Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

2x 180-gram LPs
Tri-fold packaging
Includes poster, lyric insert, and full album on CD


Audio Quality: 4/5
Song Quality: 4.5/5
Packaging: 5/5


Music aside, Kanye West has a reputation for being pompous, arrogant, and generally unlikeable. That's all pretty much true, but in my opinion, who cares? Not too many years ago, it was the norm for music (mostly rock) stars to be as cocky as could be. See David Lee Roth, Kid Rock, Axl Rose, etc. It has always been my understanding that a rock star can feel free to be arrogant about what they do, so long as they have the talent and product to back up that attitude. You can be arrogant and suck (see Scott Stapp), but then the arrogance just winds up making you look even worse. Now, Kanye West is unquestionably one of the most successful hip-hop artists of the last 5 years, as well as a tremendously successful hip-hop producer for the last 10 years. In my opinion, his pompous attitude is well-earned, and people need to loosen up. Since when are hip-hop acts supposed to be straight-laced?

This record goes right along with that cocky attitude that Kanye is so famous for. I mean, you'd have to be pretty arrogant to think, as a mainstream rapper, that ANY of your fan base would want to hear you do a full album of singing cheesy, often retro-sounding pop songs. Even taking that arrogance into perspective, it's really hard to believe that this record actually got made. In the context of Kanye's career, it makes no sense, and even in the context of modern popular music, it really doesn't have much of a place. Whether you love this record or hate it, and it's extremely likely that you'll feel one of those two things, you have to hand it to Mr. West for doing something so bold and against the grain. He certainly didn't gain any hip-hop cred with this effort. It's just unfortunate that it took the untimely death of his mother for Kanye to pull something this heartfelt and genuine from within himself.

So, maybe it's just because I'm a sucker for a good pop melody, but I really like this record. The album has a very clear theme to it from start to finish, sad, introspective pop melodies sung with much-publicized autotune vocals, laid on top of electronic drum arrangements and old-school keyboard sounds. Between the two singles, "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless," you can get a pretty good idea of what this record has to offer. This record features almost no guest appearances and almost no rapping. In fact, other than on the verses of "Paranoid," the only rapping on the record comes from Lil Wayne and Young Jeezy, two of the four guest appearances. So once again, if it's a hip-hop record you're looking for, look elsewhere. If you're open-minded about pop music, there's just so much to love in the choral arrangement coupled with a dying heart monitor in "Say You Will" and the bluesy piano arrangement in "Amazing." "RoboCop," which is unquestionably an album highlight, features a hooky orchestral arrangement on top of aggressive drum sounds, and the concluding string quartet breakdown coupled with Kanye's lament, "You spoiled little LA girl, you're just an LA girl," is one of the greater pop music moments I've heard in recent memory.

Now, this is another example of a record I wouldn't expect great sound from. Kanye might be an excellent producer, but I can't really imagine him in the studio work with an all-analog system. So, though I have no information on how this record was recorded, I can tell you that, following another A/B experiment, the vinyl sounds incredibly different from the CD (which is packaged with the record). The CD is extremely bright and aggressive sounding, while the vinyl sounds much more warm and subdued. Low notes ring out more naturally, and the higher end of the spectrum sounds warmer. It's a clean and clear mix, and it sounds far more cohesive than the compact disc version. This is not a fantastic, audiophile-worthy vinyl by any means, but it sounds very nice and is a refreshing improvement on the CD version. On first listen, a couple tracks did have some high-end distortion like I heard on that Belle & Sebastian vinyl, but after a couple more plays, it started to ring out more clearly. Must just be another case of the vinyl playing back a bit hot as it first gets broken in.


The packaging is what really makes this a winner and a worthwhile purchase. It's a tri-fold package with a brilliantly colorful design inside. It features the CD held in a little compartment built into the package, a very clever idea that I've never seen done before. The records are held in generic white sleeves, and the set contains two inserts. One is a set of all the lyrics, and the other is a two-sided poster. The poster features a portrait of Mr. West dressed in his best on one side, and him kissing his late mother on the other side. It's really a wonderfully put together package, and there's nothing more I could ask for here.

Apparently Kanye has another record coming out this summer that will return to the hip-hop stylings he is much better known for. That's fine, and I love his earlier hip-hop records, especially "Graduation." However, I hope that this isn't the last time we hear something this unique and daring from Mr. West. He's proven that he's more than just a rapper and even more than a producer... he is an artist. Given his track record, I'm sure we'll hear much more from him in the years to come, and I'm excited to see what else he has to offer us.

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Reviews of LPs by some of my favorite female singer/songwriters every day next week!
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