“Released late Friday, Jay-Z’s new single, “D.O.A (Death of Auto-Tune),” from the now thoroughly-announced The Blueprint 3, is less a Martin Luther-like cry for hip-hop reformation than an awkward slab of concept rap. The concept: That a new Jay-Z song about rap’s current “lack of aggression” and tight jeans, over a jagged No I.D. beat of choked clarinet and wailing guitar, simply by existing, represents the death of auto-tune.
That’s the idea anyway. Really, the song is just a new way to say “this is that real street shit”–e.g., this is that death of auto-tune shit. It’s a gimmicky song that sets out to destroy Rap & B’s latest gimmick. The stunt is reminiscent of Hip-Hop Is Dead, the rap-killing album by Jay-Z’s good buddy Nas, and Jay’s own American Gangster, which found businessman Jay-Z painted into a corner in which the only way to return to reliable gun-talk was to wrap it around a movie tie-in conceit.
In the two days or so since the song was released, “D.O.A.” hasn’t yet killed the vocal manipulation trend–and it probably won’t, ever. As VIBE’s Sean Fennessey pointed out, HOT97–where the track debuted to the ritual flurry of Funkmaster Flex sound effects–was playing auto-tuned Ron Browz productions within a half hour of letting “D.O.A” out into the world. Can you kill something that parodied itself from its inception? When T-Pain’s collaborating with joke-rappers Lonely Island and um, Death Cab For Cutie have half-jokingly spoken out, you’re late to the game. At this point, the only thing more obnoxious than auto-tune is being categorically opposed to the trend…”
Kanye doesn’t make it easy to take him seriously, but the whole mom dying of plastic surgery thing is genuinely fucked-up and we shouldn’t forget that. While so many famous people talking about their problems seems obnoxious because it’s the same crap we all have to deal with minus the money and girls fame brings you, Kanye’s giving us an actually interesting and rarified peak into celebrity-hood and wrapping it around something that really wouldn’t have happened if he were still some nerd in Chicago making beats.
This song’s mock triumphant, the synths fart instead of pulse and the regal melody’s pretty absurd; assertive and confident but really stupid too. Lil Wayne’s goofball verse is inarguably pretty terrible, but it’s also pretty funny and if you’re listening hard enough, more forthright and honest than almost anything Kanye says on the album. He’s Kanye’s ugly weirdo demon Id, croaking and joking and saying the same bullshit Kanye’s been saying, but more vulnerable and more like, putting himself out there, not concerned with how stupid he looks or sounds.
It’s fairly clear that this song’s about his ex cheating on him and apparently cheating on him for awhile, but what’s so interesting–although frustrating too–is how Kanye sort of mumbles and rambles around the issue and never confronts it head-on. Whether this was conscious or just the result of Kanye doing his best to deal with something that’s really embarrassing–especially if you’re a guy, a famous guy at that–but even now, even as he makes an album that millions will hear, he can’t totally confront it or like, verbalize it directly.
While 808s at first, seems messy and all over the place–an impulsive, angry bitchfest by one of the few artists that’s popular and selling enough to still get away with such a thing–multiple listens pull out a non-linear but thought-out narrative of his relationship. A relationship that dissolved not long after the death of his mother, a point that West leaves only up to your reading of the gossip pages and album ender “Coldest Winter”. For all its rockist, album concessions, Kanye’s latest doesn’t actually play by anybody’s rules and, like a lot of out-there weirdo, minor masterpieces, it looks and sounds a mess at first.
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.
808s is clearly cathartic for Kanye but there’s the odd, uncomfortable (in a good way) sense that this album has all kinds of layers and weirder, more implicit digs at ex-fiancee Alexis. Does anyone else get the feeling the in-the-background talking towards the beginning of “Paranoid” is Kanye and his ex? Some drop of audio he picked up while working on a song or something? Is “Robocop” just a goofball way of calling out his maybe too concerned with the chicks he banged in the past girlfriend or was there some all-out fight between the two where, in the big, dumb heat of the moment Kanye blurted out that she was “like a Robocop”? I’ve made dumber comparisons in a fit of anger.
Everything I said here about “Love Lockdown” is still valid and that’s why it’s such a strange song, part of an album. Some points where I no longer agree with myself though are related to the “critic bait” accusation and musical signifying.
Besides musical reasons why “Amazing” is a success, Kanye’s finally working with a complex concept that’s triumphant, but on the defensive, and fully aware of its absurdity. It’s a song about hiding behind his fame and celebrity to conceal all the ugly personal bullshit he’s going through and using that fame and celebrity as a kind of ultimate dig at his ex. But his languid vocals and obsessive “No matter what, you’ll never take that from me” make it clear that his fame makes him feel awesome but doesn’t protect him and the “I’m famous” bit’s just a ruse. It’s not as overtly harsh, but it comes from the same above-it-all cruelty he affects on “Robocop” during that devastating “spoiled little L.A girl” outro.
By not being a rap album, 808s highlights everything that’s vital and specific to rap music as a form of expression. Contextualized as the non-rap album from a rapper, it’s nearly impossible to hear each song and not think about how much more interesting and complicated they’d be if the monster hooks had raps between them.
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?