Album Artwork: KAWS
Image Courtesy of MTV
Written by: David Williams
Score 9.1/10
On September 7, 2008, the MTV Video Music Awards is going off the air, but there’s one final performance to close the night out. The buildup is for Kanye West, about to debut a new song following his album the previous year, Graduation, which was not only critically acclaimed but went on to sell over 5 million records. In the words of rap legend Nas “Whose world is this?” it’s Mr. West’s at this moment.
The lights dim with the crowd gasping in anticipation out he comes wearing a plaid gray suit paired with a white button-down collared shirt tucked to the top of his neckline and an accentuating red heart broken in half on his left lapel, shining almost through the spotlight while on stage. He is standing still when the iconic bassline starts—bum-bum-buuum-bum…bum-bum-buuum-bum—inching closer to the microphone as he sings “I’m not loving you / 'Way I wanted to,” performing the single “Love Lockdown” off his next album 808s & Heartbreak. This is the moment when a new era of music began—with artists creating a whole new sonic landscape with melody also being the driving force in songs.
In the mid to late 2000s, hip-hop music was starting to get stale. So much so that an album titled Hip Hop Is Dead was one of the biggest albums in the rap genre two years prior in 2006. Artists' albums were reaching a singularity, causing everything that was popular to sound the same, and creating a need for some fresh air to get people excited again. And there was Kanye West, ready to open the floodgates of a new aesthetic and sound to reinvent not only popular rap music but popular music itself: “I created a new genre of music. The genre for this sound is called pop art.” Kanye says at a press event in Singapore.
Photo Credit: Willy Vanderperre
This was a difficult period in Kanye’s life with his mother passing away and separating from his then-fiancee at the time, this cause led to the effect of going away from his trademark sound of chopping up soul samples with a device called a TR 808 machine. This is a simple no-frills type of production that would give him the same kicks and snares of something like a late 80s Phil Collins song. From his point of view, the feeling he gave off during this time period is he wanted the music to stand out on its own with the use of limited samples on the record.
A huge talking point of the album amongst critics and fans alike was his use of auto-tune. While it is a common practice nowadays for artists to use autotune when the record was released only one person was known for the use of this device to a scale comparable:: T-Pain—who coincidentally had 12 Billboard hits in the top 100 in 2008. Kanye was mocked and imitated on national tv by talk show hosts and pundits alike for using auto-tune as frequently as he did on the record. Jay-Z even made a song called “Death of Auto-Tune” which was an idea generated by Mr. West himself for his mentor.
The opening song “Say You Will” which contained a soul-stirring spacey melody was a hit amongst West’s peers in hip-hop with every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanting to take a crack at the production with their very own remixes, but the most famous of all the covers was a young upstart artist by the name of Drake who used the beat on his So Far Gone mixtape.
Photo courtesy of NBC
You get the sense with 808s Kanye wanted to create a certain timeless type of music where people 30 years in the future would want to still want to visit the world that this album encompasses. Something similar to how people to this day listen to The Beatles White Album.
The lyrics are personal, honest, and above anything else relatable with songs dealing with relationship issues, breakups, paranoia, and loneliness. Hip-Hop at this point everyone gave off the appearance of everyone being a superhero. Of course, there were a few that would have relatable verses like a Common, Mos Def, or Talib Kweli but generally, the standard was artists getting all the girls, money stacked to the top of the ceiling, and vanquishing all your opponents either by force or shooting them a look that would make them tremble in terror.
Most people who can relate to lyrics of this nature are few and far between but with songs like “Heartless” or “Paranoid” the underlying themes displayed on these records are about being with someone who is treating you less than what you are worth, or with being with a partner crazier than Kathy Bates in the movie Misery . Either way, this is something people go through in life. Kanye also isn’t afraid to essentially take off his ‘cool’ by being vulnerable singing about longing for a partner “I admit I still fantasize about you” or being devastated finding out his former flame has found another person “Didn’t you know I was waiting on you?/Waiting on a dream that’ll never come true.”
Kanye crafted harmonizing songs that could cross genres, you could almost certainly picture Culture Club making a song like “RoboCop” or Johnny Cash putting a southern twist on “Amazing.” This was the first record of its kind in hip-hop to have melodic pop elements throughout the entire runtime on 808s & Heartbreak. When the album was first released in November critics were in favor of the music in their reviews, but it wasn’t an overwhelming outpour of praise. Detractors still had their reservations about where the record landed for them, but with that, a new generation of kids took to an album like a moth to a flame.
Kids from all around the world were singing the lyrics “See You In My Nightmares” at the top of their lungs or felt the somberness of “Street Lights” youngsters like Lil Uzi Vert or Juice WRLD reference 808s specifically as a jump-off point finding themselves creatively. Travis Scott and Drake some of the two biggest artists in any genre in the world today also give testimonials about adapting their styles in the mold of Kanye circa 2008. Even Kid Cudi also being influential with his cadence and melodies in his own right had writing credits on 4 songs at the genesis of his career.
Photo Credit: Willy Vanderperre
Time and time again Kanye has been at the forefront of creativity pushing boundaries past the point of exhaustion for the sake of art. Taking risks is something he is known for throughout his whole career, and was there any bigger risk than performing pop songs while singing in auto-tune? That is for his audience to decide, but what is guaranteed is the impact 808s & Heartbreak have on music now and in the past which makes this an all-time classic.