Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

One Monday, three massive albums – on November 24 The Killers go head to head with Guns N’ Roses and Kanye West.

We’ve already covered The Killers and Guns N’ Roses on ClashMusic.com, and here we give online readers a sneak peek at our verdict on the new Kanye West album, ‘808s & Heartbreak’. Read the full review in issue 33 of Clash magazine, in shops December 4.

Read our review of Guns N’ Roses – ‘Chinese Democracy’

Read our review of The Killers – ‘Day & Age’

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‘808s and Heartbreak’; otherwise known as Kanye West’s ‘Kid A’.

Within the world of hip-hop, few subjects are considered taboo. Whilst misogyny and crude bragging are actively encouraged, dealing with tacit emotions is all but outlawed. Anything beyond chatting shit over some perceived infidelity sees you labelled a right old pejorative. As such, Kanye West's decision to spill his emotional load is about as rebellious as you can get in what has become a bafflingly conformist genre. Gone are the trademarked neon boasts and sample rich compositions that have characterised his first three albums to be replaced by a bleak treatise on the nature of heartbreak and loss.

Yet for all its honesty, ‘808s & Heartbreak’ must still be judged on broader terms; chiefly whether it holds together as an album. The answer, since you ask, is a resounding yes. Given the reduced palette with which Kanye is working, it’s amazing there is such a spectrum of styles and influences covered. The haters will point to the predominance of ‘auto-croon’ and West’s unswerving reliance on an electro skeleton; but fuck me, they’re relatively minor gripes when compared with the portmanteau on offer. Whether it’s ‘Say You Will’’s Bola / Enya collision, the Basic Channel fingerprints throughout ‘Coldest Winter’ (dedicated to his mother) or the gorgeous Moroder flourishes on ‘Street Lights’, West has distilled an astonishing amount of ideas down into such a concise package. Parenthesis has no place here. Elsewhere, the jack-knifed beats and epic strings of ‘Robocop’ are the perfect juxtaposition to West’s ranty pants; ‘Amazing’ grafts clicking rhythms to a fuzzy vocal of “I’m a monster, I’m amazing”, whilst ‘Paranoid’ leans heavily on the Kanye of yore - proving that being miserable doesn’t necessitate an embargo on instantly catchy pop songs.

All of which brings us back round to the ‘Kid A’ comparison. Just as Radiohead found themselves feted by both the mainstream and cliquey elite, so West is courted by all areas of the media and scattered wide across our culture. Just as Radiohead chose their fourth album to begin exploring a rich seam of experimentation that escaped the straightjacket of a claustrophobic genre, so West has shirked hip-hop’s prevailing wind and sailed boldly off into thrilling new waters. And just as Radiohead sacrificed a modicum of commercial success to become one of our greatest musical exports, so Kanye has seen that an artist’s role is to do more than fill arenas and flog branded glowsticks. It is to articulate human emotions in a way that allows us all fresh insight - a rare goal, but one achieved here. Pretentious as fuck maybe; but that’s why we love him...

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Read an extended version of this review of ‘808s & Heartbreak’ in issue 33 of Clash, out on December 4.