For The Record: November

November is the month that Winter officially bites and all the indie acts hibernate for the year, leaving the big boys to release their stuff. As you might have heard, Kanye West put out his fifth album 'My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy'. Suffice to say, it's pretty incredible. With retrospect the over-blown nature of much of the album could well sound ridiculous but I haven't listened to anything else in the two weeks since I was sent the album. Album of the year? It's an instant contender.

November's best releases:

Kanye West - My Beautiful, Dark Twisted Fantasy (Album of the Month)
Robyn - Body Talk Pt. 3
Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday
Chad Valley - Chad Valley EP
Twin Shadow - Forget
Girls - Broken Hearts Club EP
Yelawolf - Trunk Musik 0-60
Rihanna - Loud
Cee-Lo Green - The Ladykiller
Becoming Real - Spectre EP
Mellowhype - Blackenedwhite

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Kanye West + Co. - Monster

Sorry this is a tad late - only just torn myself away from Nicki's verse to post properly.

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Kanye West - Power (Mastered version)

"They say I was the abomination of Obama's nation. Well that's a pretty bad way to start a conversation." spits Kanye over a beat sampling and inspired by King Crimson. It's typically confrontational stuff from Mr West but we've come to expect no less. Seemingly going through a list of criticisms levelled at him, Kanye brushes aside those who attack his ego and stands up to be counted amidst a monumental backing of chanted vocals. For every time he does something dumb, for every time he tries to block the sun with his ego or every time he steps out with his performance art girlfriend we forgive him for this is what Kanye does best - standing up and being counted. On top of his game like this; nobody else gets near.

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Grammy Awards 2009- The Performances

Any awards show that gives Robert Plant a handful of awards is clearly living in the boring ages. Never mind though as Radiohead and MIA (With a few friends) turned in amazing performances. Enjoy. x

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N.A.S.A- The Spirit Of Apollo

N.A.S.A (North America, South America), the brainchild of Squeek E. Clean and DJ Zegon, certainly wins the award for most star studded album of 2009. The people involved in his project range from straight up hip-hop (Ghostface Killah, Chuck D, ODB), hipster crossover (MIA, Santogold, Spank Rock) right through to Tom Waits, Karen O, David Byrne and John Frusciante. Somehow they manage to bring these disparate voices together to create a vibrant and exciting record that bursts with excitement and possibilities.

Alongside Byrne the biggest name on show here is Kanye West and his track 'Gifted' alongside Santogold is one of the albums highlights. symptomatic of the album it's full of big beats, red hot rapping and hook laden choruses. West provides his typically confident and charismatic vocals alongside Santi White sounding as good as anything on her 2008 debut record. David Byrne follows his work with Dirty Projectors with another unlikely collaboration featuring here on 2 tracks 'The Money Tree' and 'Money'- his enigmatic vocals providing a welcome air of weirdness to proceedings.

At 17 tracks it is perhaps too long but this is an album designed to be cut and pasted across blogs, playlists and mixtapes. Regardless of what style of music you're into there will be a guest on here to capture your attention and almost certainly more to keep you tuned in.

8/10

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Kanye West- 808's & Heartbreak

LINK

Kanye West: the one man headline generator. He derides homophobia in hip-hop, declares George Bush doesn’t care about black people, says Justice make terrible videos and has beef with everyone from 50 Cent to Newcastle’s paparazzi. West is supremely confident and with good reason, it’s perfectly conceivable that he is the most innovative and successful mainstream artist in the 21st century. This confidence is sometimes confused for arrogance though (See his various claims of deserving every award going) and ‘808’s & Heartbreak’ might just be the most arrogant move West ever makes.

There have been whispers of this album being the ‘Hip-Hop Kid A’ and that West has ditched rapping all together to go in a self professed soulful Phil Collins direction. The latter claim is most definitely true, this album bears no relation to Kanye’s previous three albums and is a bold step away from the chart friendly anthems of ‘Gold Digga’ and ‘Stronger’. The Kid A thing remains to be seen, it’s certainly an innovative album but it’s far from revolutionary. The move away from the more crowd friendly material backfired on Kanye when he leaked ‘808’s first single 'Love Lockdown' onto the internet. Fans complained about the vocals and the drums and Kanye was forced to re-record the song. A good choice it seems as the album version is a sparse but intensely passionate modern pop song that bridges the gap between the old Kanye and the new one.

From the outset the cold, metronomic beats descend creating a brooding and introspective atmosphere for West to launch himself into. ‘Say You Will’ is an epic introduction that sounds like a heart monitor in a hospital being serenaded by a chorus of angels. The sombre mood continues with ‘Welcome To Heartbreak’, ‘Heartless’ and ‘Amazing’ all slipping along at a slow but impressive rate. By the time ‘Love Lockdown’ comes around things start to noticeably pick up pace. ‘Paranoid’ is the first party track on the album with an 80’s synth backing and guest vocals giving the track an infectious chorus, a possible future single. Other potential hits on the album come in the shape of ‘Robocop’, ‘Coldest Winter’ and ‘Street Lights’

The hanging point on ‘808’s & Heartbreak’, the real deal breaker, will be people’s tolerance towards the auto-tune production. Most memorably used on Cher’s ‘Believe’ the device to correct vocal imperfection is on over-time dealing with Kanye’s weak vocals. By over-indulging in the method the vocals take on a robotic and futuristic style that elevates them beyond a human sound however this still fails to mask the lack of harmony or presence in the vocal itself. It was always going to be a risk for a renowned MC to change his style so dramatically and by and large West gets away with it. You suspect he will return to rap and hip-hop for album number five but ‘808’s’ is a risk worth taking.

'Love Lockdown'

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