'808s & Heartbreak' by Kanye West - Review
In 2008, Kanye West changed Hip-Hop forever, for better and for worse.
Rating: 10/10
*This is my first attempt at a proper album review, so please forgive me if my writing isn’t very good, I promise I’ll get better!
It’s difficult to talk about Kanye West, even back in 2008, and especially now in 2024. The amount of controversy surrounding him almost overshadows his music, *almost*. And for as long I can remember, that was sort of a good thing? At least up to a point. But it was clear that despite this, Kanye since his debut back in 2004 (and even before then when he was producing for other artists), was always meant to be one of the most prominent and influential figures in the music industry. His first 3 albums all encompassed exactly what Hip-Hop was about, even with all 3 being vastly different. ‘College Dropout’ being a continuation of the chipmunk soul/sample heavy production style he became known for. With ‘Late Registration’, he elevated his production by bringing in Jon Brion, and his pen game was on a whole other level compared to his debut. And after being inspired by U2 after attending one of their concerts, ‘Graduation’ was an electric combination of many genres all put together to match that “stadium status” he wanted to achieve. With ‘808s & Heartbreak’, West once again switched up his style, but this time it was different.
It’s important to talk a little about West’s personal life, as it is because of what he was going through at the time that define this record. In late 2007, West’s mother, Donda West, passed due to complications from surgery. Around the same time, West had broken up with his then fiancé, Alexis Phifer, All these tragedies in such rapid succession, along with West being unable to deal with his surging fame and the media scrutiny that came with it, led to a period of depression. Like many artists, he decided to use these feelings to influence his music, as a means of therapy, but West realized that his usual rapping wouldn't be enough to fully convey what he was feeling. He decided to drop the rapping all together, opting to sing all through out the album using auto tune with production that heavily used 808s. In my “professional” opinion, this decision led to West creating one of the great albums of the 21st century, maybe his best.
The album opens up with ‘Say You Will’, a song that is a perfect opener as it is a great representation of what the album ends up becoming, where West sings about a former love hitting him up out of nowhere, seemingly wanting to re-enter his life. Yet it’s clear that this woman is only egging him on, never actually wanting to meet up, with West adding how much he wishes it were true (‘I wish this song would really come true’). It’s the first of quite a few songs (‘Heartless’, ‘Love Lockdown’, ‘Bad News’ etc.) that deal with West’s heartbreak, presumably about his romantic relationship with Alexis Phifer. West insinuates on ‘Bad News’ that Phifer had been cheating on him, which led to the end of their relationship. It’s the song on the album where West does his best to use the heavy auto tune to mask up the heartbreak in his voice. He’s in so much pain that West stops singing completely for the final minute or so.
‘Heartless’ was the first Kanye song I ever listened to, so even though its not quite my favorite anymore, it still holds a special place in my heart. That song and ‘Love Lockdown’ are basically two sides of the same coin. The former is a song about an evil woman, and West questions how she “could be so heartless?”, and the latter is about keeping your love about said woman locked down, so you could never get hurt. But West realizes that keeping your feelings locked down and preventing your self from feeling is unhealthy as well, hence on the chorus, “you lose”. It’s very funny that surrounding these songs of woman doing Kanye dirty, he still had to include a song of him doing the same thing, on ‘Paranoid’, a song where West basically removes the auto tune, goes a little more pop and starts rapping about manipulating and gaslighting a former love, convincing her to stay with him by saying all the “right” things. And the whole time, Kanye has another woman with him who you could hear in the background at the beginning of the track. Classic Kanye!
Other than his love life, there are songs where West goes into his feelings on his struggles of handling fame, where he feels that maybe because of the fame, he missed/is missing out on various moments in his life (‘Welcome to Heartbreak’, ‘Street Lights’). Given what we know of Kanye, I think it’s safe to say that he’s right about this. He’s a terrible celebrity, always has been and always will be. He acknowledges this on maybe the album’s best song ‘Amazing’, a song that has aged both terribly and wonderfully. Kanye sings about his impact on Hip-Hop, and music in general. He knows that despite all his antics, and unprofessional behavior he exudes, nothing he will ever do will overshadow or lessen his legacy in music history. Even 16 years after the release of this album (and many, many Kanye incidents later) this is still very much true. But man, Kanye sure has tested the limits of that, hasn’t he?