“Hands up, we just doing what the cops taught us”
Kanye's album history has varied both
conceptually and musically. Each project has been fixated on
amalgamation: of sounds,
concepts and even fields of art. From this fixation, the result has
been the raw sonics of hip-hop music time and time again violently
meshed with a scope of genres: such as soul, gospel, electronic and
industrial noise. This has bred products of varying levels of quality
but equally substantial levels of intrigue. Whilst hesitant of
subscribing him labels such as 'pioneer' and 'innovator', at the very
least his output is a sharp turn from the vast majority of the other mainstream artists throughout his career.
The
Life of Pablo both benefits and suffers from past Kanye's trends and
directions; it both compliments and undermines the project in a
paradoxical way only Kanye could achieve. We start with “Ultralight
Beam” beginning on West's flat, but genuine vocal delivery, which
then gets very abrasively but beautifully overwhelmed by a gospel
choir. This track draws inspiration quite clearly from his earlier
effort My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (hereafter
referred to as Fantasy),
and with this inspiration also comes the richness Fantasy managed to achieve. It's grandeur is evident and implies an
opus to follow. My expectation from this opening track was a similar
structure to Fantasy, built
around epic cohesion. This is not what we get at all.
Instead,
what we have is a fierce deviation into the contemporary rap sound.
Father Stretch My Hands fails miserably to live up to not only it's
spiritual name, but the preceding song. What we get with both parts
is sporadic, poorly structured lines of auto-tuned singing spread
over two mediocre trap beats. Kid Cudi's feature does nothing to save part one, and Desiigner's feature is painfully moderate on part two. Next up
comes the infamous “Famous”, and it was at this point on my
second listening, I realised: this
album is a mess.
And
it is. The song diversity is directionless and it's procession adds nothing to the
overall album. Nearly every song on this album echoes another
different point in his discography. The dissonant “Wolves” and
“Feedback” and the totally off-the-wall “Freestyle 4” which
feels like trips back to Yeezus.
There
was shouting, experimentation with the auto-tune to push toward the
industrial and, of course, boundary-pushing. We get the earlier mentioned opener, and the
closer “Fade”, which both feel like fallout from the recordings of
Fantasy. The 808s and Heartbreak atmosphere and melodies on "FML". Then
we have overt throwbacks to the soul-inspired, vintage Kanye hip-hop sounds of The
College Dropout and
Late Registration
on
“Famous”, “No More Parties in L.A” and “30 Hours”.
However,
these same gripes produce some incredible highlight tracks. “Wolves”
minimalist beat alongside the tortured, discordant auto-tuned vocals
took me back to a Kanye favourite of mine “Blood on the Leaves”.
“Real Friends” has a very textured beat, filled with dark but
thick and punchy sounds, some of Kanye's finest lyricism, and a
classic Kanye flow. “FML” has possibly the greatest hook on the
album, signature vocals delivered by The Weekend, and another
impressive lyrical performance in the verses. “Feedback” has a
beat which successfully blends the party
and
hardcore art
vibes.
The verses are mounted upon a rhythmic, almost dance-worthy, but still menacing instrumental, with the song check-pointed by noisy distortions that
follow the repeated line “you heard about the good news, y'all
sleeping on me eh? Had a good snooze”. This song also features one
of the most classic lines I've heard from Kanye, and also in hip-hop
for a long time, the line being the one that titles this review. The
second half of “Famous” is the standout moment of the album, with
the oddly-spliced charming vocals that create an inexplicable
atmosphere, somewhere between haunting and comforting. Another peak
is the performance on “No More Parties in L.A” where he keeps
pace with the highly talented Kendrick Lamar, who puts in a stellar
verse as always.
This
album's high points are high, and there are a fair few. Many tracks
from this I will continue to listen to and enjoy, and they work very
potently as single
tracks, but
as an album is where this falls short. There are too many ideas, too
many anti-climactic directions, and furthermore, they are not
organised and arranged in ways that compliment each other, but rather
clash with each other. Plagued also with weak tracks that strive
to be trendy, lyricism that fails to stay consistent (horrendous
lines such as: “Now if I fuck this model, and she just bleached her
asshole, and I get bleach on my new t-shirt, i'mma feel like an
asshole” ), and a somewhat enjoyable but misplaced closer, this album is truly in disarray.
To
stay in the conflicted theme of this album, this was a brilliant
disappointment, and had many fragments of greatness but did not form a
whole in the way I had hoped it would.
Highlights:
Ultralight Beam, Famous, Feedback, FML, Real Friends, Wolves, No More
Parties in L.A
Lowlights:
Father Stretch My Hands pt. 1, Pt. 2, Waves, Facts
Rating:
Mid 7 / 10
Rating:
Mid 7 / 10
