You Worry Bout the Wrong Things

Ugh

Rock n roll is supposed to stand for all these ideas. You know, youth, rebellion, the open road, gawky white-boy dancing. In contrast, hip-hop, at its root, seems to stand for one thing: ambition. The all-consuming ambition to get enough money to get somewhere better than here. The single-minded ambition to extract joy from squalor. The ambition that drives you to change nigger to nigga - to turn an epithet on itself.

And if hip-hop, distilled, is about ambition, who's a better ambassador for it than Kanye West. Mr. West, a nerdish plain-looking producer, has stated (on several occasions) that his goal is to be the most important person in pop culture. With its video premiere on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and its focus on melody over rhythm, 808s and Heartbreak is his ostensible attempt to take a step in that direction. (Spoiler alert: he fails.)

It seems to me that the moment for an extended exploration of the merits of autotune has passed (and may have passed with Roger Troutman, a long while ago). Judging from 808s, Kanye disagrees with me and sets out to prove that there's still a place for the vocoder - with patchy results. Some songs run too long, bleeping and screeching interminably. Others mine territory that T-Pain has already planted his flag firmly upon. Most are shockingly poor lyrically. Seriously, an artist with as many lyrical clunkers as Kanye should know that a glacial tempo does him no favors. He should know better than to force us to ponder just what he means by "When I grab your neck /I touch your soul."

The few tracks that are neither too long, too derivative, or too clunky are absolutely brilliant. "Streetlights," a ballad to his ambitions, employs autotune more as a vocal corrective than as a blunt instrument. The austerity of the track expertly matches the simplicity of its emotion. Kanye uses space here better than he has on any song ever and the result is an understanding. YOu can circumvent the words and music and connect directly with the meaning. However, this is not the best moment on the album. That distinction goes to "Paranoid," a song, with its nods to New Order and (New Wave synth pop in general), that stands in stark opposition to the plainness of "Streetlights". Unfortunately, amidst its propulsive percussion and synthesizer swirls, there's also the undeniable sound of an unfulfilled promise.

You have to question the purpose of this album. Kanye did not need this album and the world was not clamoring for it. West would have been better served putting a little more consideration into a followup. Instead, he's now given ammunition to his detractors. The promise of College Dropout was fulfilled by Late Registration and surpassed by Graduation. In the process, a bona fide pop star was born - complete with tantrums and meltdowns. In a recent interview, Kanye talks about all the new worries that he has. He talks about the burden of fame, about his interests in art, architecture, fashion and interior design. He goes on to say that he doesn't play hip-hop in his apartment because the apartment is way too nice.

Whatever studio he made 808s and Heartbreaks in must be really swanky.


Songs That Are Better Than the Ones on 808s and Heartbreak:
Au Revoir Simone: Paris (Aeroplane remix & Friendly Fires cover)
Josh Rouse: Sunshine
Black Milk ft. Royce da 5'9": Losing Out

(see the sidebar for albums that are better than 808s and Heartbreak)