Kanye West- 808's and Sleeping Pills

For my first blog entry I’ve decided to review Kanye West’s latest CD (I usually say “album” but I’ve decided to use CD in this blog for the readers who haven’t found at least one strand of gray in their hair yet), anyway I chose Kanye’s 808’s and Heartbreaks for my first album because he’s been a lightning rod of controversy over the last couple of years and people can’t seem to get enough. And I’m also a fan. The big question everyone had was “Is Kanye really going to use the autotune machine for an entire CD”? The answer is yes and to answer your other question before you ask it: IT SUCKS! It starts off slow and depressing with “Say You Will”. It’s bad enough that he’s whining about a girl playing games with his heart but you realize quickly that the autotuned Kanye is going to be a problem. Some of the words are not understandable and his voice makes T-Pain’s voice sound like Luther Vandross. At least Kanye uses his regular rap voice for “Welcome to Heartbreak” over a nice little Drummer boy rat-tat-tat-tat beat…..Oh wait, hear comes autotune Kanye for no apparent reason ruining the already drepressing song. “Heartless” is the first actual head nodding song with backround production sounding similar to an in his prime doctor Dre, which makes you forget about the autotune for a while. “Amazing” continues the head nodding and finishes with a strong performance by Young Jeezy. Say what you want about Jeezy but on big time collabo projects he brings it, like in the verse I’m Amazing/ Born on a full moon/ I was bread to get in/No spoon. Yeeeeaaaaaaaah!

And that’s where the “fun” ends, more autotune and depression follows. I don’t care what anyone says “Love Lockdown” sucks, I don’t want to have to wait every other 45 seconds for the bass to kick in. Now if I’m in the club and I’ve had a couple drinks, I’m going to be nodding my head like the dudes from that Saturday Night Live sketch and Pepsi commercial, pretending I know the words… “Paranoid” was the only other song I liked on the CD, probably because Mr. West uses his normal rap voice for part of the song….Did I mention autotune and depression were heavily involved in the rest of the CD? That and a bit of screaming from Lil Wayne. Some people will say at least Kanye took a chance and did something different but this shit doesn’t apply. I liked the chances he took on Graduation with “Stronger”, “Drunky Hot Girls” etc. but I don’t need any extra depressing thoughts in my life; being married, having weird friends and dealing with this economy crisis is depressing enough thank you! Here’s hoping Kanye finds the new love of his life in this new year and gets back to over the top stunting that we all love.