The "break-up" album is a standard in popular music. Every artist with a long, storied discography who's had his insides shattered by some deceitful bitch at some point has managed to turn the whole painful ordeal into the kind of soulful, understanding tune-age that fills up the dead spots in all of us. Its a wondrous point in any musician's growth that everyone usually stands up and celebrates.
Well, apparently someone broke Kanye West's heart. My verdict? IMMINENT MUSICAL AWESOMENESS!!!
The first time I heard about Kanye's plans to drop a new album before year's end, I was only excited because the news came in tandem with the bit about him producing the lion's share of Jay-Z's Blueprint 3. I didn't start geeking out full-tilt boogie style until the 2008 VMA's.
I hate the VMA's, because they're boring and irrelevant, but I managed to stick around for the duration of the show (fast-forwarded, thanks to DVR) and caught the best fucking unveiling of a new song in the modern era of pop culture consumption in a long time.
Kanye, on a stark, dark stage, looking like a scruffy Marvin Gaye cover-act. That heartbeat bass. The glowing red heart on his chest. The hard-charging Taiko drums. That fucking CHORUS> "Love Lockdown" was, and is, a work in progress. It's a spare track that sounds like its not finished, incomplete. Not whole. Basically the voice of any man who's been hurt.
I've heard three million and seven remixes, but the song's untouchable. Every Kanye album has at least one song where he's stretches the boundaries of what is expected of him. Late Registration's "Addiction" is the closest thing in his catalogue to this kind of straightforward, swag-less love track, but if this is where his head is at, I want more, dammit, and I don't want to have to wait the extra month til he hastily releases 808's & Heartbreak.
Thanks YouTube! What? An even fatter beat? More twinkling piano keys? Another murderous hook? Did you tear up, because I don't care what it says about my masculinity, but I did.
Both "Love Lockdown" and "Heartless" perfectly capture what makes Kanye West so unique in the hip-hop landscape. He's a regular dude. In the producer's booth, he's a monster of epic proportions, an improbable beast who culls epic drum patterns with synapse numbing basslines and the slightest, barely off-kilter meanderings to create beats that blaze hotter than a red sun. On the mic, however, his swaggerific musings border on the hysterical, his posturing all the more endearing when coupled with his self deprecation, hypocrisy and indisputable passion.
"You gotta love it tho/somebody still speaks from his soul..."
He's one of a kind. Lots of underground hip-hoppers drop shit like this, but not the way Kanye does. He's a populist phenomenon. He takes whatever he's feeling and turns it into hit songs. There's something admirable about someone creating something so universal, and at the same time so personal. That's what art strives to be, and when Kanye West is left to his own devices, not forced to worry about making Jay-Z sound cool over soul samples, or giving T.I. something to trap over, that's what he achieves.
I hate that the man was obviously hurt, but I love that he's sharing his pain with us.
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