folionax.blogg.se - 808s and heartbreak review

Flow/Vocals (X/10)- a song can have amazing lyrics and beat but if the artist cannot perform then the music loses value.

Beat/Instrumental (X/10)- this is the backbone of any song/album and it is the usually the main way to shape a song.

As for the lack of raps, in truth, the less we have to put up with all that small-man prep-school-canteen bragging, the better. The resounding verdict is that it’s a surprising, but bold and brave progression from last year’s confused ‘Graduation’. The Mr Hudson collabs ‘Paranoid’ and ‘Say You Will’ fail to distract from their flaky hooks and backpack-rap-style beats with Frenchie-coffee-table-lektro blips and Enya-brand flute toots, respectively. Aside from being the only track on which he actually raps, its cathedral organs and lava-lamp rhythmic thuds underscore a dancehall-style tormented chorus that impacts with flooring intensity.Įlsewhere, ‘Street Lights’ is an endearingly broken-sounding ‘where am I in life?’ cold-soul heel-scuffer, and Young Jeezy cranks out some much-needed gruff machismo on sizzurp-addled juggernaut closer, ‘Amazing’. New single ‘Heartless’ fulfils the promise of its predecessor. The planet’s under attack from scowling hip-hop androids and Kanye’s leading the assault. Still, though, there’s a cold, metallic bleakness at play from the get-go, invoking cinematic flashes à la Arnie’s The Running Man, that empowers the woe-is-me slush.

“My friend shows me pictures of his kids/All I can show him is pictures of my cribs”. Those that didn’t buy into this fanfared rebirth will be trampling their shutter-shades at this absurd album concept.īut from the tortured opening cello groans of ‘Welcome To Heartbreak’, it’s clear the man is still in possession of his marbles. A brooding, dulcet elegy of quivering emotion without a single spoken couplet, it painstakingly arches from sub-bass ‘pooms’ to tribal fills over five minutes of melancholic digital-warped crooning. Lead single ‘Love Lockdown’ was a scare for many Kanye-watchers. The latter however, is what he’s gone and done (yup, every track).Īs the title foretells, there are two themes powering the college drop-out’s fourth full-length studio album: ’80s tech-nostalgia (the Roland TR-808 is the iconic, tinny drum machine that drove proto-hip hop), and erm, being well sad.

Although one might argue it’s just as perplexing for him to take epiphany-type inspiration from a track by British cod-hop also-rans Mr Hudson And The Library (the forthcoming ‘There Will Be Tears’), decide to quit rapping, and record an 11-track album entirely sung through vocoder-esque auto-tune. It’d be odd then, for him to follow this with, say, a reggae-themed party album. Then a split from fiancée Alexis sent him into something of an early-30s meltdown. His ma, Donda, with whom he vocally shared an inseparable bond, passed away late last year.