Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreaks

It's not every day that you get to listen to a new album for the first time in the presence of the artist, especially not one of Kanye West's calibre.

But, ahead of Kanye West's massive sold out gig at the O2 Arena, we did just that. The rapper himself was on hand to introduce the album in the VIP room of Gaucho Grill at the Greenwich venue and as the single, Love Lockdown suggests, it's quite a departure from anything he's done before.

Hardly surprising from an artist who cites the likes of Beyoncé and Radiohead as his competition. 'I'm a pop artist, I make music for stadiums', he said in response to criticism he's had for trying his hand at singing. In fact, for someone who's made his name as a rapper there's very little in the way of rhymes on this record, opting instead to use the auto tune effect on his vocals, popularised by the likes of T-Pain, with whom West worked with on this record.

It's largely a dark record, heavily influenced by both the break-up of his relationship and the tragic death of his mother following complications from plastic surgery. On the night he spoke of the grief he's experienced over the past year and expressed regrets about moving from his hometown of Chicago to LA, as he claims it made his mother 'do things she never would have done'.

Throughout the playback, Kanye sat and nodded his head enthusiastically, only interrupting half way through the song Bad News, during which he urged everyone in the room to 'listen to the lyrics, I wrote this from a woman's perspective'. The stand-out song from the album was undoubtedly closing track, Pinocchio Story. Recorded live, he describes the song as a 'freestyle', an impromptu outpouring of his feelings that is without a doubt the most personal song he's ever recorded.

While we love the new direction Kanye has taken, 808s and Heartbreaks suffers from being a bit samey, with heavy percussion and overly-produced vocals used predominantly throughout. However, you have to admire the man for trying something different and it's also rare to find an artist who is so enthusiastic about the music he has produced that he doesn't want to talk about anything else.

In fact, when questioned about fellow Chicago native, Barack Obama's historic election victory he bluntly responded, 'Well, during his inauguration speech he didn't mention 808s and Heartbreaks, so let's just stick to talking about the album'. He did, however, speak fondly about working with UK artist, Estelle and revealed that not all of the rap he recorded made it into the song.

Kanye's new album is due for release on November 24th, while the single, Love Lockdown is available to download now.

 

Tracklisting

1. Say You Will 
2. Welcome To Heartbreak
3. Heartless 
4. Amazing - feat. Young Jeezy 
5. Love Lockdown 
6. Paranoid
7. RoboCop 
8. Street Lights 
9. Bad News 
10. See You In My Nightmares - feat. Lil Wayne 
11. Coldest Winter 
12. Pinocchio Story