Jesus resurrected after three days, Kanye resurrected after four days with the leak of Yeezus online before the official release. We do not know if the leak was a premeditated move or not, but Kanye West‘s sixth solo album is here, following the success of Watch The Throne with Jay-Z and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
So far, I’ve tried to make sense of the album: beats drop out of nowhere, voices are often distorted, it’s abrupt, it’s ambiguous, it’s self-indulgent, it’s an uneasy listen, it’s different. I present to you Yeezus.
From the title alone, the album wants to provoke a reaction. If that isn’t enough, there are two songs titled “I Am God” and “I Am The Pope“. This is what Kanye West does throughout the album, provoking thoughts, opinions, maybe what he is rapping about isn’t coherent, and maybe it was supposed to be that way, just for the sake to make you think. This same provocation, makes Yeezus surrounded by themes of materialism, sex, power, race, yet isn’t Kanye a symbol of all of them compressed into one person?
The album starts off with “On Sight“, one of the two songs produced by Daft Punk. The first couple of verses go something like: “Yeezy season approaching/ f-ck whatever y’all been hearing/f-ck whatever y’all been wearing/A monster about to come alive again“. I don’t know about the first three verses, but the last one rings true. Perhaps we have never seen the monster that lives within Kanye in a 10-track, 40 minute album that looks like he had a meltdown. Yeezus is Kanye’s egoist personality on steroids.
The album tries to be so many things at the same time, and while it fails to deliver lyrically, it does in a way sound-wise. Kanye West is one of the few rappers and producers that can pull off trying new sounds and experimenting with genres like house, acid-house, industrial and even rock in some songs of the album. This is by far Kanye’s most extreme array of beats and sounds used to date. However, if you’re looking for a cohesive, full album, this is not. Like one of Jay-Z’s verses said “want my old sh-t, buy my old album“. In Yeezus, there is no such thing as transition from one song to the next one.
It seems to me as if Yeezus was Kanye’s sort of revenge for MBDTF not having a Top 10 single, but even then, I doubt that Yeezus will have one either due to it’s themes. This isn’t the album for the masses to love, this album creates controversy and I am sure that any bad review on it is a winning point for Kanye. Perhaps, now that the monster is unleashed, Kanye doesn’t have to be looking after pleasing people, critics or a brand to generate sales, he isn’t part of the New Slaves, Yeezus is a statement of provocation in the music world, an unsettling and intense album that impresses for being ambitious, but falls short on the expectations of being an overall good record, no matter how dark it might be.
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Maybe in time Yeezus will grow on me, and right now Kanye’s just giving us what we need, while it might not be what we want.
Rating: 6/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVaQobeE-04
What do you think of Yeezus? Let us know in the comments!
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