Kanye West - 808’s & Heartbreak Review

“Graduation” may have come too early for Kanye West. In his new album, he retreats to an admission of discontent, loneliness, and heartache. In short, Kanye wants his soul back. As a result, he’s produced one of the most important albums for spiritual discussion this year. An enormous departure from his last album both in lyrical content and musical composition, Kanye carefully and thoughtfully crosses genres to communicate his brokenness through honest, often haunting stories.

The good life just doesn’t seem to be cutting it for Kanye anymore. In 808s & Heartbreak, the rapper-turned-singer paints himself as a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge, a man so obsessed with his own self preservation, he’s haunted by what’s passed him by. You’d have to tune out every verse, chorus, and bridge not to catch Kanye’s spiritual search and hunger for redemption as the album’s overarching theme.  Each song takes the listener on a personal, honest journey through the age-old question, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” In “Welcome to Heartbreak,” Kanye confesses, “Chased the good life my whole life long. Looked back on my life and my life gone. Where did I go wrong?”  The first single, “Love Lockdown,” is about a relationship that won’t work because of his inability to step outside himself and give: “I have something to lose so I got to move. I can’t keep myself and still keep you.”

Yet throughout the journey there are profound echoes of hope. “Paranoid” and “Robocop” are both songs that promise fidelity, authentic love, and a commitment to rise above the media noise. On “Streetlights,” he begs the question “do I still have time to grow?”

One has to hand it to Mr. West. It’s not cool for rappers to get emotional, to expose themselves as raw, desperate, and deprived. Kanye boldly rises above his superstar persona by daring to descend below it.

Musically, there’s a refreshing simplicity to this new venture. In a world where the overuse of electronics and sampling dominates the music industry, Kanye brings a whole lot of class, originality, and roots (“Paranoid” is an old school throwback that would make Stevie Wonder proud) back to hip-hop.  Many of the tracks feature unique string arrangements and instrumental song breaks that allow the listener to meditate on Kanye’s words and warnings.  “Welcome to Heartbreak” features an expressive upright bass track and various world percussion instruments lay the foundation for many of the album’s beats. Is Kanye taking a giant leap here? Can classical instruments, if arranged correctly, still pulse through a stereo? The album successfully shows off Mr. West’s innovation as a composer and producer. As a singer?  Another risk. His stronger tracks are the ones where he doesn’t depend on Cher’s hand-me-down vocoder for protection. The guy’s got a good voice. It should stand on its own more often.

Like it or not, 808s & Heartbreak is huge on many levels. It has the capacity to bridge cultural gaps musically and spiritually. More than any praise & worship album might do for someone searching for truth and fullness, Kanye’s story as it unfolds has the potential to generate a profound cultural conversation between Christians and non-Christians about hope, redemption, and freedom this holiday season. But maybe he should “re-gift” Cher’s vocal tricks and give them back to 1999.