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Kanye is mouthy, impertinent, flamboyant, bellicose, provocative, greedy and needy...
NEW YORK TIMES
MUSIC
Kanye West, Flaunting Pain Instead of Flash
By JON CARAMANICA
November 25, 2008
�Do you really have the stamina,� Kanye West wonders to himself on �Pinocchio Story (Freestyle Live From Singapore),� the bizarre rap-star-in-need-of-a-Geppetto hidden track from his fourth album, �808s & Heartbreak,� �for everybody that sees you crying/And says, �You oughta laugh! You oughta laugh!� ?�
Oughtn�t he, though? Mr. West is mouthy, impertinent, flamboyant, bellicose, provocative, greedy and needy. But he is also funny, something, given his profound sense of entitlement, he very rarely gets credit for.
On previous albums he�s hilariously taken himself to task for his foibles of style and narcissism. He rarely aims his daggers at others; there�s plenty in the mirror to clown on. On �Breathe In, Breathe Out,� from his 2004 debut album, �The College Dropout,� he distilled the essential struggle that has defined his career into one sharp joke: �Always said if I rapped, I�d say something significant/But now I�m rapping about money, ho�s and rims again.�
On �808s & Heartbreak,� which was released by Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam on Monday, Mr. West is done letting himself off the hook.
The product of a tumultuous year in his personal life, it operates solely on the level of catharsis � no commentary, no self-consciousness, no concern for anything but feeling. On �Pinocchio Story� he continues his lament:
There is no Gucci I can buy
There is no Louis Vuitton to put on
There is no YSL that they could sell
To get my heart out of this hell
And my mind out of this jail
On any of Mr. West�s earlier albums, he would have quickly undermined this sentiment � of course a shopping spree would cheer him up � but here, bluntness is the goal. And so, as he�s dismantling his storytelling structures, he�s also making his productions skeletal, and largely trading bombastic rapping for vulnerable singing.
�808s & Heartbreak� sounds like none of his other albums, nor any rap album of note � �minimal but functional� is how he has described it to MTV. At best, it is a rough sketch for a great album, with ideas he would have typically rendered with complexity, here distilled to a few words, a few synthesizer notes, a lean drumbeat. At worst, it�s clumsy and underfed, a reminder that all of that ornamentation served a purpose. After all, what is Kanye West without scale?
Mr. West would have been forgiven for taking a break after releasing �Graduation,� his third album, last year. His mother, Donda West, died last November following complications from plastic surgery. In April Mr. West split from his fianc�e, Alexis Phifer. By any measure, these are seismic changes, yet he persisted with recording.
Some of the results suggest his old, oversize sound. On both �Love Lockdown� and �Coldest Winter,� thunderous drums cut through an electro haze, and �Bad News� features one of the most efficient bass lines Mr. West has ever constructed. �Amazing,� a visceral collaboration with Young Jeezy, sounds as if it were recorded inside a whirring old grandfather clock, a collection of precisely moving parts neatly interlocking � classic Kanye.
Mr. West has cited the electro-pop pioneer Gary Numan and T J Swan, who sang exuberant, nasal hooks on many a 1980s Queens rap track, as vocal reference points for this album, though in truth hearing Mr. West try to sing these songs is far weirder.
Still, it is not quite sui generis. Early New Edition comes to mind. And in places, especially on the breezy, slick �Paranoid,� this music is redolent of the chilly, slightly irregular R&B the producers the Neptunes were making four or five years ago, for Kelis, Omarion and others. Their synth-driven electro had blasts of funk momentum. But Mr. West uses electro (the title�s �808� refers to the Roland TR-808 drum machine) for its sparseness, so that he might emote unchallenged.
Flaunting pain requires a sort of arrogance, too, so it�s little surprise that Mr. West takes to it so naturally. Every song on the album is rife with anguish, and his lyrics, about the shards of broken relationships, though often tediously written, can carry a fresh sting.
�Let me ask you how long have you known dude,� he raps on �Bad News.� �You played it off and act like he�s brand new/When did you decide to break the rules?� And the mistrust goes both ways.
�I know of some things that you ain�t told me,� he says on �Heartless.� �I did some things, but that�s the old me.�
And it�s not just the songs that are unmediated; much about this album�s release suggested a lack of filters. Mr. West gave the premiere of the first single, �Love Lockdown,� at the MTV Video Music Awards in September. Then various versions, with incremental tweaks, were leaked online. (One time, on his blog, kanyeuniversecity.com � Mr. West both blogs and Twitters � he drew attention to the �newer artwork with perfected type 4 all design snobs.�) His self-control has faltered too: he has been arrested twice in recent months for tangles with the paparazzi, though charges were not filed in either incident.
For Mr. West, who has always intensely policed his own image, these are shocking ruptures. But they feel nominal up against much of this album, which has the immediacy, looseness and rambling quality of a venting session recorded into a Webcam and posted on YouTube.
Two songs, �Say You Will� and �Bad News,� stretch out with instrumental breakdowns long past their obvious conclusion point, as if Mr. West forgot he left his sequencer on. On �Paranoid� you can actually hear laughing in the background, though whether it�s at or with Mr. West, it�s tough to say.
In an earlier era these would have been demo tapes, left in a vault to await exhumation for an anniversary edition. Now they are the official record, uncertain melodies, banal lyrics and all.
For years Mr. West fought the notion that he was a producer trying to rap. Now he�s an underdog once more, a rapper who wants to sing.
But at the moment, Mr. West can�t sing, and it is that weakness for which this album will ultimately be remembered, some solid songs notwithstanding. For him, using Auto-Tune, the pitch-correction software with the robotic vocal effect, is a true crutch. T-Pain, who has popularized it, can actually hold a tune, which makes the effect more of an accent and less the language itself.
No less a branding visionary than 50 Cent, whom Mr. West last year famously outsold in head-to-head first-week record sales, has criticized Mr. West�s direction on this album, telling MTV, �I don�t think the public will forgive him for it.� (He added, �I think his album is T-Pain�s record, but I�d rather buy it from T-Pain.�) 50�s wrong on at least one count, though: Mr. West�s fans aren�t loyal to form, they�re loyal to him.
But Mr. West is testing that commitment. For all his self-scrutiny, he has never truly demanded emotional investment. Enjoying his music essentially means enjoying watching someone turn a lens on himself. How Mr. West filters, it turns out, is more compelling than how he feels.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/a...r=1&oref=slogin
George Bush doesn't care about black people
George Bush doesnt care about Kanye
Kanye doesn't care about speaking proper English
sick cd.
I can't stand that guy.
I personally think his newest album is the most forward thinking, and revolutionary. Everyone like the guy who wrote that review is going to need some time to adjust to the new Kanye, or the new genre hes creating all together. I knew when Kayne made stronger that he was heading the right direction.
he's progressive and you gotta love that..
| quote: |
| Originally posted by gummybear he's progressive and you gotta love that.. |
he cant sing worth sh*t. Neither can half the current rap acts hence why they use vocorders and filters so heavily on their tracks.
Lil wayne aka donald duck on acid especially comes to mind.
Ugh!
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Jayx1 he cant sing worth sh*t. Neither can half the current rap acts hence why they use vocorders and filters so heavily on their tracks. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Anas Attia The overall sound and feeling from a track is whats becoming more important than the artist himself |
Kanye..."I wanna be Elvis"
Jimmy Kimmel..."Kanye...you know Elvis died on the toilet with a jelly sandwich"
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Anas Attia im 100% sure thats not why he uses the synths and vocoders, there are other things out there that make your singing heavenly good. He used them because they work and offer much more flexibility, because hes moving with the times. The overall sound and feeling from a track is whats becoming more important than the artist himself, and he knows it. look at his new videos for example. ps EDM exists based on this theory. and believe me hes been looking to EDM for inspiration. |
... and I love him to bits.
so insanely talented.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by VDub Kanye..."I wanna be Elvis" Jimmy Kimmel..."Kanye...you know Elvis died on the toilet with a jelly sandwich" |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Jayx1 riiight so its not about the quality of the singing, just the image and music. Well let me tell you something. I think alot of kanye's tracks are great as long as kanye isnt in them. He murdered American boy. Thank god there is a non kanye version because its a great song without him. I personally think that if you have a vocalist, they need to be strong if you are going to centre your attention on them. The difference between kanye and EDM is that with dance music the focus is on the producer and the singer is variable. When its vocorded or dubbed the singer rarely gets mentioned. For example... Armand van helden presents Duane Harden |
to add to doubleAA's point...
Kanye has been calling himself a pop artist for quite some time now.
he is hip hops last hope of a new wave of success. He is a gimmick, a 12 trick pony who happens to have real skill in a lifeless and tried style of music.
His greatest acheivement is not in one or two of his biggest hits but that he produces a pallatable enough brand of hip hop that pop radio and hot97 crowds enjoy.
I dont care for him only because he represents that whimsically whack new hip hop culture of flash, argyle and gucci print gangster sound that my mom sort of likes.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by 7-4-7 he is hip hops last hope of a new wave of success. He is a gimmick, a 12 trick pony who happens to have real skill in a lifeless and tried style of music. His greatest acheivement is not in one or two of his biggest hits but that he produces a pallatable enough brand of hip hop that pop radio and hot97 crowds enjoy. I dont care for him only because he represents that whimsically whack new hip hop culture of flash, argyle and gucci print gangster sound that my mom sort of likes. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Zentac_75 Dave Grohl IS as important to Nirvana as Kirk. |
Nirvana = the most overrated band in rock history
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Monocle Kirk? lawl :P |
What kanye west is to rap is what deadmau5 is to edm.
Do not want ...
last night on conan o'brian he said the Daft Punk concert he went to was the best show he ever saw in his life, which influenced him to make his stage show as elaborate as it supposedly is.
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