The Rundown: Kanye West, Yeezus
A track-by-track breakdown of 'Ye's game-changing LP.
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The Rundown: Kanye West, Yeezus - Last Monday in New York, Kanye West played his sixth album, Yeezus, for the first time in public at a listening session. Beforehand, in a classic Yeezy rant, he described his marketing plan: "I got this new strategy called no strategy." But with industry experts saying that Yeezus, which drops today, is set to sell half a million its first week, it's hard to believe him. In this case, the mystery was the marketing. Kanye purposely cultivated an air of secrecy around the album and then pulled off a few high-profile coups that most artists can only dream of: an SNL performance, a headlining slot at the Governor's Ball festival in New York. Not to mention the genius, straight-to-the-people stunt of projecting videos in public places worldwide. But marketing can only get you so far: Kanye's left-field plan will only work if the album speaks ...
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"On Sight" - As if the barely-there artwork and the punk-ish SNL performances weren't clue enough, "On Sight" quickly establishes that Yeezus is going to challenge. After an abrasive synth note rings out, a distorted electro beat that takes inspiration from old-school Detroit ghetto tech starts to pulse relentlessly. "A monster about to come alive again," Kanye raps, and he makes good on that threat later on — the rhymes on Yeezus are some of his most in-your-face and egotistical. West and co-producers Daft Punk almost seem to acknowledge the offense; the beat switches to a happy soul sample halfway through. Though, in this context, it sounds almost scary, like a ghostly reminder of Kanye's old, discarded sound and self. (Photo: Dana Edelson/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank)
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"Black Skinheads" - Linking again with co-producers Daft Punk, Kanye drops "Black Skinheads," one of the most unorthodox songs of his career. Filled with battered tom drums and cymbals, grimy 808s and echoing screams, it's more industrial punk rock than rap. Nonetheless, "Skinheads" is one the most accessible, danceable songs on the album, which begs the point: Yeezus didn't produce a single not because of some purposeful shunning of industry tradition, but because there simply isn't a song here that has any chance of radio play. "I've been a menace for the longest, but I ain't finished," Kanye raps, a fitting omen: It quickly becomes apparent that Yeezus is Kanye's biggest, baddest middle finger to his critics yet. (Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images)
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"I Am a God" - The perfect pop star for the Internet age, Kanye is a top-notch troll. Like the album title, "I Am a God" is the perfect example: egotistical, offensive to some, hilarious to others. It's hard to tell how serious his messiah complex is, until you hear the hilarious hook: "I am a God, in a French...restaurant, hurry up with my damn croissants." The stripped-down, urgent beat, all 808s and dissonant howls, definitely bears the mark of the legendary Rick Rubin, Yeezus' executive producer. (Photos from left: Kevin Winter/Getty Images, Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
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"New Slaves" - "New Slaves" is perhaps Kanye's most overtly political song, drawing a direct line between the physical slavery of years past and the material, consumerist slavery of 2013. Just when the four-note, drumless beat starts to become overbearing, and just when you start to question Kanye, of all people, attacking materialism and capitalitism, the song transforms beautifully, with another dusty soul sample hosting West's Auto-Tuned howl and guest Frank Ocean's falsetto. (Photo: NBC)
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"Hold My Liquor" - Leave it to Kanye to somehow put Chief Keef and indie folk singer Bon Iver on the same track. Abandoning the cacophonic minimalism on the rest of the album, the beautifully menacing "Hold My Liquor" floats, with lush layers of piercing electric guitar screeches, Bon Iver's other-wordly, vocodered harmonies, an Auto-Tuned Keef on the hook and filtered synths. Kanye is again willfully flashing his a--hole card, but with a tongue-in-cheek wink: "When I park my Range Rover, slightly scratch your Corolla; okay, I smashed your Corolla," he confesses. (Photos from left: 247PapsTV / Splash News, Johnny Nunez/Getty Images, Chris Jackson/Getty Images)
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"I'm In It" - "Time to take it too far now," Kanye raps on "I'm In It," and he lives up to that promise. It's seduction ala Yeezy: There's a a clumsy line that connects a Black Power symbol to a pornographic act and a sexual reinvention of Martin Luther King's "free at last" reprise — two of many moments on the album where Kanye seems to purposefuly thumb his nose at sacrosanct Black cultural icons. But the lyrical misses can't contain the combustive production, which jumps from dark industrial to bouncing dancehall and back, bursting with dog barks, sirens, screams, chatting from Jamaican deejay Agent Sasco and more demonically affected singing from Bon Iver. (Photo: Shareif Ziyadat/FilmMagic)
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"Blood on the Leaves" - In another ingenius juxtaposition of opposites, Kanye blends a reference to C-Murder's "Down 4 My N---as," trap production from hipster-adored beatmakers TNGHT and a sample from Nina Simone's brutal version of "Strange Fruit." The lattermost, though, is troubling — a brutal requiem about lynchings repurposed for a song about breakups, gold-diggers and molly. Kanye even compares having to give his wifey and mistress separate courtside basketball seats to apartheid. It seems so willfully offensive that we can't help but wonder if Kanye, by aligning his superficial first-world problems with the all-too-real struggles of his ancestors, is making a deeper critical statement about himself and society as whole. (Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage)
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"Guilt Trip" - An ice-cold look at lost love, "Guilt Trip" is reminiscent of 808s & Heartbreak in its robotic melancholy. Kanye raps through Auto-Tune, though the sad tone is sometimes broken up by a few lyrical eye-rollers ("Your feelings like Zulu, then nothing is a Shaka / I hit her with Jamaican d--k, I'm the new Shabba"). Kanye drops another hint of dancehall in the form of a Popcaan sample on the hook, before beautiful cello swirls introduce Kid Cudi, who's emotional sung coda is a fitting swan song to his now-terminated G.O.O.D. Music membership. (Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage)
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"Send It Up" - With King L, another young gunner from Chicago's drill scene, on the hook, "Send It Up" is the closest thing to a party song on Yeezus. After the emo sturm-and-drang of the previous three tracks, it's a welcome head-nodder, highlighted by the combination of deliriously drunken sirens, a bumping lo-fi drum beat and L's casually murderous tone.