Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreaks Format: Album Release Date: 24th Nov 2008 Label: Mercury Rating: With 808s, Kanye West makes a stylistic change away from his college rap trilogy and seems to have ditched rap altogether to make this album of RnB tunes. There are no rapped vocals, even with the guest rappers such as Lil Wayne, but here Kanye West sings in the style of Usher or Craig David. The beats across the whole album are slow burners, with the 80s throwback Jackson-esque synth pop being the focus and sampling almost being dropped completely. At first, it may sound like a more commercial sound, but out of all these songs I could only call one of them catchy, which would be the fantastic pop single "Love Lockdown", which seems to be slightly more akin to Kanye of old. His shift into RnB may seem like a logical change in direction, as after the trilogy he had to do something different, but in his execution, sucess is limited. His great production skills take a step down as this album suffers from having way too much polish and sheen. It's questionable whether Kanye can actually sing, as it is obvious his voice has been digitally processed and had just about every effect in the studio added to his voice. The production being far too clean often ends up alienating the listener from the creator. Kanye used to be an intruiging lyricist also, but this album's lyrical substance seems pretty phoned in, when on his other albums there would often be an interesting metaphor or use of wordplay to catch your attention (say goodbye to swearing too). The album as a whole is too slow, being in constant mid tempo, and there is far too little variety between these tracks. One song that is the most different is "See You In My Nightmares", which happens to stick out like a sore thumb, as Kayne and Lil Wayne do the most irritating evil clown style vocals I've ever heard (and I've listened to both Axl Rose and Mr Bungle). It is obvious even after the first listen that Kanye is perhaps trying too hard to make a big stylistic change, and has ended up turning his back on his own talents. He does manage to be dedicated to his new style however, and does manage to make it fairly listenable, but most fans of his work will only ending up mourning the loss of his old style. 808s just about works as a one off, but lets hope it's not the start of another trilogy.

Written by: Frenchie