Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

 
If you’re not a fan of Auto-Tune – the pitch-correcting technology responsible for making everyone from T Pain and Lil Wayne to Akon sound like a robot – it’s only fair to warn you that Kanye uses it extensively throughout his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak.

That said, you might want to make a concession this one time, since 808s is no ordinary Kanye West album, and technology – the Auto-Tune as well as the Roland TR-808 drum machine – are largely responsible for creating the uniquely bleak atmospheres therein.

A radical departure from Kanye’s previous albums - College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation – 808s trades the producer’s bright, summery hooks for bleak, hard-edged tunes, and confident, catchy rhymes for a spot of singing – fed, of course, through Auto-Tunes.

The reason for this sudden break with ‘tradition’ is two-fold: a breakup with his ex-fiancée Alexis Phifer combined with the death of his mother in late 2007. Making a chipper album in such circumstances was obviously a no-go, so West made cathartic, transforming his grief into a vulnerable, confessional document that’s loaded with, well, misery, regret, loss and suffering.

The tactic has paid some dividends. For one, it has enabled the artist to “go deeper” – 808s is full of regret for his previous ‘bling and bragadoccio’ existence: “My friend showed me pictures of his kids / All I could show him was pictures of my cribs” he warbles on plaintive opener “Welcome To Heartbreak”

Kanye continues pouring his heart out on cheerless songs like “Coldest Winter,” “Bad News” and “Street Lights,” which may help heal his wounds, but yield little in terms of listening pleasure (though none compare to the painfully long ‘freestyle’ “Pinnochio Story” for sheer embarrassment). These are buoyed by genuinely stellar pop moments like “Amazing” (featuring Young Jeezy), the tribal “Love Lockdown” and the string-drenched electro of “Robocop”.

It’s a mixed bag indeed. There’s no denying Kanye’s bravery in making 808s & Heartbreak, and at times the eerie combination of sounds and subject matter create something truly pioneering. At other times though, it sounds like a crestfallen egoist wallowing in his own self-pity from the comfort of his gold-trimmed ivory tower.