Kanye West 808's and Heartbreak Sneak Peek Album Review

Since I live in New York city and have a lot of friends in the music industry, I often get the chance to attend album release parties and get a sneak peek of music before it is released. Well, I am happy to say that within the last two days I was provided with the opportunity to hear the new Kanye West CD before it officially hits stores. The project is titled "808s and Heatbreak" and this title should tell you exactly what to expect from the CD.

Kanye uses the voice altering machine called Autotune on every track that can be found on this album. The reason for this is because it is supposed to sound as if he just had his heart broken and this is placed over heavy African tribal drum sounds which are called 808s. This creates a unique sound that anyone will enjoy if they have just gone through a breakup.

The reason for this is because this CD is filled with breakup music and so it creates a feeling that is more like an R&B CD than a rap CD. This CD is different than all of the past material we have listened to by Kanye but I think it is important to take the music for what it is and then secondly consider that Mr. West is providing the production and lyrical content for this revolutionary style of music.

While revolutionary is not always a good thing when it comes to music, I have found that with this CD it creates a sound that you will not soon forget. This CD has 12 tracks in all which total about 58:00 and I found this to be disappointing because I would have liked more material on the CD or just a longer length. In addition to the single "Love Lockdown", I also enjoyed the songs "Heartless" and "Robocop" which talks about females keeping a chain on their significant other and how the situation can become difficult. I also loved the song "Amazing" which features Young Jeezy.

The album also features Lil Wayne and Mr. Hudson. Of the 12 tracks found on this CD, 11 of them are about his former girlfriend and the last is about his mother who passed away last year. I give this album a 3.5/5 which would place it above "College Dropout" but behind "Graduation" and "Late Registration" on my ratings scale.