Kanye West has had a tough year.
His mother died in November 2007, and he separated from fiancée Alexis Phifer a few months later. And so, it's understandable that he'd be looking for some comfort.
Being a musician, West has turned to his music for his catharsis. The result is 808s & Heartbreak, a musical representation of his recent hardships. Unlike his past three albums, which were a sort of trilogy but didn't necessarily focus on any common theme other than his own ego, this one has a thread running through it. The "Heartbreak" portion of the title and shriveled up heart-shaped balloon on the cover makes it clear this album is an outpouring of all of West's pent-up emotion.
808s & Heartbreak represents a marked divergence from his past albums, for several reasons. First, the Louis Vuitton Don persona is gone, replaced by a humbler, more repentant West. There's no boasting and no rapping about diamond chains and expensive clothes. More importantly, there's no rapping, period.
Apparently, West decided rap was not the proper medium for exposing one's weaknesses on a record. And so, he decided to become an R&B crooner. Fans of his past albums who have heard him "sing" a few notes for the hooks of his tracks may be skeptical. Never fear. That's why we have Auto-Tune.
Auto-Tune and similar pieces of software have been used to digitally enhance vocals by helping singers hit the right notes. Producers recently found a new use for the software: turning singers into robots. Cher's "Believe" first brought the technique to prominence, and T-Pain built a career on it.
On 808s & Heartbreak, West leans so heavily on Auto-Tune that it's almost as if it isn't him singing at all. The sound is something akin to a robot singing soul, complete with computerized warbles and blips. Strangely, it works. And regardless of West's singing ability, he has an ear for melody that he already proved with his past forays into production. That's out in full force on this release.
The other important feature of this album, from which the "808" in the title is taken, is the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Rather than building his beats from samples of other songs, the hip-hop production mainstay, the tracks on this record are built solely on the thumping foundation of the 808. Piano and synthesizer flesh out the songs, but scarcity is the name of the game here.
The resulting album is sure to be polarizing, with scores of fans wondering why West isn't rapping and others embracing his experimentation. Both have valid points; 808s & Heartbreak isn't for everyone. But anyone who's willing to look past the record's shortcomings and quirks will find a touching piece of art.
Listening to the album feels a little like reading Kanye's diary. It's personal, and it's almost uncomfortable hearing the confessions of someone with such a larger-than-life personality. For all of his posturing and the image of invincibility he sought to project, here it becomes clear that he's a little like the rest of us. Though his mother's tragic passing added to putting West in his unhappy state, the majority of the songs deal with his breakup.
Considering the many common elements shared by all the tracks on the album, 808s & Heartbreak should be taken as a whole rather than broken up into singles. It finds West accusing the woman at fault of being heartless ("Heartless") and regretting his decision to trade happiness for fame ("Welcome to Heartbreak"). Fellow Auto-Tune enthusiast Lil Wayne shows up on "See You In My Nightmares" and turns in a predictably powerful contribution. And there isn't a happy moment; all of the songs are uniformly depressing. But heartbreak is a universal emotion, and it's easy to identify with West. That's what makes the record so successful.
This is definitely a concept album, with its recurring themes of heartbreak, Auto-Tuned vocals and the Roland TR-808. Concept albums have historically been as flawed as they've been inspired, so it's unsurprising that there are some problems. When West rhymes "RoboCop" with "RoboCop" four times in a row, it's too much. For a man so gifted with words, there's no excuse for such uninspired lyric writing. Plus, Soulja Boy already used the RoboCop shtick. And the Auto-Tune thing gets a little grating at times. The emotional content of the music and lyrics is somewhat diminished by the fact it sounds like a machine is doing the singing.
But considering this record is West singing about his flaws, the presence of some of those flaws on the album just strengthens the overall impression. Listen to the album for no other reason than to hear West sing for an entire record, since words don't do it justice. But most of all, listen because it's actually good.
Sounds like: T-Pain, Lil Wayne
Download: "See You In My Nightmares," "Welcome to Heartbreak," "Love Lockdown"
Grade: B
