808s & Heartbreak was supposed to be the album of the year. Kanye West’s first album since his mother passed away, fans were waiting for his musical expression of anger, love and confusion. Without being morbid, the event of his mother’s passing was supposed to give the world the next great hip hop album. As a preview, the track “Love Lockdown,” an autotune filled, taiko drum driven, Kanye-singing “experiment” was unleashed to the general public. This Kanye, one that sounded like he was born inside a ‘80s Tetris machine, was not what people wanted. Despite the universal confusion and hope of a practical joke, 808s & Heartbreak was released November 2008 to a world that had no idea what to expect. This was an entirely new Kanye and many people just weren’t ready for it.
Looking back on the album an opinion can be formed in one or two ways: the first being that this is a Kanye West album and the second being that this is just a piece of music. Taking the first into account, the Kanye West that performed “Through the Wire” with his mouth wired shut just does not seem like the person to sing about being heartbroken. The rise in the T-Pain culture of autotuning every word that comes out of your mouth seems so counter productive when thinking of hip hop in general. With the mainstream driven Graduation led by the single “Stronger,” many of the Kanye-faithful wondered where the backpack rapper had gone. Thinking that 808s & Heartbreak would be the “redemption” or “return to form” and extra amount of pressure was put on the album to be more like The College Dropout or Late Registration.
With the second view, the album is produced very well with pretty decent lyrics. There may not be a line quite on the level of what was displayed in “Don’t Tell Me Nothing,” but thankfully Kanye doesn’t say anything too stupid or career damaging. Going back to the initial statement, the production is what sets the album apart. The minimalist sounds are a grand detour away from the sometimes over-produced features in Graduation. Focusing so heavily on the production may seem counter-productive when judging a hip-hop album, where the culture places so much emphasis on the gift of gab, but it must be remembered that Kanye West was originally a producer and not a rapper. Prior to this album most Kanye produced songs were re-worked soul samples that could be spotted from a mile away. The production on 808s & Heartbreak still kept with his re-working of the past mentality, although now he was creating his own interpretations of classic material along the lines of ‘80s video games.
Working into this view is the dominant use of autotune, which has become most critics’ main complaint when focusing on the album. Autotune is viewed as being an overused cop-out for non-singers who can slur words in a singing style. It can be agreed upon that Kanye West can’t sing. Being a non-singer, it makes since to use autotune. The problem with this is that view does not compute well with the hardcore hip-hop heads, also known as Kanye’s core fanbase. The only way to properly defend the use of auto tune is to link it to the production choice of the album. With the video game sounds prevalent in the background, converting the voice on the song to autotune, a way to sound computerized, allows for the voice and instrumental to become one. Since it was Kanye’s choice to sing and not rap, autotune most likely made the use of his singing voice more bearable for the general public.
This 808s & Heartbreak, one of music experimentation is the album that should be heard by the general public. Does this make it Kanye’s best album? No. Does this make it a good album at all? No. All this does is validate that there are good parts in the album and that the work done on it was an individualistic work that no other artist of that day and caliber would have attempted. To be blunt, this is not a Kanye West album and should not be seen as the successor to The College Dropout, Late Registration or Graduation. This is more of a detour than a real album. Although it may not be what fans were waiting for, it is a piece of work worthy of being looked at as more than a game of Pac-Man recorded on CD.
No comments:
Post a Comment