Overall, this is not as bad as I expected it to be as I didn't enjoy the first couple of singles I heard from this. There are some tracks I like, but more that I don't, whereas I have found his past three albums to be fairly easy to play from beginning to end. This isn't something that I will play in the future. The biggest problem is that you have a man singing, who cannot, autotune or not, making for a number of boring songs.
Enjoyable: Welcome to Heartbreak, Amazing, Streetlights
Okay: Say You Will, Paranoid, See You in My Nightmares, Coldest Winter
Bad: Heartless, Love Lockdown, Robocop, Bad News, Pinocchio Story
The first half of this is decent. The second half has some of the most boring songs Kanye has been involved in. I haven't liked a lot of what he has made of late, but I haven't often been just straight up bored. For such a legendary producer, some of the production on songs go nowhere. 'Use This Gospel' gets a little hype, but with 20 seconds to go... While I'm on that song, in a recent interview Kanye criticised rappers who rap about things that send you to prison. Clipse? The best moments are the higher tempo songs where Kanye spits with more vigor. See 'Follow God' and 'On God'. Some of the worst are where he is trying to sing. Disappointing. I was looking forward to this as I generally like the musical themes gospel can bring when combined with hip hop. 'Lord Give Me a Sign' and 'Jesus Walks' are two of my favourite songs, but it hasn't done it for me here. It just doesn't feel like the amount of care goes into crafting albums that used to.
Best Tracks: Selah, Follow God, On God
First and foremost let me say that I am a Kanye fan, his first three solo albums have an average rating of 4.33/5 from me, so that being so, and this being so well received by most, I have tried to enjoy this album more, giving it forced listens after being vastly underwhelmed upon my early ventures to get through the disc. This thought takes me back to 2004 when I first heard Jesus Walks on TV and immediate loved it, nothing on this evokes that emotion. There are four or five tracks I enjoy such as 'Dark Fantasy', 'Power', 'Hell of a Life', ‘So Appalled’ and 'Monster' but not much if any I love enough to see myself going back to in a week or two. What's more is that everything is fairly new to the ear as I purposely stayed away from the tracks he had been releasing every Friday.
As for the tracks not mentioned, I find 'Gorgeous' dull, featuring the extremely vapid Kid Cudi. 'All of the Lights' is extremely overproduced - there is too much going on. ‘Devil in a New Dress’ and 'Runaway' feature Kanye singing for some reason, they are too long, and while the beats are heralded for not being loops like most hip hop, they don't change up enough for me to wanna listen for 10 minutes., and the sample is annoying on DIAND. Likewise with 'Blame Glame', particularly with Chris Rock's two minutes of rambling. And finally, 'Lost in the World' is almost up there with the aforementioned tracks in the last paragraph, but again I think it's overproduced, particularly during the chorus and toward the end of the song - you've got the drums, Kanye singing, the background chants and the synthy deep vocal thing, etc. It's all too much! Sometimes less is more.
Kanye is without a shadow of a doubt a better producer than rapper, so when I'm not enjoying the beats, I don't enjoy Kanye. He ain't a Rakim and the like that can turn an unlikable beat into a good song. Not enjoying the beats as much as previous work from him leads the lyrics to be more of focus, which I don't find very interesting. The whole thing seems egotistical/whinny and the overemphasising Kanye does can become annoying. People have said to me they have found Kanye hard to listen to since he blew up in 2004, and I could understand why, but I still loved the music. With this album though, I myself do find him annoying at times. Also when Kanye could no doubt get anyone he wanted on his albums, I'm not sure why he has to hop on the current 'in rappers' and get the uninteresting Rick Ross (twice) and Nicki Minaj, who while I think has some talent, I can't help but find her annoying in most, if not every featuring verse I've heard from her, so that brings 'Monster' down a notch - she is much more tolerable though on most of her new solo album.
While I have compared this album to Kanye's previous material in this review, the rating is based on the album itself. Overall, as mentioned, I just can’t see myself going back to much if any of this and I am very surprised by the almost unanimous praise this has received from critics and fans alike. The best tracks are good, but not outstanding, and with every song I enjoy I could pick something that I don't like about it. Even 'Power' to me at times sounds overproduced. Lastly, the whole overall mood and feeling Kanye has tried to portray here does little for me, and on every listen unfortunately too much of me wants to hit skip too often. On to the next one!
Best Tracks: Dark Fantasy, Power, Monster, Hell of a Life, Lost in the World
After loving Kanye's first three albums, he has failed to provide me with the same enjoyment since. That makes me one of the few who don't dig MBDTF very much, so I was hoping that Yeezus would be another subjectively great Kanye West release. It was interesting to see the promotion for this album compared to his last release. With Cruel Summer, about half of the tracks were released prior to the album dropping. With this new solo effort, all we had were live versions and short snippets. Not to mention the nonexistent cover art and only getting the track list a few days out from the official release date.
As Kanye has done with each album, the sound is once again different. Apart from 'New Slaves', 'I'm in It' and 'Bound 2'-the closest thing to previous Kanye productions-Kanye shares the head producing with others. Daft Punk play a part in the first three songs, while a host of other producers contribute their ideas throughout the album. It makes for a mixture of experimental/industrial hip hop, trap rap, house, and electronic music. As a side note, Daft Punk give Ye much more interesting beats here than the soft poppy stuff on their latest album in my opinion.
Checking out the songs.. 'On Sight' is okay at best. I don't like the production at all and Kanye doesn't help it lyrically. The next three songs are a vast improvement without being outstanding. On the braggadocious 'I Am a God' Kanye raps "Everybody know you brought real rap back", in case we forgot. The change up toward the end of the song here works and should've gone on for longer. While I love the 'New Slaves' beat (best on the album) I'm not sure about the beat change up three minutes in though. Similarly with 'On Sight as well, only this case it's basically smack bang in the middle of the song. I'm not saying I don't like them, but do they work? I'm not sure. They don't connect together sonically at all. I dreaded Chief Keef being on this when I saw him in the track list. I still find him to be wack, but at least it's only the chorus of 'Hold My Liquor'. The last two minutes of this is just an instrumental. Not a great track overall. "Eatin' Asian pussy, all I need was sweet and sour sauce" is an example of the sexual lyrics I mentioned earlier that feature in the following 'I'm in It'. The worst song so far. 'Blood on the Leaves' isn't as unconventional as the earlier production and sees Kanye going back to auto-tune at the start and the end of the song, making it feel like something from 808s & Heartbreak. Another average song with Kanye jumping on the "molly" lyrical bandwagon as well. 'Guilt Trip' is another song with auto-tune singing/rapping. This one is better though and the best song for a few with a good trap/synthy beat where Kanye raps about a failed relationship it seems.. I really wish Kanye would stop associating with Cudi though, who sings the outro. Despising his voice with a passion takes the song down a notch. The penultimate 'Send It Up' is weak, lyrically and productionally. Finally, 'Bound 2' that I mentioned earlier, feels somewhat like a weaker 'Late' from Late Registration.
While vocally Kanye ain't bad to listen to and there are some entertaining lyrics, lyrically more is average than good. There's some conscious rap like on 'New Slaves', but a lot is also brag rap, with a lot of talk about sex as well at times. With the lyrics and vocals being rushed according to Rick Rubin, this isn't too surprising, and maybe Kanye should've spent another a few days on them and pushed the album back if this is true.
Overall, after a number of spins nothing takes my breath away. As Kanye's ego has continued to grow, he has continued to slip as a lyricist, which was never a massive strength as it was, but he always wrote some witty lines, and was probably better than people give him credit for to be fair, even if there have been ghostwriting rumours. The beats, with a larger influence from outside producers than the past, don't feel as revolutionary as I expected them to be for a lot of the album either. Not that the start of the album is mindblowing, but particularly over the second half that doesn't feel like much new at all. Some of the people talking about how groundbreaking this is need to listen to more music. After a number of projects now of not feeling Kanye, I am starting to doubt that there will ever be another one from him again that I will put on a pedestal like I did as he rose through the ranks.
Best Tracks: Black Skinhead, I Am a God, New Slaves, Guilt Trip
When I was starting to get into hip hop Kanye's music was important to me and I loved most of what he did. As time has passed, I find his rapping less interesting just like his lyrics, even if I go back to what I loved, and this changes none of that. In some ways this is probably lyrically better than some of the bars we got on things like Yeezus, and being short may help that.
As with any post Graduation Kanye project, the gushing over this from fans isn't something I understand. I mean, people are calling this progressive... This 24-minute album is just decent at best. Similar to The Life of Pablo for me, there is no brilliant song here and with two minute songs you're still getting into them, which a couple of these are. I listened to the live stream which went through the album twice and have given this another couple of tries but nothing has grown on me much. See my brief thoughts on the songs below:
1 I Thought About Killing You - An interesting way to start the album going almost acapella. I find his intonation a bit annoying at the beginning. Only gets replay value worthy when the beat kicks in.
2 Yikes - The best song here. Thumping beat and nice contrast between the verses and hook.
3 All Mine - Ehh. The beat is a minimalist trap like beat. The extra hits in the final verse are dope but the chorus isn't very catchy and overall it's not a great song.
4 Wouldn't Leave - Decent song about Kim staying with him through the shit they both cop when he speaks his mind and airs an opinion, that he apparently isn't entitled to.
5 No Mistakes - The Slick Rick sample is cool but I don't really like Charlie Wilson here. A short song lacking anything inventive in the production department at all.
6 Ghost Town - The production is better here but the singing of the horrendous Cudi (I still don't get how people like this guy's voice) and the way Shake sings in the outro is garbage.
7 Violent Crimes - Cloudy beat. The subject matter has been done many times before though about how a father feels about having a daughter and wanting to protect her from males, etc. The way he does it isn't boring but as I said, it's been done. Still the second-best song.
