Kanye West’s Ye misguided
Kanye West’s eighth album arrived Friday, and it’s likely to be just as controversial as everything else in the rapper’s orbit.
“Ye” is, as West promised in a tweet, seven songs long, a drastic change from the 20-song behemoth that his 2016 album “The Life of Pablo” ballooned into after he spent months adding extra tracks. The new album addresses many of the controversies of West’s past few years, mainly his mental breakdown and his recent burst of proTrump support, with West refusing to apologize, seeing little value in introspection and declaring on “Yikes” that his bipolar disorder is “my superpower — ain’t no disability.”
And while the combination of “Ye” and Pusha T’s West-produced Daytona album last week proves that the rapper is as strong a producer as ever, his ego gets in the way of his hitmaking abilities, with “Ye” lacking the easily lovable potential singles of West’s past albums. For all of West’s declarations of his “Ye’ era’s “dragon energy” genius, the music, taken together, is the least impactful of his career.
Many of the most striking moments of
“Ye” come in the first two tracks — “I Thought About Killing You,” with West’s spoken-word meditations about suicide, and “Yikes,” which delves into opioid addiction over a radio-ready beat — which suggest an album more honest about his health struggles than the one West actually delivers.
And even as West’s production sparkles, switching between anxious-sounding barely-there beats and moments of uplifting soul for the album’s lighter moods, he sabotages himself with inexplicable songwriting choices and unnecessary features that only weigh down the album’s potential hits. Vocalists appear on songs to attempt features that sound half-finished, from Jeremih’s mumbled appearance on “Wouldn’t Leave” to the squandered potential of “Ghost Town.”
For a 23-minute album, easily West’s shortest release, “Ye” doesn’t feel concise, and that’s not a good thing. It’s an album that, in its tedium and tonal shifts and verses that overstay their welcome, feels longer than an album like “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” which flies by in its smash singles and geniuslevel flows. “Ye” also drums up nostalgia for “The Life of Pablo,” a release that received mixed reviews, but in retrospect, is both a better work of social commentary than “Ye,” and is an infinitely more enjoyable listen.
For fans who are still on board with West’s visions of his own grandeur, they may very well find enough to love in Ye’s bright spots, which remind us of the old Kanye. But for the other listeners hoping for a work of Kanye West brilliance that would somehow nullify his controversies of the past few months, or even attempt to explain them, Ye will almost certainly disappoint.