One thing 808s & Heartbreak did not do was popularize Auto-Tune. B0012198-02; CD). Please enable Cookies and reload the page. (Death Of Autotune).” Even though Jay was ultimately unsuccessful, there remained as a sizable contingent of traditionalists growing fed up with how many artists were using Auto-Tune as a crutch, not a tool. If we regard Kanye West as a genius (and by all rights we should), 808s is the album that cements that legacy. Inspired by the death of his mother, Donda West, as well as the end of his engagement to Alexis Phifer, the album threw fans and critics for a loop with its radical departure from the sounds that made Kanye famous. He even debuted the T-Pain featured third single “Good Life” with a cameo on HBO’s Entourage. !function(t,e,r){var n,s=t.getElementsByTagName(e)[0],i=/^http:/.test(t.location)? So all of that underpinned how much of an artistic risk 808s was at the time of its release. The Wicked Witch of the West put a spell on his axe to keep him from marrying his true love. It can be observed in the output of four of the biggest artists of the moment, Future, Travi$ Scott, Drake and The Weeknd. Bangers by Mitch. It led to the unrealistic percussion that came out of it—kicks that reverberated too loudly and too long, cymbals that sounded like laser blasts from sci-fi films, tinny snares. 808s & Heartbreak is the fourth studio album by American producer and vocalist Kanye West.It was released on November 24, 2008, by Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records.West recorded the album during September and October 2008 at Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California and Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, with the help of producers No I.D., Jeff Bhasker, and others. HMU 4 BEATZ. The 808s, combined with liberal use of autotune across the album’s twelve tracks, makes for a lonely and melancholic reflection on death, isolation, fame, and, of course, heartbreak. With Kanye’s personal tragedies and new collaborators setting the direction of the production and content, 808s could not have been more different than Graduation in both tone and subject matter. In the previous year, West had just reached his commercial pinnacle. Most notably, Kid Cudi’s signature hums and general sense of melancholy loomed largely over 808s and helped Mr. Solo Dolo eventually launch his own career. According to one of the producers Miykal Snoddy, 808s & Heartbreak really showcased West’s talent as an artist; the project sparked Lil Wayne’s Rebirth album that dropped in 2010 and created a lane for Drake. Soon, 808s would start to flood the second hand market with prices as low as $100, which would allow underground producers and novices with a creative streak to start to unlock the possibilities. Both wildly popular and misunderstood in the moment, 808s inspired a legion of artists that grew up in its wake. In addition to T-Pain’s help with vocals, Kanye worked with multiple writers on each song. The album’s opener “Say You Will” features eerie synths, and intermittent keys, but the literal pulse of the song is the bleep of a heart monitor throughout. See a recent post on Tumblr from @goddamnkrazy about 808s and heartbreak. According to Kanye, some people even advised him to do the album under a different name. Kanye’s collaboration with T-Pain would help inspire 808s & Heartbreak, and the rapper turned singer would help coach West on how to use Auto-Tune during the recording process. On Post’s very on the nose “Rich & Sad,” he similarly laments about how material objects can never bring him happiness: Like many young men, these acts decry all of the things a lost love did to them, without taking full inventory of what they could have done to prevent the breakup from happening in the first place. To Jay’s point, the late 2000s were littered with bad Auto-Tune. I'll be honest. You don’t know how lucky you are not to have one. The impact it has had on both genres is staggering. He’s mostly wallowing in his own sadness. The parallels don’t stop there. ™ EveryThingOnHereiMade™ 808s&HeartBreaks 808s & Heartbreaks, Bitch. The relatively low price and faulty transistors contributed to the machine’s unique sound. 808s and Heartbreak is an R&B album performed by a hip-hop artist. It’s easy to see what his advisors were trying to protect. 808s & Heartbreak is Kanye West’s fourth studio album, released on November 24th, 2008, and it was a base breaker as far as fans were concerned. The TR-808 became so popular decades after its initial run, despite the artificial nature of its sounds, because it required ingenuity to coax anything that approximated a real feeling from it. Without 808s & Heartbreak, we may never have known the robotic trap of Travis Scott or the sad crooning of Drake. The album was formed off the back Goodbye my friend, will I ever love again? “That album I feel really started to show the genius of Kanye West because he was not seen as a … In addition to the growing anti Auto-Tune sentiment, some of ’Ye’s contemporaries struggled with experimental albums earlier that decade. According to Kanye, some people even advised him to do the album under a different name. Released in 1980, the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer was one of the first programmable drum machines, allowing users to create their own drum patterns as opposed to using presets. To talk about 808s & Heartbreak, you have to first talk about the aforementioned TR-808.Released in 1980, the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer … 808s and Heartbreak was Kanye West's first real attempt at a concept album. The sounds, especially that unreasonably loud bass, became staples in hip-hop, electronic, R&B, and house in the ensuing decades. 33 Tracks. This was the album that followed the trilogy College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduated. 808s & Heartbreak turns 10 in November 2018. In the film version of The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard eventually tells the Tin Man’s wish for a new heart by saying “You want a heart. The pitch-correcting software, which makes humans sound like highly emotive … If 808s and Heartbreak was the controversial result of Kanye’s sorrows, Yeezus would be the product of his frustration. While he would later find love again in his wife Kim Kardashian, his mother’s death marked the loss of his heart. It was also Kanye’s breakout album as an actual artist, not just the rapper from Chicago that made his first 3 records and rocked a teddy bear and Bapes. The album’s immediate impact was felt the very next year as Drake and Kid Cudi cemented their status as newfound rap stars. Kanye West’s 2008 album, '808s & Heartbreak,' turns ten years old this week. All of those will centre on opinion. Maybe that’s why so many young artists connected with the album in their formative years. ‘808s and Heartbreak’ is one of the most powerful albums about loss made in the second half of the 20th century. Mature and minimal, but deceptively complex, 808s & Heartbreak found Kanye enlisting his usual collaborators (Tony Williams, Malik Yusef, Consequence), while adding new voices like Kid Cudi, Mr. Hudson and Esthero to the fold. The album opens with “Say You Will”, a slow and meandering track centered around a beeping synth loop, not unlike the sound of a heart monitor. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Kanye has chosen this moment to remind the world that 808s and Heartbreak exists. Prepare yourself for an avalanche of articles praising the genius of this record. He's made 808s and Heartbreak, which as the title hints is an introspective, minimal electro-pop record steeped in regret, pain, and even more self-examination than a typical Kanye West album. Rated #51 in the best albums of 2008, and #5638 of all-time album.. 1593 Followers. The album is more navel diving then navel gazing. Graduation was the culmination of Kanye’s journey from underdog to juggernaut. While on his meandering search for a new heart, he began to carry a different kind of baggage, even managing to find his own personal Wizard of Oz in Donald Trump years later—a feckless imposter with nothing to offer but bluster and theatrics. 2008 Preview Editors’ Notes Kanye turns unbearable pain into haunted, stark electro-pop on this daring album, embracing electronic chill and ‘80s New Wave to express his suffering and isolation. Roland stopped making them in 1983. It’s no wonder, Juice cites 808s as his favorite album of all time. This article has the numbers to prove just how genius and dangerous it truly was. “808s” turns 10 on Saturday, but critics certainly haven’t waited for the album’s anniversary to hail it a classic. Even when 808s & Heartbreak isn’t emotionally mature, it remains emotionally honest. The impact it has had on both genres is staggering. Less than a year after 808s’ release, Kanye’s Roc-A-Fella big brother Jay-Z would attempt to send the pitch-polishing software to an early grave with “D.O.A. Kanye West’s 2008 album, '808s & Heartbreak,' turns ten years old this week. saginaw. 808s definitely influenced specific people like Travis Scott, but guys like Future definitely can be more attributed to Wayne. Trading in the warmth of soul samples for the azoic thump of the TR-808 drum machine and traditional hip-hop lyricism for dour pop singing filtered through the artful pitch destruction of Auto-Tune, 808s & Heartbreak would go on to create a new template for hip-hop and pop music that endures a decade later. Even with all of the collaborations, Kanye’s ability to execute and realize his singular vision, forged from personal tragedy and heartache, is a triumph in and of itself. I loved this album back in 2008 but ,compared to West's subsequent albums, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" and "Yeezus", this album is ordinary and seems designed for radio. In addition to the TR-808, the vocal plug-in Auto-Tune played a huge role in the album’s innovative sound. The genius of 808s and heartbreak. On “Lucid Dreams,” Chicago rapper Juice WRLD sings: Those lines have a direct parallel to Kanye’s “Heartless,” where he sings: There is one song where Kanye does exhibit a level of personal reflection, it’s the Cudi assisted “Welcome To Heartbreak.” He sings about materialism and feeling unfulfilled: Nowadays, you’re likely to see the dejected tone of “Welcome To Heartbreak” in music by artists like Post Malone. Personally I can also attest to the huge influence the album has had on me. Another big difference between the 808 and other machines was that it was analog, which means it produced artificial sounds with hardware as opposed to digital, pre-recorded, realistic drum sounds. He triumphed over 50 Cent in their manufactured sales battle with his third album, Graduation, which sold just under one million copies in its first week of release. [CDATA[ West pared down the bombastic maximalism of Graduation to, at times, the most basic sounds imaginable. He ends the song taunting her by calling her a “spoiled little LA girl.” On “Robocop,” he compares a woman to the sadistic fan from Stephen King’s Misery. The album, which debuted to very mixed reviews in 2008, is in the midst of a vast critical reappraisal. It was these losses that would inspire the icy, electronic, pop of 808s, which served as an artistic and personal turning point in West’s life. 808s & Heartbreak Katherine McKittrick & Alexander G. Weheliye ... Heartbreak is the demand to feel outside of ones’ ... forgetting and/or excusing the violence either in the name of art/musical genius or racial solidarity)? Follow @genius Love Lockdown and Blood on the Leaves, headliners from 808’s and Yeezus respectively, share some profound differences in Kanye’s perspective. All of the heartbreak on the album is someone else’s fault. Though the 1939 film adaptation is better known, in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz we learn that the Tin Man character was once a human lumberjack. On that album’s second single, he proclaimed, “that that don’t kill me can only make me stronger,” but 808s & Heartbreak was about everything that almost killed him making him weaker, more vulnerable, and more suspicious. Another album with extremely soulful production wouldn’t make Kanye the creative genius that he is today. Follow @genius on Twitter for updates I spent years believing 808s to be Kanye's weakest and frankly most uninspired album. However, in the early 1980s, the 808 was a commercial failure. To talk about 808s & Heartbreak, you have to first talk about the aforementioned TR-808. A full decade later, it’s hard to imagine acts like Trippie Redd, Post Malone, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie or even trap superheroes like Young Thug and Future, without Kanye’s 2008 album. 808s & Heartbreak was their first collaboration, and likely the most memorable. After a chance meeting at a Virgin Megastore in 2004, West called on Cudi to reference hooks for Jay-Z. Two devastating personal events – … Similarly on 808s & Heartbreak, at his numbest, most depressed, moment, Kanye was able draw out real emotion from that drum machine, an Auto-Tune filter, and his own life to create a blueprint artists continue to follow to this day. But we never would have had 808s & Heartbreak without Kid Cudi. Released 24 November 2008 on Roc-A-Fella (catalog no. Similarly, at a 2008 press conference to promote his then-new album 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye West described the inspiration for the album as “suffering multitude losses at the same time—it’s like losing an arm and a leg and having to find a way to keep walking through it.” In the months leading up to 808s, Kanye experienced the dissolution of a six-year relationship with his then fiancée Alexis Phifer and, most tragic of all, the death of his mother Donda West following a cosmetic surgery procedure. While other contemporary machines like the Linn LM-1 or the Oberheim DMX typically retailed for about $5,000, the TR-808 came in at a little over $1,000. We see Kanye West in a much more emotional and insecure yet simultaneously egotistical position, after the death of his mother and his public breakup with Amber Rose Mr West is in a very insecure position in his life. Nine years ago today (Nov. 24), Kanye West released his groundbreaking "808s & Heartbreak" singing album, which was met with polarizing backlash at the time. Stream Tracks and Playlists from 808s & Heartbreaks on your desktop or mobile device. There's true moments of genius, then there are moments of looking through the archives and putting shit together," he said. On “Heartless,” he simultaneously calls a woman a super villain for leaving him while telling her she’ll never find another man as good as him. With stark production and sung vocals, ‘808s & Heartbreak’ found Kanye West bearing his soul and paving the way for The Weeknd and Drake. Kanye has a reputation for being self-obsessed, but 808s & Heartbreak takes almost a step past it being endearing, when it comes to his discussion of relationships and love lost. This week marks the 10 year anniversary of Kanye’s most ambitious album. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.” But broken hearts have always been practical in one regard—their consistent ability to inspire art. On 808s, however Kanye is the one drowning, with lost loves stepping past his flailing hands leaving him to wallow in deep, suffocating sadness. //]]>, Sorry, we have to make sure you're a human before we can show you this page. The intense sense of dread that pervades throughout feels true to life. The axe cut off his limbs, forced him to trade in flesh and blood for cold, hard, metal, and eventually caused him to lose his heart. Many serious musicians didn’t respect the machine because of its artificial sounds, and the aforementioned transistors made an already unpopular machine impossible to produce after advances in semiconductor technology. 808s & Heartbreak, an Album by Kanye West. For every “Sexual Eruption” or “Blame It On The Alcohol” there were missteps like Birdman’s regrettable verse on Shawty Lo’s “Foolish” remix, Ron Browz’s Young Joc knockoff “Gimme Twenty Dollars,” and whatever the hell The Game was trying to do on “Red Rockin’.” When you started to see legends like the late, great, Guru, stepping far outside of their comfort zones and injecting Auto-Tune into their music, a course correction was clearly on the horizon. Kanye West's fourth full-length studio album. In the decade since the album’s release, there have been very few traces of the smiling, Louis-Vuitton-backpack-clad kid from the Chi who reminded the world that you don’t always need to have street cred to have an authentic hip-hop career. But all of those quirks helped bring about the 808’s future ubiquity in hip-hop music. Genres: Electropop, Synthpop, Contemporary R&B. "http":"https";t.getElementById(r)||(n=t.createElement(e),n.id=r,n.src=i+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js",s.parentNode.insertBefore(n,s))}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Both Common’s Electric Circus and Yasiin Bey’s The New Danger were were met with mixed reviews and commercial indifference. To the point where it’s almost weird. Discover more posts about 808s and heartbreak. 808’s & Heartbreak helped me be able to express myself more and speak about my emotions in a way I had never done before. Kanye’s personal loss was the music world’s gain, but here’s hoping that one day he will be made whole again. It’s easy to draw a direct through line from 808s & Heartbreak to one of 2018’s biggest hits, Juice WRLD’s emo, heartbreak anthem “Lucid Dreams.” Juice WRLD’s album, Goodbye & Good Riddance, similarly deals with life after a breakup. The album is really uneven and has innovative moments and plain boring moments. He changed up his style for 808s and Heartbreak, and has been doing the same with every album since. If we regard Kanye West as a genius (and by all rights we should), 808s is … //