songs, he sounds bad. Now I'm not saying Kanye is the best rapper evarz!, but his rapping is a helluva lot more tolerable than his singing. But wait, as if him singing alone isn't bad enough. Every time he even speaks, he has a fucking autotune hooked up. What the fuck, Kanye? When did you turn into T-Pain? I'll go over this Autotune problem later in another blog, but trust me, it won't be pretty.

Alright, so we have an Electro Kanye fake bad singing to okay beats. How do the songs come together? They don't. The album has 12 songs (13 if you count My Angel, but I still can't figure out what the hell is up with that song) Out of all those songs, about 5 are actually good. 5/13 is not good. Compared to Graduation which was about a 12:14 good song ratio, this is a MAJOR step down. Those songs that are done well are the one's that don't rely on this autotune (cough Love Lockdown cough) and those with beats that resemble older Kanye style beats.

The reason why this album fails: The lack of bear
The reason why this album fails: The lack of bear


I have to give it to Yeezy to try something new. But please Kanye, didn't we already try enough with your last album? And if this was going to be attempted by anybody else, I'm sure they would have failed even worse (so take that as a compliment) But what we are left with is an annoying ass Kanye on annoying ass beats. Maybe this album was enough for Kanye to get the whole divorce thing out of his system so he can start making GOOD music again.

So in the end I'm am left with the words "What The Fuck Kanye?" bubbling in my mind.


Edit: Also, for those who want to say "Just give it time, it will grow on you." No it hasn't. I've been listening to this album for a week straight and none of the songs that I didn't like the first time still annoy me. After this, I will never listen to those select songs again.


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fr0br0

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#1  Edited By fr0br0

It's hard to believe that only one year ago Kanye West was in his "beef" with 50 Cent about who can sell more copies of their album. Loser would have to ditch the music business for good. In the end, Kanye won and 50 could never release another album again (Yay). But as no surprise, 50 Cent is schedule to release his album sometime this December (I think).

808's and Ballbreaks
808's and Ballbreaks


One year ago, if you would have told me that I would have wished 50 would have sold more records so Kanye couldn't release his next album, I would sock you. But that is exactly how I feel about it today. I have been listening to Kanye's newest album 1-900 and Sextalks and most of the time I am in pain. It isn't exactly the music that is so bad. Actually the beats on the album aren't too bad. I think Graduation was a great gateway to this Electro/Hip-Hop sound. But on this album, Kanye completely ditches any trace of Hip-Hop (except for 808 drum beats. And there are ALOT of those). Hip-Hop isn't the only thing Kanye is missing. There is no soul. I'm sure this is no surprise to anybody who heard Graduation, but I was hoping that Kanye would mix together his Electro/Soul/Hip-Hop into probably the most original and maybe best new sound to come out in a while. But no, instead of being classic Kanye, we get robo-Kanye. Instead of a good Hip-Hop album, we get Electro/Pop.

The beats, as bad as I might have made them sound, were actaully the best thing about the album. I haven't even begun to tear this album apart, but I'll try to keep it short. Just to get this out of the way, it is true, Kanye does not rap ONE SINGLE BAR in this entire album. Instead...he sings. I have heard Ye try to sing in some of his other songs, he sounds bad. Now I'm not saying Kanye is the best rapper evarz!, but his rapping is a helluva lot more tolerable than his singing. But wait, as if him singing alone isn't bad enough. Every time he even speaks, he has a fucking autotune hooked up. What the fuck, Kanye? When did you turn into T-Pain? I'll go over this Autotune problem later in another blog, but trust me, it won't be pretty.

Alright, so we have an Electro Kanye fake bad singing to okay beats. How do the songs come together? They don't. The album has 12 songs (13 if you count My Angel, but I still can't figure out what the hell is up with that song) Out of all those songs, about 5 are actually good. 5/13 is not good. Compared to Graduation which was about a 12:14 good song ratio, this is a MAJOR step down. Those songs that are done well are the one's that don't rely on this autotune (cough Love Lockdown cough) and those with beats that resemble older Kanye style beats.

The reason why this album fails: The lack of bear
The reason why this album fails: The lack of bear


I have to give it to Yeezy to try something new. But please Kanye, didn't we already try enough with your last album? And if this was going to be attempted by anybody else, I'm sure they would have failed even worse (so take that as a compliment) But what we are left with is an annoying ass Kanye on annoying ass beats. Maybe this album was enough for Kanye to get the whole divorce thing out of his system so he can start making GOOD music again.

So in the end I'm am left with the words "What The Fuck Kanye?" bubbling in my mind.


Edit: Also, for those who want to say "Just give it time, it will grow on you." No it hasn't. I've been listening to this album for a week straight and none of the songs that I didn't like the first time still annoy me. After this, I will never listen to those select songs again.


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kmdrkul

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#2  Edited By kmdrkul

The only logical explanation is that George Bush hates black people.

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#3  Edited By jakob187

I've gotta say that I feel the exact opposite of you, Fro.  I love this album and think that it has TONS of soul to it.

808s and Heartbreak is that personal album that every musician has to make before they can continue onward.  Being such, it is one of the best personal albums that I've ever heard from an individual.  He places plenty of blame on himself, as well as places blame on others.

I will say that there is a decent amount of emptiness, but then again, the album is called 808s and HEARTBREAK...and heartbreak (from firsthand experience) involves a lot of emptiness, so using nothing but an 808 is a very logical choice for Kanye on this record.  Moreover, using a vocoder on his vocals throughout the album creates a rather unique juxtaposition:  you have a very personal album, but there is still this veil that he is hiding behind with the electronic synth and vocoding.  It creates this rather cold and almost robotic feel, yet mixes it with enough heart and emotion through all of that to create a very unique album.

I can understand that most Kanye fans will hate this album, and that's perfectly understandable...but to just completely write it off because he's not rapping is a bit odd for fans of a dood that is constantly trying to evolve his music and be something that is cutting edge.  This album isn't so much about beats as it is about fitting the mood.  Sometimes, like with "RoboCop" and "See You In My Nightmares", that feeling is a bit mixed and the songs fall flat on their face.  However, looking at songs like "Say You Will", "Street Lights", "Bad News"...there is a real sense of melancholy and despair to those tracks that you rarely find nowadays.

It's just an all-around unique album, and I would recommend it to everyone for at least one good, honest listen.  There is a lot that can be taken from this album.  If you are walking into it expecting a quote/unquote "Kanye" album, yes...you'll be extremely disappointed.  If you are going into it realizing that Kanye still has another new album coming out sometime next year that will be a true follow-up for him (so he's said) and the knowledge that 808s and Heartbreak took him two weeks to write and he wanted to strictly make an album so he could get the pain of his mother dying and his failed engagement out of his system...then that's the best way to go into it.

Also, unless you got a different version than me, I'm only seeing 11 tracks on the album (12 if you count the hidden track, "Pinocchio Story", which is a song he performed live in Singapore and Beyonce Knowles begged him to put the song on the album...so he did).
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#4  Edited By Phished0ne

if you want a good "personal" rap album listen to  "Everything Is Borrowed" by The Streets,  he is a great UK rapper.

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MasterOfPenguins_Zell

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The whole singing, no rap thing, makes me a bit annoyed, I'm gonna buy it though, I like most of the songs, but it is quite disappointing.

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#6  Edited By jakob187

I will say that I come into this album with only a limited knowledge of Kanye's body of work.  I heard College Dropout extensively as a former roommate loved the album, and I really enjoyed it as well.  I heard "Stronger"....and that was about it.  Going into this album, I didn't really have any preconceived notions of what to expect, and it helped me a lot.  At first, I was kind of "eh" about the album.  However, the more that I've listened to it, the more attached I've grown to it.

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DualReaver

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#7  Edited By DualReaver

I still want the second song explained to me.

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#8  Edited By jakob187
DualReaver said:
"I still want the second song explained to me."
"Welcome to Heartbreak"?  What's to be explained?  Did you listen to it?  It's pretty self-explanatory.  Dood woke up one day and realized that he has done all this stuff with his life, and even with all that, he still has nothing in his life.
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#9  Edited By DualReaver

It just sounds ridiculous.

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#10  Edited By jakob187
DualReaver said:
"It just sounds ridiculous."
How old are you?  Younger than 20?  Of course it sounds ridiculous to you.  Once you are 26, you'll see things differently.
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#11  Edited By DualReaver

The Shock Radio thing annoys me, I didn't mean the actual lyrics of the song.

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#12  Edited By jakob187
DualReaver said:
"The Shock Radio thing annoys me, I didn't mean the actual lyrics of the song."
Shock Radio thing?  Man, you are confusing me now.
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#13  Edited By DualReaver

I don't know, whatever he repeats over and over throughout the song?

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#14  Edited By jakob187
DualReaver said:
"I don't know, whatever he repeats over and over throughout the song?"
You runnin' a fever, pika?
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#15  Edited By DualReaver

Man, my version of Kanye's album must be broken or something then.

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#16  Edited By jakob187
DualReaver said:
"Man, my version of Kanye's album must be broken or something then."
Well, he may be repeating something and I'm just not paying attention to it or something.
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#17  Edited By DualReaver

Imma go return it to the titborrent place, and tell them my album has too many words on it.

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#18  Edited By jakob187

LOL

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#19  Edited By fr0br0

I think you just got a bad version Dual. I remember listening to Heartless on youtube and the version that person posted had this annoying "LA DODGERS!" thing going on in the back randomly.

And Jakob, I don't mean he lacks soul as in he doesn't reflect his feelings on this album. He does that just fine. What I'm saying is that he doesn't use musical soul samples in his songs. It was this style that got him so popular. Here is a link to one of the songs that shows his older style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms2taGYh9Vw

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#20  Edited By Bulldog19892

I've always found Kanye to be an arrogant dick. "I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice." - Kanye

I don't care how good the guy's music is, I have no respect for pretentious fuck wads who love to gloat about how famous they are (I'm looking at you Soulja Boy).

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#21  Edited By jakob187
Bulldog19892 said:
"I've always found Kanye to be an arrogant dick. "I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice." - Kanye

I don't care how good the guy's music is, I have no respect for pretentious fuck wads who love to gloat about how famous they are (I'm looking at you Soulja Boy)."
Guns 'n' Roses
Metallica
Pantera
Madonna
Britney Spears
Aerosmith
Led Zeppelin
The Beatles

I can go on with the list...but they are all pretentious fucks.  When you start judging your music based on what a person SAYS and DOES...that's when you aren't focusing on the MUSIC.  If I were to judge the music I like based on what people say and do...then I wouldn't really have much to listen to, eh?
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I wrote down my first impressions on another forum I frequent and thought I'd give my two cents here

"So Kanye West made a pop album compromised of drum loops and him singing thru an AutoTuner about being emo.

I should hate this.

But I'm sitting thru my first listen now and I'm digging it. The sound's got a kind of empty chiptune/slow French house feeling throughout except with some added strings and the AutoTune isn't close to the annoyance of say T-Pain.
I've never been a big fan of Kanye. I hated his chipmunk soul samples, found his rap persona to be a dick I wanna punch in the face and I've thought his rap flow has gotten progressively worse since the first time I heard Through The Wire. But this is surprisingly listenable.
It's not perfect. Kanye doesn't have a terrific voice, and it can get a tad overproduced in parts which come in stark contrast to how lo-fi some of it is. A little schizo. And most of the guest rappers on this album should fuck off, they don't fit at all. Lil Wayne in particular is terrible.

Gonna give this a few more listens, but so far I'm pleasantly surprised.
It's exciting, that's for sure."

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#23  Edited By mike

After listening to this album about 15 times, I have come to the conclusion that there are four songs I like on it and the rest are absolute trash:

  • Say You Will
  • Welcome to Heartbreak
  • Heartless
  • Love Lockdown
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#24  Edited By Discorsi

First time I heard  Love Lockdown on the radio, I had no clue it was Kanye's song.  The same thing happened when I heard Heartless for the first time.  I really liked both songs the first time I heard them but after a while the novelty of them has worn off.  Won't get the album because I am not a Kanye fan.

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#25  Edited By Karmum

I'm digging the album so far, and apparently Kanye is hitting us up with another album: coming out next year.

This might go back to the Hip-Hop/Rap roots of Kanye.

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#26  Edited By get2sammyb
jakob187 said:
"I've gotta say that I feel the exact opposite of you, Fro.  I love this album and think that it has TONS of soul to it.
808s and Heartbreak is that personal album that every musician has to make before they can continue onward.  Being such, it is one of the best personal albums that I've ever heard from an individual.  He places plenty of blame on himself, as well as places blame on others.

I will say that there is a decent amount of emptiness, but then again, the album is called 808s and HEARTBREAK...and heartbreak (from firsthand experience) involves a lot of emptiness, so using nothing but an 808 is a very logical choice for Kanye on this record.  Moreover, using a vocoder on his vocals throughout the album creates a rather unique juxtaposition:  you have a very personal album, but there is still this veil that he is hiding behind with the electronic synth and vocoding.  It creates this rather cold and almost robotic feel, yet mixes it with enough heart and emotion through all of that to create a very unique album.

I can understand that most Kanye fans will hate this album, and that's perfectly understandable...but to just completely write it off because he's not rapping is a bit odd for fans of a dood that is constantly trying to evolve his music and be something that is cutting edge.  This album isn't so much about beats as it is about fitting the mood.  Sometimes, like with "RoboCop" and "See You In My Nightmares", that feeling is a bit mixed and the songs fall flat on their face.  However, looking at songs like "Say You Will", "Street Lights", "Bad News"...there is a real sense of melancholy and despair to those tracks that you rarely find nowadays.

It's just an all-around unique album, and I would recommend it to everyone for at least one good, honest listen.  There is a lot that can be taken from this album.  If you are walking into it expecting a quote/unquote "Kanye" album, yes...you'll be extremely disappointed.  If you are going into it realizing that Kanye still has another new album coming out sometime next year that will be a true follow-up for him (so he's said) and the knowledge that 808s and Heartbreak took him two weeks to write and he wanted to strictly make an album so he could get the pain of his mother dying and his failed engagement out of his system...then that's the best way to go into it.

Also, unless you got a different version than me, I'm only seeing 11 tracks on the album (12 if you count the hidden track, "Pinocchio Story", which is a song he performed live in Singapore and Beyonce Knowles begged him to put the song on the album...so he did).
"
I agree mostly with your post here.

808's is the most personal, adventurous and interesting albums released by a commercial artist this year. I can understand why it wouldn't be some peoples cup of tea but you have to give Kanye max-respect for totally going against the grain with this release.
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I really like Say You Will, Welcome To Heartbreak, Heartless, Love Lockdown and Streetlights.
Paranoid is one of the best pop songs I've heard in ages and I can't really decide if I love or hate RoboCop. That song is weird as hell.
The lyrics are very interesting though I wish they deconstructed Kanye even a bit more. The guy is the epitome of a self loathing narcissist and only scratches the surface of it when he isn't singing about his ex. I should know, we can smell our own.
The inclusion of Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne on this album is atrocious though, it's like he had to add them for the record label.

It's a surprisingly good and interesting album and much respect to Kanye for making it.

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#28  Edited By Milkman

As someone who is a big fan of Kanye West, I really hate this album.

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#29  Edited By Bulldog19892
jakob187 said:
"Bulldog19892 said:
"I've always found Kanye to be an arrogant dick. "I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade, I will be the loudest voice." - Kanye

I don't care how good the guy's music is, I have no respect for pretentious fuck wads who love to gloat about how famous they are (I'm looking at you Soulja Boy)."
Guns 'n' Roses
Metallica
Pantera
Madonna
Britney Spears
Aerosmith
Led Zeppelin
The Beatles

I can go on with the list...but they are all pretentious fucks.  When you start judging your music based on what a person SAYS and DOES...that's when you aren't focusing on the MUSIC.  If I were to judge the music I like based on what people say and do...then I wouldn't really have much to listen to, eh?
"
I never said his music was bad, nor did I imply it. I just said I don't respect him. His music might actually be pretty good, and if I was into hip-hop, I would definatly check him out.

Besides, those three bands are the only bands that I actually like, and I fully acknowledge and accept that they can be shitty at times. I still love their music.