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As for the songs themselves, putting aside tragic and Autotuned context, some work and some don’t.
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It might not turn out to be his biggest album, but 808s & Heartbreak could well be his masterpiece.
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Unsurprisingly Heartbreak is a grower. At first it does sound minimalist and sparse but the album is layered with delicacy and marked with a maturity.
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The resounding verdict is that it’s a surprising, but bold and brave progression from last year’s confused "Graduation."
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This is a record of a plump stomach, a belch, a bit of acid reflux; the by-product of Kanye’s indulgences? More heartburn than heartbreak.
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The album is much larger and brasher than it would first appear--the closer it hews to a mix of sad-sack indie pop and elegant, monied Patrick Bateman commercial 80s sounds, the better it works.
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A hot mess of an album that’s simultaneously the most indulgent and most disciplined record he’s ever made.
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The 808 features just 16 sounds, but Kanye works wonders with this limited palette, turning lo-fi kick drums into an austere artistic statement.
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It is the stylised, minimal music that lends the album its power, and which helps West convince as a man beset by demons and femmes fatales.
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Kanye being Kanye, there are occasional moments of quirky craftsmanship scattered around. The mood perks up substantially when the rhythms take centre stage.
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Many will hate it, but those willing to give it a chance will be impressed by the naked humanity West reveals. He’s gone way out on limb, and for that alone it deserves open ears.
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It might seem harsh but let's hope he doesn't find too much happiness in the meantime. Loneliness is proving quite the muse.
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Perhaps the biggest thing to take from 808s and Heartbreaks is the well-knit structure of the album. Every track finds it’s spot and the fact Kanye West is always on topic lyrically makes 808s and Heartbreaks a desirable, interesting listen.
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This noble failure of an album might easily have been a noble success if he had tweaked the Fun-o-Meter just a bit. A slight pitch correction could have done the trick.
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Messianic rapper Kanye West has survived grief and heartbreak to expands pop parameters on his new release.
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Kanye West’s fourth album 808s and Heartbreak follows the crowd rather than leads it. Where he steps, the footprints of T-Pain are readily visible. His use of auto-tune throughout the album is heavy, and in songs like Heartless and Love Lockdown its use is appealing.
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Though the content--our hero purging his heart, a la Marvin Gaye's "Here, My Dear"--ordinarily would be the focus of discussion for a platinum rapper, the musical structure overshadows his attempts at introspection.
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The lo-fi production makes everything sound like an unfinished demo, the songs are largely forgettable and the AutoTune’d vocals become a little tedious.
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For anyone sifting through a broken relationship and self-letdown, this could all be therapeutic. Otherwise, no matter its commendable fearlessness, the album is a listless, bleary trudge along West's permafrost.
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Fresh off a trilogy of albums likely to be remembered as some of the most innovative and endearing in the history of hip-hop, has produced 2008's biggest musical conundrum, the hurried and ill-conceived Auto-Tune experiment 808s & Heartbreak.
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He offers this glimpse of the soul beneath the swagger, and we like him better for it.
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Altogether as slow, sad-ass and self-involved as reported, this is a breakup album there's no reason to like except that it's brilliant.
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It’s with his latest masterpiece, 808s & Heartbreak, that he has demonstrated, with impeccable skill, that he is supreme, yet again.
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In 2008 Kanye struggled through tragedy so great that it forced him to go left. And ironically, at his darkest hour, Kanye has created his greatest album to date.
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In the end, it seems that no matter how pained West is, as long as his one true love--himself--is intact, he will prevail in the face of adversity
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808s & Heartbreak can be queasy and even morally indefensible sometimes. But that puerile sentiment also gives it its force.
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He has done what few hip-hop stars (and precious few pop stars) have the inclination or ability to attempt: make an album with a consistent vision, which will play convincingly five years later, when its novelty is long gone.
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It is by far the strangest record he's ever made: a willfully sullen and uncompromising electro-pop album from one of hip-hop's biggest stars.
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The project is structured much like a high-end runway show, so although most songs work on their own, they’re far more revelatory as a group.
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The album is so successful because of his winning ways with both song and album construction, and with the way he captures a particular feeling through unusual, evocative, carefully crafted music that’s both simple and complex, cold and warm, mechanical and human, melodic and harsh.
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Simply in musical and vocal terms, it feels too limited, mainly due to him over-thinking things.
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As strange and even tedious as 808s and Heartbreak might strike some listeners, it's not just a puppet show. Or rather, it is, and all the more fascinating for that.
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Kanye is after a very specific sound on this release, the dead-eyed, auto-tuned vocals and canned pianos contributing to a harrowing vision of emotional shellshock. The songs bleed into one another; only 'Love Lockdown,' with its magnificent drum breakdown, really grabs you by the throat.
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Heartbreak is a bittersweet sleeper that hovers somewhere between an interesting failure and a secret success. It seems destined to be the weird little orphan that fans single out as a favorite.
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MojoIt is his most facinating, and bewildering, record to date. [Jan 2008, p.104]
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Q MagazineIf this album is a mixed bag for West the producer, then it's a nadir for West the lyricist. [Jan 2009, p.114]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 966 out of 1156
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Mixed: 74 out of 1156
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Negative: 116 out of 1156
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Jun 12, 2011
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Jul 22, 2013
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Aug 1, 2012