Album Review: Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

When sitting down to review the new Kanye West album, The Life of Pablo, where does one begin?

Does one try, simply, to focus on the music—the staggering 18 tracks that are enclosed within the album?

And, if so, does one try to ignore the media frenzy in the days leading up to, and surrounding its release?

Or, does one allow one’s self to be influenced by the confusing and maddening roll out of The Life of Pablo, the album we once knew as So Help Me God, Swish, and for about a week, Waves?

One thing is certain—The Life of Pablo exists. It’s no longer just an abstract idea—and exists outside of West’s own laptop, which was where he broadcast it from the incredibly self-aggrandizing album’s launch on February 11^th.

Let’s recap: We all thought that this was coming out last year, around this same time of year, give or take, allowing West to capitalize on the singles he was rolling out (“Only One” and “All Day”) as well as the first “season” of his clothing line with Adidas. But then time began to pass, and there was still no new album. And then before you knew it, 2015 came and went with no results.

So what was West doing all of last year?

It certainly wasn’t working on Pablo, because from the amount of Twitter posts West shared within recent weeks, as well as the album’s lyrical references to his son, born at the tail end of 2015, it’s very apparent that this album really came together in a very short, and very rushed amount of time—which adds to the immediacy, and urgency, with which the album arrives.

Whether you try to ignore the roll out of Pablo or not, the real question remains—does it live up to the excessive and weighty amount of hype surrounding it?

Yes. That is the real question isn’t it?

Much like the man himself, Pablo is a complicated album full of contradictions. It takes the bombast and murk of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and juxtaposes it with West’s cut and paste aesthetic from Yeezus, to create something that is so focused on being unfocused that it’s amazing the whole thing doesn’t implode while you are listening to it.

Let’s start with some of the low points, because despite his best efforts, there’s a number of those:

Lyrically, there are moments that leave much to be desired—like the controversial line about having sex with Taylor Swift; the line about getting bleach from a model’s asshole on his t-shirt; the line about being friends with Ray J if they hadn’t ‘loved the same bitch;’ a low blow against PETA w/r/t wearing an opossum coat; the entirety of the regrettable “Freestyle 4;” the fact that West brings back the ‘rap album skit’ with the “I Love Kanye” interlude; the kind of rap delivery I can’t stand showing up for a moment on the seemingly throwaway track, “Facts” which arrives here in the form of a remix; the awkward and repetitive lyrics (you’ll know which ones I’m talking about) during part of the stark, emotionally charged “Wolves;” and the pisstake that “30 Hours” becomes after a certain point in the song (again, you can figure out which part I’m talking about); and lastly, overall, West’s excessive use of auto-tune—he’s better than he gives himself credit for.

But let’s talk about the high points, shall we, since there are some of those too:

The absolute triumph that is the album’s strong (and most focused) opening track, “Ultralight Beam;” the laid back introduction to the puzzling two part track, “Father Stretch My Hands;” the powerful synthesizer sequencing on “Waves” (the song that, for some reason, apparently delayed the album’s release by two more days); the double shot of “Real Friends” (possibly the best song on the album, and for sure one of the best songs of 2016) with an alternate and (unfortunately) marginally disjointed version of “Wolves” (a piece that had been debuted last year on both “Saturday Night Live” as well as at the Yeezy Season 1 event); the slither and slink of the Arthur Russell sampling “30 Hours;” the blistering speed with which West delivers his breakneck verse on the “bonus” track “No More Parties in L.A.;” and the overall good time feeling that’s delivered by the psychedelic party vibes of “Fade.”

“Disjointed” is the keyword that best describes The Life of Pablo in the end—it’s the word I keep coming back to when I think about this record, and how it’s sequenced, and I guess pretty much everything surrounding its release. I stop short of saying it’s a hot mess, but it’s close. It’s very, very close. It’s not a bad record, however, it’s not a good or great record either. It has its moments, but it suffers greatly from its rushed production time, as well as its clear lack of focus. Kanye can’t be everything he wants to be at the same time, and The Life of Pablo shows that—husband, father, fashion designer, performer, and media pariah—and it’s all those things that he tries to cram into this odd album, and ends up with mixed, slightly questionable results that definitely buckles under the weight of its aspirations.

After all is said and done, there are moments that remind you why Kanye West is an important figure in contemporary popular music, and then there are moments (lots of them, for better and for worse) that remind you why Kanye West is one the most polarizing figures in contemporary popular music. The Life of Pablo is the kind of late career experiment that is not out to win any new fans, and it’s weird enough and jarring enough to possibly alienate some of the old ones who even stuck with him through Yeezus.

The Life of Pablo is available for one week as a Tidal exclusive, with further digital distribution arriving later. There is no information on physical copies of this release.