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| Yeezus Album Cover |
Kanye West is an American Rapper,who has
relseased his 10th 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.
