The intro to “Robocop” reminds me of the stumbling drums and movie clip beginning of Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love”, an 80s art-pop classic about the fucked up fears of love and relationships (the strings are similar too). But then it just goes on some other shit, similar to the Phil Collins nod, it’s a smart attempt to resolve 80s homage with Kanye’s own musical concerns.
This song is defiantly over-produced, there’s at least two too many string melodies, but the way it explodes into ecstatic melodramatic schmaltz for the chorus is like the triumphant scene in old animes like Robotech or G-Force brings it altogether and justifies the overabundance of sounds. Similarly, the end when Kanye drops most of the instruments out and falls back on only the regal strings for his “spoiled little L.A girl” coda is something that wouldn’t have the same power if he’d controlled himself on the other parts of the song.
What’s so great about this song is how Kanye stops sounding sad or upset, there’s a smile in his voice as he mockingly outlines the sequence of events—“who knew she was a drama queen/That’d turn my life to Stephen King’s”—and of course, he keeps comparing her actions to the iconic, emotionless 80s action hero. The song’s just fucking mean and angry and also laughing into the void a bit and that’s why it works. There’s no back and forth between depressed and angry, there’s no sad-sack jusfications of his assholism, he’s just laughing about the whole thing and being a total dick. And it’s brilliant.
There’s also an interesting aspect to the whole thing, especially when his girlfriend cheating comes into the album on “Bad News”, that Kanye was faithful and devoted to her but his past kept coming up. One’s history’s always an issue in a relationship, but while say, it’s weird if some chick I used to do it with is in the same record store or something as me, Kanye’s ex probably had to deal with seeing/hearing about famous or industry people Kanye’d been with, which makes it all the more inescapable.
Mix into this Kanye’s condescension (“there’s some thing she don’t need to know”) and his girlfriend’s clear inability to “drop it” (“yeah, I had her before/but that happened before/You get mad when you know, so just don’t ask me no more”) and it has the same sad, outside forces meets interior psychological fuck-ups that ruins most relationships.
But Kanye, at least for the length of the song, sees it all as a farce—probably the healthiest attitude to have—and so, he says fuck it and goes all out, making a goofy song called “Robocop” and ending it with a really funny and really cruel taunt about how she’s “a spoiled little L.A girl”. This is the knowing side of Kanye as he’s taken it so far that there’s no way he comes out of this song looking like anything but an asshole. The line “You must be jok-ing/Or you are smok-ing” gets me everytime.
And then, we go from the goofball glorious strings of “Robocop” to sad-bastard piano and wailing electronics on “Street Lights” and it’s the aural equivalent of regret for all the prick bullshit he just piled atop his ex one song before.
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