Believe it or not, I used to have a blog where I actually wrote interesting things and (strangely), people read it and commented on it. This particular blog is more of a “LISTEN TO THIS MUSIC” blog and I don’t often have the time (or desire really) to get my inner Schizophrenic Tenant on, but allow me to do so briefly because I’ve got a few things to say about Kanye’s “808s & Heartbreaks.” I posted something similar on a messageboard recently, but I’ve edited it slightly and re-posted it below.

First of all, I realize this is a polarizing record, and I’m not really too interested in having a conversation where we try to convince each other why we should or shouldn’t like this record. Fundamentally, I don’t think any of us are going to change our mind’s about this record… but I do think it’s a record worth talking about. So, ya know, feel free to comment in the comments section, but let’s not get into a “I CANT BELIEVE YOU DON’T LIKE and/or LIKE THIS ALBUM” yelling match.

Basically, it’s like this… I can totally understand why people don’t like this record. It’s obviously not traditional hip-hop (duh) nor is it particularly forward-thinking electronic music. I mean, the only thing “hip-hop” about the record are some of the drums and maybe a couple of the verses. But to put it simply, everything Kanye does is so incredibly charming to me. There’s an unabashed humanity to his stuff that is really easy for me to like at a very simple level. There’s a ton of books and movies and music that I appreciate theoretically but that do nothing for me emotionally… but Kanye is the exact opposite of that. I really just get a great deal of pleasure out of listening to music. Like all great producers (and I suppose rappers, too) he’s just got an incredible ear for melody and music in general that really resonates with my tastes, so it’s not surprising that I really really like this record. Maybe I have horrible taste, but for whatever reason, my tastes seem to rhyme pretty closely with Kanye’s.

In a recent messageboard post, I felt that it was also worth mentioning that never in the history of rap has an artist who is accepted in the urban community really branched out as far as this… but on second thought, I guess that’s not entirely true though because Common and Q-Tip and Andre 3000 all already did that… and most people would say they failed doing it. I guess the “traditional rapper branching outside of rap” isn’t a new concept at all… but there’s something I can’t put my finger on that makes this record feel A LOT DIFFERENT than those previous examples. I don’t think it’s the music itself… it’s something to do with the context. Perhaps it’s just that Kanye is a producer? Common, Q-Tip, and Andre were all rappers that branched out with “weird” albums, but Kanye is a producer… Is that what makes this different I’m speaking of palpable? Or maybe it’s just that Kanye is a SUPERSTAR? I’m really not sure, but again, there’s something different and GRANDER about Kanye’s departure that makes this record feel like much more of an EVENT then the previous departures.

But, back to the music, I don’t mean to argue that the music on this record is particularly forward-thinking on its own merits because it’s really not. It’s 808s and synths with bad singing (most of which is auto-tuned to hell), moments of great lyricism and moments of truly bad lyricism. But, it’s not like this music is really pushing boundaries sonically. Yeah, it’s kind’ve weird at times, but only if you look at it through the lense of hip-hop… it’s mostly pretty easily consumable pop music that isn’t particularly tied up with urban black music signifiers (though certainly some are there)… and I think that freedom from traditional urban black music signification is what makes this record kind’ve interesting. Now, I don’t really expect this album to have any far reaching affects on contemporary urban black music, but I do agree with a sentiment that a friend of mine (Dances With White Girls… buy his record!) expressed a couple weeks back in that this album seems important in its unabashed willingness to show another aspect of the urban black man’s possible identity. The characters most popular in hip-hop are nothing like the character presented in “808s & Heartbreaks” and never has any one artist in hip-hop been in a position to make an “experimental” (for lack of a better word) album like this where a large number of people (perhaps even including the nebulous “the streets”?) will actually LISTEN to it… and maybe even like it?

Or I guess to put it more simply, Kanye is an accepted mainstream hip-hop artist who is making this album, and that CONTEXT of him being an accepted mainstream hip-hop artist makes this album a much different beast than if it were an album that Anti-Pop Consortium made or whatever. I’ll be curious to see over the next couple weeks and months what the overall reaction to this album is and how it sells.

But back to me… at a very basic level, I really really like this ish.

-emynd