○○○○●AS THE title 808s And Heartbreaks suggests, this is not an album of party anthems from Kanye West.
And also, as the title suggests, Kanye has come over all 1980s synth and vocoder.
It all adds up to a real change of direction for the chart-troubling rapper.
Utilising a Roland TR-808 - the drum machine used on Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing - for the beats and bleeps on this album, the LP has a distinctive and arresting sound, although pound for pound there's clearly less hit single here than on his previous three albums.
Nevertheless kudos must go to West for taking his work out on a limb - and for plucking Ashe family favourite Mr Hudson for a profile-raising collaboration - obviously since Graduation Kanye has grown as an artist.
Hopefully 808s And Heartbreaks will be one that the public grows to love.
Kudos also for having KAWS design the inner. Smashing!
ReplyDeleteApparently there's a special edition Christmas version of the cover art coming soon.
ReplyDeleteI basically loved the album.With all the catchy rhythms and hooks you can almost forgive him for using the autotune. I did a review on tht here..
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