808s And Heartbreak by Kanye West

Kanye West
808s And Heartbreak
2008
Pop
Roc-A-Fella

1. Say You Will
2. Welcome To Heartbreak
3. Heartless
4. Amazing
5. Love Lockdown
6. Paranoid
7. RoboCop
8. Street Lights
9. Bad News
10. See You In My Nightmares
11. Coldest Winter
12. Pinocchio Story
(Also included is a 420x420 album cover .jpeg)

My friend showed me pictures of his kids
And all I could show him was pictures of my cribs
He said his daughter got a brand new report card
And all I got was a brand new sports car

"Welcome To Heartbreak"

Kanye had a rough year. His mother, who has been the subject of more than a few songs of his, passed away, due to complications with a cosmetic surgery. He was also arrested for getting a bit too jumpy with the paparazzi, and had a bad breakup with his fiancee of a year and a half, because he was spending too much time on his music and not enough with her. Though, if you look on the bright side, the product of all this misery is 808s And Heartbreak, one of last year's best albums.

When hip hop artists like Akon, Flo Rida T-Pain, and Lil Wayne started becoming the new craze on rap radio, I stopped listening. There was just no soul behind it. Hip Hop in the mainstream had hit a major low. However, Kanye has always been one of those rappers whose music has really hit me the right way. And while it took me a long time to warm up to the idea of his putting out a pop record instead of a rap one, now I love it. He took the ideas of the aforementioned rappers and used them as a springboard for something truly meaningful, expressing real emotions about real loss through simple yet very classy music.

808s And Heartbreak features no real rapping. All the vocals are sung by Mr. West himself, through extreme levels of auto-tune, and in some cases, more rock-like effects such as distortion or reverb. This may be a put-off to some, but Kanye isn't using the auto-tune because he can't sing (he's a fine singer, especially for someone who is primarily an MC) but because it can actually sound really cool. He uses it to compliment the electronic beats, which are all made with old Roland TR-808 drum machines (does the title make sense yet?) and squeaky lo-fi keyboards. It all comes together to make a very modern yet un-cliche sound that towers above what most mainstream rappers are putting out currently.

Click here to download part 1 (67.2 MB)
Click here to download part 2 (42. 02 MB)

Buy it!
CD / Vinyl / Digital Copy