If you've gone this whole week without hearing the words "The Life of Pablo," in that order, there's a good chance you should get out more. Kanye West's latest album dropped on Tidal (and Pirate Bay) on the 13th, after years of delays, re-writes, and ridiculous antics by the album's star.
Kanye's behavior in the amount of time it took him to record his latest album has been pretty deplorable—even some of Kanye's biggest fans (myself included) fell off the Yeezy train watching him make a fool out of himself for the last two years. Therefore, it's understandable that one wouldn't want to waste their time with "Life of Pablo;" why patronize possibly the most insane person in the industry?
Because it's a good album. If you don't want to pony up the time to listen to the whole thing, at least check out the highs and lows of Kanye's latest surprise.
Start with the album opener, "Ultralight Beam;" this is one of the greatest songs Kanye has ever recorded, and one of the greatest songs I've ever heard. The gospel background is the most Kanye thing ever—it's one of the best uses of his signature juxtaposition of rap with unlikely genres. The song is backed by a great, haunting beat, but even better is the verse by Kanye's protege, Chance the Rapper. It's one of the best rap features to come around in a while. Love Kanye or hate Kanye, this one is worth your time.
The two part "Father Stretch My Hands" is also worth hearing, despite some ridiculous lines dealing with models, bleach, and T-shirts. But the unconventional, emotional background beats and ending synths are a good complement to the preceding "Ultralight Beam."
Now, if you're not the biggest fan of Kanye ever or don't have any particular interest in "Life of Pablo," the next four songs are pretty skip-able. They're nothing you haven't heard from Kanye before, and even though they're a far cry from conventional rap songs, they aren't anything too special, considering Yeezy's catalogue. Not bad, but not great.
I would absolutely recommend skipping "Freestyle 4" and "I Love Kanye"—the former is a rather uncreative string of lines and "I Love Kanye" is nothing more than Kanye talking about how much he misses different iterations of himself. I guess you could call "I Love Kanye" a critique on society's image of him or whatever, but it's annoying to listen to, and that's all that matters when listening to music. Next, "Waves" has hints of gospel, so if you're into that, then cool, but it pales in comparison to the previous songs on the album.
"FML" and "Real Friends" fall into the "skip-if-you-don't-have-time" category. Again, they're two pretty unique rap songs, but nothing we haven't heard from Kanye before. By now, you may be thinking that all "Life of Pablo" is (for the most part) an album shrinking in the shadow of Kanye's former, superior works. But then things get good with "Wolves"—it's been performed on SNL, so you may know already if you like it or not. I will say that it works very well as a meditative piece. It's minimalist, with a simple one-voice choir providing the background sound, and even though he's becoming a tough guy to like, it's enjoyable hearing Kanye taking a break to be serious here for a while.
The same goes for "30 Hours" (skip the intermission in between this and "Wolves," it's not actually a song). The song, allegedly about a former relationship, is honest and endearing. The beat is also really hard not to love. In fact, I'd probably consider it the second-best song on the album, just because it's so refreshing to hear Kanye sound vulnerable while talking about a relationship (despite some cocky lines thrown in here and there) without sacrificing the fun beats that make Kanye so successful.
The album closes with a solid list of don't-miss songs; "No More Parties in LA" has a great Kendrick Lamar verse that alone makes the already-catchy song worth a listen. "Facts" has a bit of "Yeezus" to it, which is always a good thing—trademark "I don't care about anything" lyrics with a heavy-hitting beat. And "Fade" closes things out with, yet again, a weird sample that is pulled off with aplomb and Kanye singing with auto-tune a la "808's and Heartbreak."
For the first time in almost ten years, Kanye didn't reinvent the wheel here. But that's okay. Because even though some of the best songs on this album echo his earlier work, they're done well enough to be worthy additions to the Kanye catalogue of music. It is a solid Kanye West album that takes some chances, gives us some great rhythms and, best of all, makes us forget for about an hour that Kanye is kind of a freak in real life.
