Kanye West - Yeezus

Overview: Yeezus Christ.

Yeezus is Kanye West's 6th studio album coming off of the heels of the Watch the Throne collaboration with Jay-Z. Kanye tried something new by announcing the release date a month prior to the release and giving no singles to radio. Kanye being Kanye still debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200. This album sees the production going in a more electronic style while Kanye returns to using AutoTune as he did on 808s & Heartbreak which isn't entirely welcome. As always with Kanye, each album is incredibly different from each other, with the arguable exceptions of The College Dropout and Late Registration. Now, anyone who knows me knows that my favorite Ye album is 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy so I was kinda hoping this would be MBDTF, Part II but it's not.

The Positive: There's some good Kanye on here still, his final verse on "Blood On the Leaves" is absolutely nuts and cements the song in as my favorite on the album. The beat by electronic duo TNGHT(check out their EP) is a banging beat that makes you want to go absolutely crazy. "New Slaves" and "Black Skinhead" take a close second with great beats and classic Kanye rhyming over them. "Guilt Trip" is an odd song with an extremely weird hook but it's infectious. I also think that Cudi was underutilized on the track but his voice is still always a welcome sound. "I'm in it" is hysterical in my opinion with my favorite line being "Eating Asian pussy, all I need is sweet and sour sauce" I still crack up every time I hear it. The closing track, "Bound 2" is a love song, yes a Kanye West love song, and it just works. It's a great song and it shows a side of Kanye we haven't really seen before but I'm hoping we get to see more of, possibly on the rumored Yeezus II?

The Meh: "Send it Up" and "Hold My Liquor" are incredibly middle of the road. The beat on "Send it Up" is a great beat but it's not done justice. "Hold My Liquor" is so mediocre it's ridiculous. The added vocals of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame is welcome but the vocals from Chief Keef aren't. "On Sight" is odd as well, hard hitting electronic beats with Kanye riding over them sounds good on paper but as an album opener it kind of falls flat but it's just good enough to stay out of the negative.

The Negative: One song, "I Am a God". It's a bragging track but it doesn't live up to a God-like stature. Kanye follows the line "I am a God" with "hurry up with my damn massage", it's very underwhelming, as is the entire album. I usually enjoy when Ye brags because he's good at what he does but this one just does not hold up.

Overall: I listened to this at least 6/7 times fully through before coming to a verdict on how I felt about it. Kanye is Kanye's worst enemy, his ego gets in his way. His past albums make us hold him up to a higher standard as many would argue that 2 maybe even 3 of his previous 5 albums are modern hip hop classic(The College Dropout, Late Registration and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). Yeezus fails to live up to the standards previous set by the rapper, we've come to expect more from him. If you're gonna make a rap album and only have 10 tracks you better make damn sure that those 10 tracks can make a great album.

Number of Tracks Kept: 7/10

Rating: 6/10