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West Enters Sorrow Spiral

KANYE WEST: 808'S & HEARTBREAK (ROC-A-FELLA/ISLAND DEF JAM)

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By CURTIS ROSS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 27, 2008

Love will make a man do strange things. Like this album.

Some men drink too much. Some isolate. Kanye West builds tracks around an ancient drum machine, filters his vocals through the insufferable Auto-Tune and releases it to the public. Just in time for Christmas!

Yeah, this is odd. So odd one suspects a cult already is forming around it, one made up of devoted Pitchfork readers who will write unreadable 1,000-word essays on its greatness, comparing West to avant-garde composers you've never heard of and declaring West a misunderstood genius.

It's not a complete train wreck, though. None of the individual tracks would sound that out of place on a West album. But an album built primarily on slow, minor-key dirges, with West's gratingly treated vocals splayed on top, could have the most tolerant listener ready to puncture his or her eardrums.

There are even a couple glimpses of light amid the grim and gray. "Paranoid" brings to mind Stevie Wonder's early one-man-band efforts, and the waltz-time "Street Lights" adds some sweetness to the sorrow.

The three tracks after that, however, are "Bad News," "See You in My Nightmare" and "Coldest Winter," titles The Cure's Robert Smith might reject as too dreary.

The album ends with a live bonus track, on which West insists he wants to be a real boy but lacks a Geppetto to guide him. In public. I am not making this up.

West no doubt has some grieving to go through. His mother died a year ago and his engagement ended less than six months later. But "808s and Heartbreak" risks sending listeners into a sorrow cycle of their own.

Download this: "Paranoid"

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