On Thursdays we review albums that are considered “classic”. This week we will review the classic LP that has been recently named the most ground-breaking album of all time by Rolling Stone, Kanye West’s game-changing 808s & Heartbreak. While Mr. West had always stepped away from conventional rap structure since the inception of his career with The College Dropout, Ye really reinvented the wheel with this one. Creating a concept album that contained 11-tracks (and one live bonus track) of music made entirely from an 808s synthesizer, themed around love and which all contained heavy use of auto-tune, Kanye made a musical masterpiece which was widely misunderstood and polarizing during its initial 2008 release but which is now the most influential album of all time. This album paved the way for today’s popular artists (mainly Drake), further introduced the world to brilliance of Kid Cudi (who had a vast influence on the album’s sound), and showed us that even when Kanye “can’t sing” he can make a singing album better than anyone else.

While Kanye has a discography of albums with amazing openings, from Graduation’s ‘Good Morning’ to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s ‘Dark Fantasy’, Ye’s best opening track may be 808’s ‘Say You Will’. Produced by Kanye himself (as is the entire album), ‘Say You Will’ opens with a story of heartbreak as Kanye reminds lovers everywhere to mean what you say. Singing “don’t say you will, unless you will”, many believe that the album’s opening track directly refers to the end of his engagement by former fiancee, Alexis Phifer. Kanye has also described this track a dedication to the moment when an ex-girlfriend calls you just to have sex and “says she’ll come over but you wait all night and she still doesn’t come knocking on your door.” While the song is minimal in lyrics, ‘Say You Will’ sets the tone for the album and about half of the 6-minute track ends with a soothing instrumental outro.

The next track, ‘Welcome To Heartbreak’ is perhaps Kanye’s deepest track in its lyrics. This track doesn’t speak to a breakup with a former girlfriend, rather Kanye talks about the emptiness he feels and the jealousy of the lives of others. “My friend showed me pictures of his kids, and all I could show him was pictures of my cribs. He said his daughter got a brand new report card, and all I got was a brand new sports car… Dad cracked a joke all the kids laughed, but I couldn’t hear him all the way in first class.” Kanye acknowledges that money cannot buy everything, but luckily for him just a few years later he would be married and see the birth of his first child. ‘Welcome To Heartbreak’ is also strong in its instrumental, produced by Kanye, Jeff Bhasker and Plain Pat, the piano in this track will give you chills.

The album’s third track and standout single is Kanye’s ‘Heartless’. Kanye has described this song as having country melodies and today it stands as one of Kanye’s most covered songs from artists of all gengres (The Fray, Kris Allen). Along with ‘Love Lockdown’ (one of the albums weaker tracks) and ‘Amazing’, ‘Heartless’ stands as the albums best and most successful single. After the album’s singles comes Kanye track ‘Paranoid’, 808s & Heartbreak’s closest thing to a dance track. This is also the closest thing to rapping that Kanye does on the album. While he still 100% sings the hook, ‘Paranoid”s two verses are a unique hybrid of singing and rapping. Complemented by vocals from G.O.O.D Music artist Mr. Hudson, ‘Paranoid’ is yet another great track on the classic LP.

After the great ‘Street Lights’, ‘Robocop’, ‘See You In My Nightmares’ and the weaker ‘Bad News’, comes the last (excluding the bonus Pinocchio Story) , and probably Kanye’s favorite, track of the album, ‘Coldest Winter’. While many originally thought this track referred to his breakup with Phifer, ‘Coldest Winter’ actually is in honor of Kanye’s late mother, Dr. Donda West. The track serves as a goodbye to Ms. West after her November 2007 passing, and tells a tale of the sadness and horror of spending the cold season for the first time without the person you have loved the most since day one. ‘Coldest Winter’ is often one of the rare songs that Kanye still tours with from 808s, and when he does, he performs it with such emotion that almost everyone in the arena can almost begin to imagine the heartbreak that surrounds the album’s most depressing track.

In total, it is completely reasonable why albums like 808s & Heartbreak and Yeezus can make fans and critics scratch their heads. However, as Kanye has said he is “ahead of his time, sometimes years out” and this proved to be the case since the LP’s 2008 release. At its initial release, 808s was the least critically acclaimed of all Kanye’s solo albums. Today however, 808s is viewed by almost everyone as a classic and game-changing album. It is depressing to know what had to happen to inspire Kanye to write such a deep and emotional album, however everything comes with a silver lining and with his heartbreak came an amazing album.

 ★★★★★