Nov 24, 2008 - '808s & Heartbreak' isn't an amazing album on its own accord, but what it says about the man behind its creation is nothing short of. Arduino serial plotter legend. The ten time Grammy Award winning musical phenomenon, rapper, producer and singer embarks on a new musical journey taking his audience to new heights. Kanye West returns with his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak. His highly anticipated 2008 album features the heart pounding first single, 'Love Lockdown' which premiered live for the first time on the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. An electropop and R&B album, 808s & Heartbreak was primarily sung rather than rapped by West and has themes of love, loneliness, and heartache. The album also contains extensive use of the Auto-Tune voice processor and the Roland TR-808 drum machine, which was utilized and manipulated by West to produce a distorted, electronic sound. Approaching the album's production in a minimalist fashion, West intended to contravene the typical sound of hip hop beat and instead evoke a presence of tribal drums. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 450,145 copies in its first week. It produced four singles, including the hit singles 'Love Lockdown' and 'Heartless'. Despite varying responses from music audiences towards West's stylistic change, 808s & Heartbreak received positive reviews from music critics and was named one of 2008's best albums. The album also influenced hip hop, pop, and R&B, as a new wave of rappers, singers, and producers adopted aspects of the album's musical and thematic content. 808s & Heartbreak has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America and has sold 1,700,000 copies in the United States. In order to understand ’s sonically adventurous new album, we simply have to realize two fundamental truths. One, Kanye is more than just a great rapper or producer, he’s a great songwriter. Two, he cannot sing.at all. It must have killed him that there was an entire genre of music he couldn’t take part in. Then one day he was chilling at home when a video came on and he had an Auto-Tuned epiphany: if this top-hat wearing fool could do R&B tracks, why the hell couldn’t he? Suddenly liberated from the shackles of his under-developed singing talent and struggling with an emotionally punishing last year, West went on a songwriting spree, only pausing long enough to realize he had enough material for an entire album. F**k it, he thought, I’m Kanye West. I’ll put out whatever damn album I want. And that, my friends, is why I now hold in my hands a copy of 808s & Heartbreak, Mr. West’s decidedly hip-hop free new album. Anyone familiar with Kanye’s prolific ego shouldn’t be surprised that he’s done such an unexpectedly styled album, what’s surprising is how good it is. Holding true to the album’s title, 808s & Heartbreak relies on stripped down production and emotionally honest lyrics to create a piece that’s musically daring, and occasionally self-indulgent. If five years from now Kanye has still foresworn hip-hop we’ll have every right to be disappointed, but for now, we should at least be willing to hear the man out. He’s earned it. Kanye began to expand his musical horizons (and his album-buying audience) with 'Heartless,' a bass-heavy single that’s found considerable chart success. On 'Heartless,' Kanye comes as close to rapping as he gets, a comforting sound considering it was his lyrical swagger that set him apart as a rapper, a quality that’s largely lost amidst the electronica of 808s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |