If you listen closely to this record you can almost hear the ego of Mr. West seeping through your speakers. When his oft reported on ego was used for lyrical brashness it was enjoyable and thoroughly listenable, when he decides that he is a large enough entity that making bad 80’s knock offs then we have an ego related problem.

The opening two albums from Kanye West were in my eyes classics, he reinvigorated a largely stale and sterile genre in mainstream US hip hop and although still littering his music with elements of shine, he spoke about some real issues. For me album three is where it started to become wrong, his ideas seemed forced as he attempted electronic crossovers with the likes of Daft Punk, and whilst it still contained gems Graduation fell quickly from my radar. 808s & Heartbreak is not a hip hop album, this is fine with me, I have varied tastes across varied genres, but a bad album is a bad album. This album is auto tuned vocals at their absolute worst, it’s not revolutionary to fix your horrible singing pitch with distortion, it’s just a rehash on shit from the 80’s moved forward twenty years. What’s worse is that rather than featuring the catchy choruses of many 80’s pop tunes here we are just assaulted with repeated chants and nonsensical lyrics that are a shadow of what Kanye once did.

Production wise this is again a shambles, for a man who in my opinion has produced some of the finest beats of the past 5 years they leave me nothing but disappointed. I appreciate what he was attempting to do with the jacking of 808 samples and minimalistic approach, it’s just that, audibly speaking, it’s horrible. Many of the songs descend into self indulgent experiments rather than the genre reshaping package I’m sure Kanye was hoping to achieve. You need look no further than the closer Coldest Winter for ego personified, a track that serves no purpose other than indulging the self importance of the artist.