You Worry About The Wrong Things

Kanye West “Paranoid”

I’m going to be honest with you: My first impressions of 808s and Heartbreak were pretty bad. At one point only a week ago I was throwing around hyperbolic phrases such as “aesthetic abomination” to describe it. Despite being put off by its abundance of autotuned vocals, it was immediately apparent to me that it could easily be someone’s favorite album, and so I resolved to give the record a fair shot. I kept with it, and it won me over gradually over the course of a few days, and then suddenly all at once as my ambivalence transformed into full-on love in the span of a couple hours.

It happened like this: At first, it all seemed very homogenous, but then I started flicking through and gravitating to interesting bits of sound, particularly in tracks like “Street Lights” and “Robocop.” Then I began to notice the variations in vocal effects, and realized that West was not just slipping into a standard T-Pain autotune autopilot, but was instead employing carefully considered tones and effects in order to achieve specific results of a piece with the goals of the entire arrangements. It’s so easy to think of autotune as being this crass, ugly production fad that seems to pop up almost exclusively in terrible songs, but West does so much on 808s and Heartbreak to redeem the very sound of it, and exploit it in ways that owe a debt to other artists who have toyed with vocal effects, but also seem specific to himself, and the particular, highly defined aesthetic of the album.

Ultimately, the thing that unlocked the album for me was the presence of warm, unfiltered vocals on the tracks “Paranoid” and “Street Lights.” They are crucial for both context and contrast, and sit on the far end of a very deliberate continuum of vocal expression on the record. In “Street Lights,” West’s vocals are recognizably human, but are shadowed by a particular grain of digital distortion that somewhat emulates the persistent ambient wash of white noise in a shoegazer song. That sound is complemented by an array of similarly woozy keyboard textures that leave the arrangement sounding like a cross between U2 and My Bloody Valentine before adding in some absolutely gorgeous gospel harmonies. West’s voice becomes more stiffly rhythmic and melancholic as the song progresses, contrasting dramatically with the passionate, largely wordless vocalizations of his backing singers.

“Paranoid” has a similar vocal dichotomy, but the composition is far more colorful and upbeat, thanks in part to keyboard parts straight out of French house music and inspired, nuanced synth-pop drum programming that owes a clear debt to the likes of Erasure, Depeche Mode, and New Order. “Paranoid” is a moment of relative levity in the middle of an otherwise down-hearted and bitter set of songs, and though it touches on the running theme of romantic distress and dissolution, its tone is more easygoing, conciliatory, and self-assured than its neighboring tracks. This comes across in the tones of keyboards and drum machines, but also in the way West’s largely rapped vocals slip casually in and out of autotune flourishes, and sit comfortably alongside some rather stunning R&B backing vocals on the chorus. The song gives off the aura of supreme confidence and style familiar from West’s previous records, but it does not contradict the sadness and confusion at its heart, or avoid the compelling yet occasionally appalling self-absorbed pettiness that comes through in nearly all of the record’s tracks.

In genre terms, “Paranoid” is a queer mutant, but it flows so naturally in these crisp, clean waves of pleasure that its distinctive arrangement is sort of a non-issue. The very presence of the autotune effect on the song seems very matter of fact, just one more particular and carefully selected sound among many, and then, boom, suddenly the entire album falls into line. Even the most drastic usage of autotune, often employed as a sort of distancing device, seems natural and brilliant rather than gimmicky and lame.

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