While it’s often unwise to judge a record by its artwork, there is no better image for Kanye West‘s latest release, 808s and Heartbreaks, than a sole deflated heartshaped balloon against a gray background. From the first ambient yet downtrodden seconds of opener “Say You Will”, sprinkled with low tone beeps and boops, a fairly depressed Kanye singing, “Can’t waste no time / She might leave soon… / I admit, I still fantasize about you.” The track features heavy backing vocals at the end, muted beneath the continuous boops, that really captures a sense of longing and emptiness. It’s a far cry from Top 40 hits like “Gold Digger”, to say the least.
The most poignant track is the album’s second cut, “Welcome To Heartbreak”, featuring Kid Cuti. The opening line betrays a lonely man trying to fill his voids with materials possessions, “My friend showed me pictures of his kids, / And all I could do was show him pictures of my cribs,” and the word play is just fantastic. Simple beats are layered with low synth parts to create a minimalist sound perfect for the melancholy the song depicts.
“Heartless” picks up the tempo a bit as Kanye sings about a despicable woman who stole his soul while making oddly placed pop culture references like “how could you be so Dr. Evil?” The beats stay hot on “Amazing” though Kanye’s vocals clearly express how anti-upbeat this track is. 808s and Heartbreak‘s first single “Love Lockdown” features some great tribal beats and handclaps atop an 808 that blends into “Paranoid”, featuring Mr. Hudson. “Paranoid” seems more like a Kanye song in tempo and production than the previous cuts on the album. If not already earmarked for a single, Kanye’s camp needs to get this track spinning in clubs and make the stems available for the remixes that this track is screaming to have made.
A beautiful medley of strings appears on “RoboCop” as Kanye sings, “You’re just a spoiled little L.A. girl,” creating a classical sound to offset the futuristic nature of the album as a whole, much like the Afro beats on “Love Lockdown”. Things once again take a turn for depression with “Bad News” as Kanye laments, “Didn’t you know, I was waiting on you / Waiting on a dream that would never come true,” as he describes how his woman broke the rules by cheating on him and tried to cover up that it was clearly a long time affair. West seems liberated, though only falsely so, on “See You In My Knightmares” as he growls, “Tell everybody that you know / That I don’t love you no more” before Lil Wayne squawks out a verse trashing the offending female in question. Tribal drums kick in once again on “Coldest Winter” as West forlornly sings, “Goodbye my friend. / Will I ever love again?” three times over, finishing with “Never again.” The experiences and personal traumas surrounding the creation of 808s and Heartbreak have made for an open and honest album that delves beyond the typical hip hop album focused on money, hoes and rims.
808s and Heartbreak was released today, November 25th, on Roc-A-Fella Records.
Tracklisting:
01. Say You Will
02. Welcome To Heartbreak (feat. Kid Cuti)
03. Heartless
04. Amazing (feat. Young Jeezy)
05. Love Lockdown
06. Paranoid (feat. Mr. Hudson)
07. RoboCop
08. Street Lights
09. Bad News
10. See You In My Nightmares
11. Coldest Winter
12. Pinocchio Story (Freestyle Live From Singapore)
Kanye West: website | myspace | blog | @ virgin mobile festival 2008
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