Blogarhythms

Something like a bazillion years ago (okay, it was more like a year and change) I tried starting a new regular Blogarhythms feature about things…Be they artists, albums or whatever…That should in theory “suck,” but don’t. I got as far as profiling rich kid son of a superstar guitarist turned superstar DJ turned superstar producer Mark Ronson and his then-forthcoming album of all-star cover songs Version before promptly forgetting the whole setup and never returning to it.

It’s entirely possible that I’ve been negligent since then. But I’m far more inclined to believe that everything that’s supposed to have sucked during the ensuing months has in fact sucked, and sucked hard. So what’s brought about my sudden interest in revisiting my abandoned experiment in suction? Chicago-bred rapper/producer Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak, an album where he abandons the loop-based beats and middle-class everyman rhymes that won my fanhood and replaced them with an overused vocal effect popularized by an artist I can’t fucking stand!

For the record, I’ve never hated or hated on Kanye West…In fact, I was one of the people pulling for him after he broke his jaw in that 2002 car crash, spinning the “Through the Wire” bootleg on the radio, and hoping that the powers-that-were at Roc-A-Fella would see the light and actually put his record out. I think his production catalog–including work with everyone from Jay-Z to Dilated Peoples, Slum Village to Janet Jackson, Talib Kweli to Alicia Keys–is pretty outstanding. His “first n***a with a Benz and a backpack” approach to commercializing underground-style Rap has made his three collegiate-themed albums favorites of mine. And his unadulterated “real talk”–whether it be proclaiming “George Bush does not care about Black people” on national television, calling out Hip-Hop homophobes, having a post-MTV awards breakdown or breaking a paparazzo’s camera–has enshrined him as one of the most entertaining personalities of the 21st century.

So why’d he have to go and wreck it all by getting himself addicted to T-Pain-style autotune? Well, the truth is he didn’t “wreck” shit. Don’t get me wrong, I lament the “T-Painification” of the airwaves. I busted a gut when Saturday Night Live aired a skit where Andy Samberg as his Blizzard alter-ego dons a top-hat and sings an autotune-assisted chorus culminating in a sing-songy Rap about how “all the kids love the robot voice,” proving autotune can make anybody sound “cool.” Deep down I sorta hoped Kanye adopted the trendy effect to spite T-Pain, like he realized “I don’t need to pay this dude to sing through this software when I can do it myself!” And while I wish Kanye had turned to time-tested vocoders and talk-boxes to achieve his “robot voice” effect, I realize autotune has become a convention of modern Pop music…And 808s & Heartbreak works because it’s both an unabashed Pop record, and a subversion of modern Pop conventions.

I didn’t “get it” until I saw Kanye perform “Love Lockdown” live on the Late Show with David Letterman. When the song leaked I received it with a shrug. I love 808s, but I was nonplussed by the autotune vocals, and I didn’t think there was a chance in hell the entire album would sound like this! I was wrong…And it took seeing him standing alone on stage belting out the tortured lyrics over big tribal drum beats to discover just how wrong I’d been…Especially in treating the song so nonchalantly. Though Kanye reportedly recorded 808s & Heartbreak in Hawaii, “Love Lockdown” is at it’s heart a Chicago record. That twistedly heartsick vocal is the offspring of Chi-Town’s most lasting legacy, the Blues, favoring its Delta-bred grandpappy…Only the family bloodline’s infected with a techno-organic virus. And the minimalist track, with its bounding drum-machine rhythm and moody piano, hearkens to the formative days of Chicago’s House scene.

I realized, via my analysis of this fusion of the original American popular music and the oft-maligned progenitor of much of today’s playlist-topping dancefloor-fodder, that the newest album from one of the biggest stars in the music industry today is a recklessly experimental celebration of both the singularity and diversity of Pop music. It was a shocking revelation to come to, especially since I was actively trying to disregard the album on the grounds of my initially underwhelming response to the song in question. But I’m glad I got over my apprehension, ’cause if hadn’t I’d have missed out on tunes like “Paranoid,” a Danceteria-era Madonna flashback that betrays ‘Ye as a fan of Chromeo, Lykke Li, Annie and Ed Banger, the Prince-esque “Street Lights,” “The Coldest Winter,” which could easily be a Hot Chip ballad, the “In the Air Tonight”-meets-Art of Noise-versus-Enigma sounding “Say You Will,” and the Eurhythmics-reminiscent “See You In My Knightmares.”

He didn’t forget us sample-spotters either, looping up the jumping intro break from Nina Simone’s classic “See-Line Woman” on the thumping, bottom-heavy lament “Bad News.” So at least we know he didn’t trade all of his samplers in for that autotuner. And I assume he’ll be back to chopping, looping, truncating and tapping rubber pads on his next album, which I’ll welcome with open arms.  In the meantime I’m more than happy to have someone of Kanye’s visibility joining the ranks of other Chi-Town acts like Juba Dance and Serengeti in embracing such a progressive fusion of styles and emotions.

In hindsight I’m disappointed in myself for not approaching 808s & Heartbreak with more of an open mind though. I’ve never disliked a Kanye West album, but I actually wanted to hate this one simply because it was different, and I thought his dabbling in R(obot)&B a calculated grab at an even bigger chunk of the Pop marketplace. But I admire the audacity it took for someone in his position to indulge their infatuation with a new toy while simultaneously wallowing in their personal tribulations in such a public way. It’s just the sort of thing stars of his magnitude and comfortability should do more of.