808s & Heartbreak
by Kanye West

Okay, for those who don’t know the album or didn’t listen to it with a perspective of what was going on in Kanye’s life, this album came in 2008, a year later than Graduation and it featured a major change of direction respect any of his albums that came before. And this is because Kanye was going through a hell of a year (in the bad sense): he had lost his mother (to whom he was truly connected), separated from his fiancé & surrendered to alcoholism.

The first impression you have when listening to this album is the state of devastation you can only assume Kanye was in during that time. It was an artist fully opening his emotions & trying to clean his soul of sadness, sorrow, anger & pain. But for the average hip hop listener of 2008, the emotions coming through the speakers in the form of AutoTune, heavy drums & electric instruments & synthesizers, was nothing they wanted from Kanye. Where were the soul samples (or even the electronic samples of Graduation), the lyrics, the rapping, that warm feeling of albums like College Dropout & Late Registration? Nowhere to be found, so the backlash this album received was enormous.

But it just works so well retrospectively, comparing it to Kanye’s subsequent career. I’m not sure fans would have continued to go down the rabbit hole with him, had he stayed fully emerged in the electropop genre. But MBDTF cemented him as a true artist who was unafraid to experiment and pull things from different sounds.

The truth is that this album's core aesthetic was like nothing in hip-hop: freshly butchered feelings enumerated in detail, but masked by digital processing; beds of spare synths used to balance a mix of singing and rapping. A masterpiece and a triumph of ahestetics.

Drake, Childish Gambino, Kid Cudi, J Cole, Logic, Big Sean: this entire “introspective/reflection” era of rap we’re in right now? It all traces back to 808′s and Heartbreak. Truly groundbreaking and it hasn't aged at all still sounds fresh.

Please keep this at number 808 on the overall chart everyone!

EDIT: 805 now SMH

From 9999 TOP 100 COMMENTER 11/07/2013 21:47 | #91113 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Awful. Maybe I'm a purist, I don't know, but I loathe Auto-Tune, specially when it's used so extensively. For me, this feels like nothing more than Kanye and his huge ego trying to prove that he can sing, something anyone can do with Auto-Tune. Apart from a good (although not as good as usual) production, I don't see much merit here, sorry. Most decent track: Street lights, I guess.

Besides, this is one of the albums to blame for the wave of talentless singles who topped the charts with generic, derivative Auto-Tuned songs for the next couple of years. Influential is good, but Kanye did it in a very bad way this time.

From silverwing 10/13/2010 03:26 | #15685 | TOP COMMENT Vote up your preferred comments and the comments with the most votes will be flagged.

Not really a Kanye fan but this album sets a tone for heartbreak like none I've heard previously. Touches on selfishness, lonliness, disappointment and love despite the hurt. Well worth a listen. (Edited)