Kanye West - The Life of Pablo

We're far enough in Kanye West's discography at this point that the comparisons and the rankings conversations become more complex. And while they're all great and necessary and impactful in their own way, the conversation is important because Kanye is one of the few artists today and probably the only rapper to literally disregard everything that he had done before, revamp and find a way to push music and the culture forward with each new album. We're also two albums into a time period where music may not be 100% his sole focus. There's the clothing lines, the ambitions to run established clothing empires, Donda, attempts to fund Donda. It took over a year to get this album from the release of the first single. Part of that was probably figuring out a direction, but you don't have a year's worth (2 songs, but still) of false starts without some distractions.

And yet this album sounds nothing like "Only One" or "All Day," to the point where you have to imagine it may have mostly been created in the last month or so. We essentially saw the album be finalized from the sidelines based on Kanye's tweets. And now that the album is out, it's a weird thing to think about. The album is good and there are songs that are great, but it's also much more disjoint and almost random than any other Kanye album. Personally I think an album being "cohesive" is totally overrated, but "Ultralight Beam" into a rap about bleached asshole into a solo song by Fake Future?

In the past, it was safe to assume every decision on every Kanye album was intentional and vetted by a committee. With Yeezus, Rick Rubin said that many songs were recorded in the final week before deadline, but in retrospect that album seems much more focused than it did on the initial listen. So I've learned to trust Kanye, and again, the product is solid. But in its current form – it was literally in flux until the final hour – I can't tell if this is the way it is by chance or because of the deadline or entirely randomly. Or maybe it still is entirely intentional and Kanye has the ability to see the bigger picture at all parts of the process. Even the title. To go from Swish to Waves to The Life of Pablo. Does he see the album as symbolically similar to Picasso's works as a whole, to a specific Picasso piece? Does he just really like Pablo Picasso? Is he even talking about Picasso? Every Kanye album is very representative of how Kanye felt at that moment of time, but this album is representative of this literal two week span.

I love "Ultralight Beam." I love "FML" and "Fade." "Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1" is fire right up until the verse. You've got to appreciate "I Love Kanye." I can't be the only one confused by the presence of Desiigner. "Wolves" is still not that interesting. "30 Hours" and "No More Parties in LA" sound great but feel weird here even as bonus tracks. Every Ye verse being about sex and sex with women that may or may not be his wife in language that is ridiculous and so totally misogynist is weird and strange but so Kanye. Everything he does is honest and honestly flawed.