Kanye Does "Pop Art" (808's And Heartbreak - Kanye West)

Member Name: XICripZ

Product:	808's And Heartbreak - Kanye West
Date:	01/12/08 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Will grow on you

Disadvantages: Too many to mention

For his fourth album, Kanye West choose to make significant changes to what he is about as the person know best for his work as a producer and rapper, changes his focus by doing a Pop album, one in which he doesn't rap in at all. Kanye, can't actually sing, which is a great problem for an album full of songs, however he overcomes this proble, by using the robotic auto-tuning which T-Pain is known for using throughout the whole of "808s & Heartbreak", a concept album which hopefully won't trickle into future material from him.

He calls the style which he uses in this album "Pop Art", and all other artistic movements in fine arts and music should be ignored when he calls it this as he wants to express individuality with this recording.

1. "Say You Will"

Startign the album off, you him going straight into the genreal direction of the album as he begins things with a slow song, in which he introduces us to the concept by directing his words to a girl to a some elctronic beats.

**One Star**

2. "Welcome To Heartbreak"

What I thought would have work beetter as a introductory track, this one has Kanye performing with the Cleveland Hipster MC, Kid Cudi. I foudn this to be a great improvement on anytihng else I had heard from the album, but still not somethign I would choose to listen to as it has him singing painfully and intermixes tit with some of the very little amounts of rap in the whole record.

**Three Stars**

3. "Heartless"

It took a while to get this one, which is often the case with tracks off this album, and once I did I could really feel that he was simply going down the route of "Stronger", but taking on more of the Electro side than Hip Hop, however there is definately a prescene of this, probably down to the fact that No I.D. helped him with the production.

**Three Stars**

4. "Amazing"

Although still not acepting this new side to Kanye, I could understand the direction by this point, so I could get itno the flwo of thiings without questioning as much as he continues the eighites-inspired work. However it is all thrown as Jeezy raps, and just doesn't see or acckowledge what 'Ye is doing so sounds stupid when just rapping about typical things.

**Three Stars**

5. "Love Lockdown"

Premiered at the 2008 VMAs, this song provided great debate in the Hip Hop community, as Kanye made a great shift in his style. On this one he comes with heavy drumming, which drives what is a highly repetitive tune with him singing a very catchy hook to describe the unwanted situation with his current relationship.

**Three Stars**

6. "Paranoid"

In a track which has him continue all the same themes as what you fin throughout the album, I can't say that I thought very highly of this album as it has him bascically go for a stnadrd track off the album whichc has no personality or any indictaction of future potential. I thought it was terrible, much like many of the rest of the tracks.

**One Star**

7. "Robocop"

On this up-tempo track (the only one from the whole album), the artist choose to to switch the heartbreak for a more productive for of relationship as he gets to knwo a girl. It is a change in the album, which could have been big, but he just loses me with a "Robocop" thing, which I simply couldn't see relating to the track.

**One Star**

8. "Street Lights"

Here's one of the few times on the album where I can say that I could really see potential for future enjoyment of the track as it him him come up with top-quality lyric writing by going for a reptitive hook which is bound to stay in your head for the rest of the day. He proves that he knwos what it takes to make a Pop track in this one, but it is bound to get annoying after a while.

**Three Stars**

9. "Bad News"

For me, this one was jeven for this low standard of the album and it has him just boring me with out-dated synth-pop, which has no relavence to today's music.

**One Star**

10. "See You In My Nightmares"

Unlike Young Jeezy's earlier participation in the album, when il' wayne has a go on thisone he seem s to at least try to get itno Kanye's frame of mind when perfroming on this one. he also adopts heavy auto-tuning and sings in this dark track from him, but it really isn't that good of a track.

11. "Coldest Winter"

As one of the first tracks to leak, I can say that I have heard it enough times to say that it doens't grow on you like much of the rest of the material does, and so he soudns terrible as he attempts to come up with something that you are supposed to eventually enjoy.

**One Star**

12. "Pinocchio Story"

To end the album off you have Kanye tkaign on some auto-tuning in a different way as he uses it to show how he is able to utilise it in a live version. You get a clip f him freestlying (but in song form) and it does add to the variety of the album.

**One Star**

To be honest, as you will have already gathered, I didn't like what the artist did here, and he was best when rapping. I wasn't sure why he chose to do a whole album of his stuff, as I thought that tracks where he used the auto-tuner, such as his remix to Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop" was enough. I also don't see why he had to make his production so weak, and simplistic, as he is really good at doing what he does in the beats department.

I'm sure that just like all pop tracks go, these will grow on you, and this may be a good thing for the Hip Hop community to look into music which needs to be slept on . However on the first few listens, it seems as though I messed whatever he is on with, and the production is the main things which prevented me from engaging with thw material.

Next year, just do Hip Hop.

Summary: Kanye West's fourth album