the coldest story ever told

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Another super-stylised video from Kanye West and his all-Autotune project...

Heartless from kwest on Vimeo

Too hungover for actual words today but there's something quite...folky about 'Heartless', isn't there?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hahahah pan-pipes!

The style reminds me of the Lemonjelly album covers.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also wtf, why the hell has he got portraits of characters from the Jetsons in his house? Awesome tick vg of course.

[weasel-seeker.livejournal.com]

So, all but two tracks have leaked by now, and I'm generally impressed.

This is very moody stuff, and I'm still not sure where exactly it lands on the spectrum between setting a tone and being too 'same-y', but it's kind of entrancing. Ye is simultaneously expanding the weird eurotrance template he was nudging towards with Graduation, while bringing back the auteurism and personal stake that felt absent from that record.

Amazing ft. Young Jeezy is great and creepy and I need to go listen to it again. Wayne fails to impress, but that's par for the course in his recent guest spots. 808s is a strong contender for something. Not sure what.

[pointyelbow.livejournal.com]

I have only heard this song and Love Lockdown but from what you write, I'm really excited about this record. I disagree with what you say about "Graduation", however. To me, "Graduation" was the first clear picture of Kanye we've had, at least in album form. It is such a concise and coherent record, especially compared to the first two. At first I assumed that to be because of the lack of skits and filler tracks, but it also had a rawness to the production that really popped the first few times I heard it. The eurotrance template you mention really stood out and gave the record a distinctness and cohesiveness the first two albums lacked. I say this thinking of the music and sound of the album, not so much the lyrics, which I've never really examined much.