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Between his warbling experiments and Kanye’s more structured, melodically well-chiseled ones, many artists who found T-Pain’s work too circus-y found something to like and imitate. Around this time, Lil Wayne - who was at the apex of his popularity - was using it frequently. T-Pain is the under-appreciated progenitor, but Kanye improved the technique’s reputation. Most importantly, T-Pain, the first rapper to popularize Autotune, worked with Kanye in Hawaii, helping him teaching him how use the effect correctly.Ĩ08s is often considered the first release to successfully present Autotune as a “legitimate” instrument as opposed to a gimmick.
#808S AND HEARTBREAK REDDIT REGISTRATION#
Kanye’s interest in making Roland TR-808 drum machines and vintage synths the bulwark of this album was also thanks to Jon Brion - indie-pop artist, film composer extraordinaire, and co-producer of Late Registration and Graduation - who showed ‘Ye around the technology. Instead of just sampling sounds he liked, Kanye would bring in collaborators to assist him in realizing the textures in which he was interested. On 808s, Kanye also solidified the working methodology for his subsequent albums, one he had been building up to on previous releases. He called the sparse opener “Say You Will” one of “his favorite tracks he’s ever done”: Propelled by cold atonal bleeping evoking an EKG machine, and faint, haunting synth pads, it feels like a tribute to the exposition of Phil Collins’ 1981 hit “In the Air Tonight,” one of the moodiest drum-machine-driven classics in the history of pop. In a 2008 MTV interview, Kanye specified that he was tapping into an interest in auteurs from that decade, from Gary Numan to Sting to Phil Collins, as well as musically paying tribute to “minimal and functional” architecture, one of his interests at the time. 808s can also be reasonably credited with proliferating trends toward an unabashedly ‘80s-pop-influenced sound in rap and pop production, expanding on a wave that was on the rise already in indie music. The influence of Kanye’s melodic, melancholic sound on the record has been noted in regards to the career of successors like Kid Cudi and the man who’s by now seemingly sublimated everything that originally made him what he is: Drake. On Friday night, Kanye is revisiting the album by performing it in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl, for two nights - presumably, he’s also aware and proud of its continuing significance. Over time, it’s proved itself to be much more than a fluke, anticipating and influencing the direction popular music would take in the following years. In hindsight, the album seems like a logical extension of Kanye’s pre-existing interest - on Graduation, most dramatically - in synthesizing pop, indie pop/rock and hip-hop trends. Faithful Kanye devotees who didn’t like 808s prayed that it was a one-off experiment, and many others had to take a little time to let its unique pleasures settle in. Detractors thought Kanye was on the verge of insanity or washed-ness he’d let the massive success of his previous experiments go to his head, and thought an album he’d lobbed off in two months on vacation would be regarded as an instant masterpiece.
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A down-tempo album with little in the way of sampling and more singing than rapping - processed through T-Pain’s maligned Autotune patch at that - 808s was perceived as Kanye going “emo” in the wake of the death of his mother and the dissolution of his relationship with Alexis Phifer. Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak was, upon its impact almost seven years ago, an instant source of bewilderment and fascination.