The Life Of Pablo
by Kanye West

This album is IN-SANE!!! I get it now. I finally get it. This thing is incredible. I wish this album was a hat so I could wear it and have it warm my cold head. I wish this album was weed so I could smoke it. It might as well be drugs because it gets me high as a cloud, man. (Edited)

What a lot of you have to understand about this album is that Ye is describing his current lifestyle in a stream of consciousness fashion, and I understand that it comes off as disconnected and all over the place. You only have to go as far as the title of the album to explain why everything is so jumbled. This album is Kanye's life, a life that is interesting, crude, beautiful, and everchanging. He is somewhat crazy, but also a genious. Each song alone can be considered amazing, but all together is confusing and disjointed. Kanye is balancing a lot of things in his life as well as in his mind, and the changing thoughts of insanity, strange fantasies(such as the Taylor or asshole line that everyone is shaming), family and god are constantly circling in his brain. These ideas can be somewhat arranged properly with the original 3 Act structure of the tracklist, but certain lines within songs are still randomly placed. I think kanye intentionally took that original order, and mixed it up in an order that still connected musically in some sense, but not thematically. Other posts have also talked about how this keeps the listener interested when the songs are not connected or similar against each other, to create a contrast. This contrast can be seen as a strength once you have listened to the album multiple times. Kanye's life and this album are both a beautiful and disgusting mess, deal with it or dont listen.
The title also references Pablo.... multiple pablos. The pablo references in 'No More Parties in LA' include the art of pablo picasso (working on shoes), the fame of pablo escobar (on the news), and the slave role of steriotypical mexican house workers (I do not take credit for figuring this out). This explains that kanye feels many things, including creativity, fame and feeling trapped/ enslaved. It could also be a reference to the bible(I forget specifically who it could refer to but someone mentioned this somewhere). The point is that all of these meanings show that kanye cannot make a fluid concept album at this point in his life. His life is scattered, an extraordinary mess. He cant seem to control all these versions of himself at once, and the album seems to jump back and fourth between muliple personalities that kanye feels inside of himself. If you feel like an amazing song is ruined by a crude lyric, this just explains how kanye has beautiful and amazing things to show off, but also explains that he is compulsive and needs to release certain opinions in spurts of anger.
I dont know if any of what I have said makes much sense, and I could probably keep talking about just this one aspect of the album for a lot longer. My overall idea is that the imperfections of these songs and the links between them are reflections of kanye's imperfect and unstable life. He is trying to love his family, but has extreme hate towards others. He is trying to be faithful, but loves to sin. He is trying to make a beautiful gospel album, but cant help but make it a shocking spectacle of unecessary comments. But thats how his life exists, and that's how life exists in general. Life isnt cohesive; its random and sometimes impossible to deal with. Thoughts can be sensational, and horrible ones can intrude.
Because of all this, this is "the album of the life" as kanye proclaims. And life isn't a perfect piece of art, so this album shouldnt be either. And if all of this is intentional (which I believe it could be based on the ingenious of kanye in the past), then I consider this album a masterpiece on that basis alone. (Edited)

I've listened to it well over 15 times, and I don't do that with music unless something is working really well for me. So many people here are treating this like it was supposed to be the best album ever, because he said it was going to be. Don't drink the Kanye Koolaide. Just listen to his music and enjoy it. That's what I do, and it's nice. (Edited)

This album is a total Junkyard.

Be honest, there are NO standout tracks here whatsoever. 30 Hours, No More Parties, Real Friends, and Ultralight Beams are OK, but none of them would go on a mix of my favorite songs right now. Prior to this, every Ye album had at least one standout hit (Jesus Walks, Gold Digger, Stronger, Heartless, Power, Black Skinhead)..

As a whole, this is an unholy MESS. And I understand it was meant to be that way: jarring, jumping from one song to the next, some feeling unfinished.... please stop comparing to the White Album though because that is the ONLY thing it has in common. The Beatles explored a different genre of music on every song. Kanye may explore a handful at max.

Lyrically, this is Kanye's weakest effort to date. His humor is rarely funny. His bragging is annoying (unlike songs like POWER where it feels liberating), and his attempts at being real feel insincere as it would appear the guy is far from reality in his public private life.

Last but not least, the music is uninspired, unoriginal, and poorly produced. Some vocals sound like they were recorded in a closet with a low budget mic (Frank Ocean especially)... and then there are huge inconsistencies with volume.. was this even properly mastered?

I know many could argue away most of my points saying that Kanye is a genius and that this is his work of art. Yeaaahhh, sorry, but you would be just as delusional as he is. (Edited)

The original(ish) slimmer tracklist with the three-act structure is actually way more effective and consistent.

Act One
1. Famous
2. Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1
3. Pt. 2
4. Waves
Act Two
5. Highlights
6. 30 Hours
7. No More Parties in LA
8. Fade
Act Three
9. FML
10. Real Friends
11. Wolves
12. Ultralight Beams

The extended version of 30 Hours ruins it a bit but IMO it's still more coherent than the final version, and I don't think anything of real value is lost (perhaps other than I Miss The Old Kanye which I have a bit of a soft spot for and could probably slide in between Acts One and Two). (Edited)