A Monster Is About to Come Alive Again

When you are dealing with a genius, you are going to have to put up with some eccentricities, be it Prince changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol or Van Gough cutting his ear off. Then there is the case of Kanye West. His trilogy school themed albums stand up against the first three albums of any artists ever. But after Graduation, West’s mother died and he broke up with his longtime girlfriend and instead on continue his college esthetics of those first three albums, he instead made an emo-rap album more depressing than any of the horrible shoe gazing of the time.

It was also around this time when even I as one of Kanye’s most ardent defenders was having trouble sticking up for the guy after stunts like the Taylor Swift incident and the ill-timed “George Bush doesn’t care about black people comment.” But after his emo opus, Kanye was back on point with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Watch the Throne and even Cruel Summer had a couple hot tracks (if you are able to edit out Big Shawn). Apparently more accessible Kanye albums come in three because out next is Yeezus which one Rolling Stone writer said “makes Radiohead's Kid a look like Bruno Mars by comparison.” I believe he meant it like a compliment, but this listener did not take it that way.

Like most people, my first experience with Yeezus, was when West performed New Slaves and Black Skinheads on Saturday Night Live, not really the best idea considering the show’s legendary poor audio for musical guest, but considering the lo-fi feeling of the songs, it actually might have been appropriate. Based on the two songs alone, it sounded like he was trading in the annoying emo rock of the 00’s that he aped on 808’s and Heartbreaks for an even more darker time period with the new wave sound of the early eighties with bands like Joy Division.

As it turned out, those two songs were some of the most “musical” songs on the album Yeezus instead starts off with On Sight which sounds like it samples some Artari games from the eighties. And most of the songs follow that sparse industrial that throws in even weirder effect like the screaming in I Am a God or the weird almost air-horn distortion in Hold My Liqour, does turn into this psychedelic trip at the end that sounds like a hip-hop Pink Floyd (Guilt Trip also has a trippy Pink Floyd feel to it).

Yet the most surprising song on the album is the closer Bound 2 which musically sounds like classic Kanye with its sped up soul sample (looking back this was foreshadowed with snippets in On Sight and at the end of New Slave) but he still sounds as angry as he does on the rest of the album and some dark synthesizers seep through by the end of the song. I am not sure if the ending means that things are not as bad as the first nine tracks on Yeezus would suggest or it itself suggest on his next album Kanye will revisit his backpacking days. Either way, rumors suggest we will learn that answer sooner than later be it Watch the Throne II or Cruel Winter as soon as by the end of this year.

Song to Download – Bound 2

Yeezus gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.