If Hal, the malevolent super-computer from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” were to make a concept album about sadness, it might sound something like Kanye West’s new record. “808s and Heartbreak” is a kaleidoscopic, claustrophobic rush of robotic bleeps and squelches, a sinister sonic wonderland where psychedelia meets techno and rap meets pop. It’s avant-garde in the most accessible way. It’s brilliant.
Kanye West has always been a controversial figure: arrogant to near-parodic levels, a pretty talentless emcee, and often seemingly unaware of both. There’s little doubt of his production prowess, though. From his start manning boards on Jay-Z’s “The Blueprint” to his own scholastic trilogy, West has remained at the forefront of innovation in hip hop, constantly coming up with new tricks where production peers like Timbaland and Swizz Beatz have settled into comfortable ruts. “College Dropout” remains one of the defining rap records of the decade, a wild, wonderfully excessive splurge of artistic creativity that successfully masked West’s workmanlike flow. The same goes for “Late Registration,” overlong and overdone in all the best ways, like a hip hop “White Album.” And even last year’s middling, uneven “Graduation” boasted some of his best production work, from the delirious amphetamine rush of “Champion” to the stately, shimmering electro-pop of “Flashing Lights.”
But with “808s and Heartbreak,” West has really outdone himself. This is nothing to do with his previous work: no “PhD,” and certainly no “Grad School.” In fact, West has left hip hop far behind – and most of contemporary pop music with it. He’s out on a limb, working in his own strange, Kraftwerk-tinged universe, and it sounds amazing. Without risk of over-statement, almost every experiment carried out on the album works, from West’s strikingly limited palette of instruments (drums, pianos and synths provide most of the sound effects here) to his treacly, vocodered voice – initially irritating but soon infectious.
“Say You Will,” the epic, cinematic opener, sounds like the last breaths of a dying robot – muted 808 drums pound low in the mix like a fading heartbeat, synths bleep in rhythmic repetition like a hospital cardiac monitor. Against this ominous backdrop, West’s treated voice splutters and shakes like a radio losing signal, as the singer moans about “losing control,” and, rather worryingly, grabbing someone’s neck. And so the tone of the album is set: in every way that West’s previous outings were obsessively upbeat, “808s and Heartbreak” is gloomy and introspective, a complex and difficult work from someone who’d previously made a career out of being obnoxious and immature.
“Welcome to Heartbreak” sees West lament the hollowness of his life against an operatic sonic canvas of shuddering strings and whip-snap drum beats. He’s got “pictures of his cribs” where his friend has “pictures of his kids”; he misses his god sister’s wedding because he can’t find a date; he looks back on his life, and his life is gone. The song’s emotional honesty is startling, crippling even. It’s nigh on impossible to believe this is the same man responsible for “Stronger,” a song that took pride in its cartoonish boastfulness.
First single “Love Lockdown,” meanwhile, is easily one of the creepiest songs to make it into the Top Ten, with West’s utterly disaffected vocals laced around a cloying, almost numbing beat of clattering drums and queasy synths. Even more relentlessly downbeat is “Amazing,” West repeating the song’s name in a deadpan caramel drawl before proclaiming that he’s a “monster and a killer,” a “problem that will never ever be solved.”
Stranded in the middle of the record and providing a welcome respite from the doom and gloom are the album’s two more buoyant tracks. “Paranoid” is a gleefully funky slice of throwback disco-pop, the kind of off-kilter, top-heavy music that Prince might have made in his prime. “Robocop,” on the other hand, is a brilliant example of how pop can be both infectious and experimental at the same time. The song’s opening matches swirling strings to gun shot samples, while its transition from verse to chorus is marked by what sounds like a forklift jerking into motion. It’s almost as meta as Timbaland’s “take it to the chorus” and “take it to the bridge” shout-outs on Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack,” a hilarious nod to the mechanical A-A-B-A construction of almost every great pop song.
“808s and Heartbreak” isn’t perfect, however. “See You in My Knightmares,” lurking towards the end of the album, is a stupid song with a stupid name, a blaring pseudo-Southern rap anthem so clunky and boring that it even manages to domesticate Lil Wayne. “Street Lights” could also have been plucked, an anaemic little song that veers dangerously close to soppy sentiment. In the midst of an album remarkable for its brutal emotional honesty, “Street Lights” sounds like Celine Dion stuck at a Leonard Cohen tribute concert.
On the whole though, “808s & Heartbreak” is a resounding success, fizzing and sputtering with sonic invention in a way that few other mainstream albums do. But it’s more than just ear candy – the album is also a complex, devastating meditation on loneliness in the information age, a scathingly intense musical diary entry from one of pop music’s most oversized and outlandish caricatures. Somewhere amidst the space age vocal effects and eerie synthesizers, West has managed to capture the isolation of 21st century life – the invisible wall that cyber-space has put up between every one of us, bringing us closer together while at the same time driving us further apart.
"808s and Heartbreak" released 24 November, 2008 by Roc-A-Fella Records.
Image courtesy of Roc-A-Fella Records and Empire Online.
Published in the Nassau Weekly.
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