JEEZUZ YEEZUS....Kanye Wests new ablum.....is it any good?

Yeezus Album Cover

Kanye West is an American Rapper,who has relseased his 10^th album recently. Seeing peak success during the ‘noughties’ and his 2010 album saw him hit record sales. With His long term girlfriend Kim Kardashian he has never been far from the spotlight and has often seen controversy, such as the time he walked on stage during the grammys and told Tayloer Swift that Beyonce should have won that particular award.

Kanye West’s latest album comes at an interesting time; as the album was relseased a week before his baby was born and it is his first release in quite some time. The album was famed before it was released because of the huge lengths that were gone too to ensure that the album didn’t leak, including a bomb-proof case that contained the only copy of the entire album however ironically the album ended up being leaked anyway, many claiming that it was kanye west himself who leaked it to increase the PR. The ablum name is worth looking into, as Kanye refferes to himself as ‘yeezy’ at times during songs and this has lead to the ablbum name; ‘Yeezus” is reffering to kanye being the new coming of jesus, or at least he compares himself to a god-like figure.

The ablum is fascinating, whether you look at his lyrics or the melody of the songs, everything is deisgned to be unique and to shock the audience. Firstly I would like to talk about some of his lyrics because they are for one word: shocking. I am an avid fan of rap music and an usually never shocked by the often crude language however kanye west goes a step further in his song “new slaves” as he talks about a very sensitive subject, race, and his lyrics depict his opinion of how the public is racist or at least the music industry is, when talking about signing a contract within the song a lyric says “you know n***as cant read”. This is highly contravertial and gives evidence to the tone that Kanye West is trying to give, possibly to prove to the media and the public that once you become famous enough, it doesn’t matter about what music you produce but only that it has your name on the front.

Having studied many review of the album I have been trying to answer the question that seems to crop up on every review, which is, is this man totally stupid? Or is he a kind of genius to realize the gap in the market and the medias power to publisice his new album with no cost to him. Personally I think that Kanye West knows exactly what he is doing ,he knows that the unusual melodys will appeal to fans as an alternative to the stereo typical chart music and mainstream Hip Hop and he knows that talking about delicate subject in such an object manner will cause a reaction which wether the comments are good or bad will inevitably drive attention towards his new release,  which ultimately is his goal.

If we are talking in the most technical sense, the album is very good. Ignoring the odd sounds used, the quality of sound and the level of production is very high. And the impact of the album on a whole is very impressive, as it is rare that I ever listen to a whole ablum more then once all the way though however I found this album to have deepness that I couldnot grasp straight away. I found myself relistening to lyrics and hearing new things with every listen, which is an impressive characteristic.

If I give my own humble opinion to the overall Album I would say that although the album has a musical theme, every song is distinct in its own way and this will often result in half the album appealing slightly more than the rest and I found that to be the case after a few listens. I fear however that Kanye West has tried to replicate the very difficult ‘style change’ that can make an artist reek of desperation to remain relevant, which could be said for snoop dogs recent change to an all loving, peace hunting reggae artist. Another thing I considered was the listen ability of the music on a wide scale of environments, and I conclude that on big powerful speakers the depth of music is incredible however on any other less impressive set up you will be left feeling unfulfilled and unimpressed.

Kanye west could well just be trying to stay in the headlines or maybe he really does want to change his musical style. The albums audience would not be a clear set demographic however it certainly is not for the older or younger generations due to the appalling language throughout.

It is an album that I would defiantly have in my collection and I think that it will become quite a classic in years to come, unless of course this musical style catches on and becomes the latest trend in Hip Hop.