Let it bleed.
11/Kanye West/808s and Heartbreak
Track 7. RoboCop. The final act. Chorus, bridge, chorus, ad-libs, classical flourishes sans Kanye.
Stop.
Kanye takes a deep breath and utters (sing? croons? shouts?) this: “YOU SPOILED LITTLE L.A. GIRL! YOU’RE JUST AN L.A. GIRL!...YOU’RE KILLING ME! HA HA YOU’RE KILLING ME! THAT WAS A GOOD ONE. YOUR FIRST GOOD ONE IN A WHILE…YOU’RE FIRST GOOD ONE IN A WHILE…”
Stop.
Track 11. Coldest Winter. Open. Noise. Static.
Stop.
Calm. Kanye takes a deep breath, and croons, “On lonely nights I start to fade…Her love’s a thousand miles away… MEMORIES FADE IN THE COLDEST WINTER!!! Goodbye my friend. Will I ever love again?...”
Stop.
Welcome to Heartbreak.
A place where ya head keeps spinning, and you want to stop having these visions, and just get with it. A place where the habit of stuntin’ takes a back seat and you’re no longer allowed to speak on the finer things in life (as often), things you once considered to be the center from which all your happiness derived. A place where putting on a happy face, and sweeping that which disturbs you (bad news, heartless women, love now lost) under a rug is no longer an option.
Welcome to Heartbreak.
808s & Heartbreak.
A place where Mr. West, Mr. “by himself he so impressed!” takes a minute (or 50) to come back to life, back to reality. A place where a cat so deeply embedded in the game and known the world over lets himself go, deals with some shit, and puts his heart on his sleeve for all the world to see and hear, crawling into a relatable yet unknown territory, as if to say “What Up? What it do? This is me. I am he” for the very first time.
Heartbreak.
808s & Heartbreak.
A place where emotions seep through the exterior, coloring everything around you, soundtracking the sounds, thoughts, and imagery clouding your head. A place where you speak on it, dwell on it, let it all out in whatever form you deem necessary, or simply let it ride. Silence when needed amid the chaos (Check the slight pause prior to Young Jeezy’s blistering guest rap on the spin through the house of horrors maze that is track four, Amazing). Or laughter and light heartedness to the clear the air (Peep the intro of Paranoid or the entire overriding theme and tone of RoboCop).
Welcome to Heartbreak.
808s & Heartbreak.
A place you might have been before. A place you might have known. A place few rappers have been and/or fear to tread, outside of a deep or introspective track or two on their own albums.
Welcome to Heartbreak.
Kanye West’s heartbreak.
Dark, foreign, confused and open.
Heartbreak.
808s and Heartbreak.
KEY TRACKS: Amazing/RoboCop/Bad News
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