Kanye West has a tendency to reinvent himself with every album. Late Registration sounds nothing like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which in turn sounds nothing like 808s & Heartbreak. But then there’s Yeezus.
Calling this album a reinvention is a gross understatement of the curveball Kanye’s hurled at his audience. This is a musical experiment almost on par with Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, albeit listenable.
There was a time when Kanye made catchy songs, songs that were both lyrically and musically interesting while still appealing to casual fans of pop music. Nowadays, he’s given up any pretense of radio-friendliness and replaced it with dark ambient soundscapes, disjointed synth leads, and autotuned hooks sung by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame.
Take the track ‘Blood on the Leaves’. At six minutes long, it encapsulates most of what the album has to offer, musically. It haphazardly jumps from auto-tuned verses reminiscent of 808s & Heartbreak to energetic, almost cinematic crescendos accompanying angry chants. It’s a dramatic, eclectic experience, resembling what I assume is the closest we’ll ever get to hearing Kanye’s take on Hans Zimmer.
Of course, you never do know where any of these songs could go. Every single track is dark and ambient, but besides that there is very little structure. At any given moment, there might be a familiar rap about Louis Vuitton and sex or an instrumental break with dissonant synths and uncomfortable silences. In short, if it’s not challenging, it’s not on the album.
And so, at its core, Yeezus is an anti-pop record. The first listen is a difficult one because it is unfamiliar territory. The listener is marooned on an island of strange sounds with no compass and very little indication of what lies ahead. With a little exploring, however, that island begins to make sense and the sounds within it, at first dark and unwelcoming, become fascinating.
Lyrically, Kanye is still Kanye. He has always managed to somehow, almost paradoxically, combine pro-social lyrics with unabashed egotism, and this is no different. If the album title doesn’t give it away, songs like ‘I am a God’ surely leave very little ambiguity over what the rapper thinks about himself. Meanwhile, ‘New Slaves’ explores the recurring theme of racial inequality and ‘I’m in It’ is one of the most explicitly sexual songs in Mr. West’s catalogue. Sex, social injustice, and conceit are rife on the album, often at the same time, but what more can we expect from the man who gave us ‘Gold Digger’ and ‘Hey Mama’ on a single release?
Despite changing his sound as dramatically as he possibly could, Kanye has done nothing about his penchant for one-liners and jokes. Between Star Wars references (‘Guilt Trip’) and claiming to speak “swag-hili” (I’m in It’), these lyrics are simultaneously a reminder of Kanye’s past music and, at times, a distraction to an otherwise serious record. At worst, they are cringe-worthy and at best, they are disjointed, which is a shame considering that some of the strongest moments on the album are when he delivers longer rapped verses as he does in ‘Send it Up.’
The most obvious question, then, is whether this album is good. Sadly, there is no simple answer. Conceptually, it is brilliant. It seems to be a necessarily album in the context of the rest of Kanye’s oeuvre: a complete disregard for expectations (including the decision not to have an album cover) and a musical experiment for the sake of experimenting. To listen to Yeezus is to listen to an artist do what every artist should at one point do. At times it comes off as a little heavy-handed, but it nevertheless is a very solid effort.
Is it an enjoyable experience, though? That depends on what the listener is expecting. On the one hand, it is undoubtedly a compelling record, one which will leave you both confused and intrigued if you are willing to invest time into it. But anyone expecting another ‘Stronger’ or ‘Touch the Sky’ will be disappointed. In fact, Kanye did not release any singles from this album, and that is not surprising in the slightest. There is not one traditionally catchy song or hook on the album, although that seems to be the point. None of these songs are radio-friendly, and for those listeners who want that, Yeezus does not disappoint.
When I imagine myself listening to this album in a few months, I cannot see myself having it on repeat the way I had (and still have) Late Registration and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It is not as consistent as the former or as masterfully produced as the latter. Then again, it isn’t trying to be either. For what it is—an unconventional, dark record—Yeezus only occasionally misses the mark. Kanye might have alienated a lot of fans, but in the process he’s produced an album that boldly states, “I am an artist. I’ll do what I want, and nothing else matters.” That in itself is very refreshing.