After over a year of speculation about its release date and a jumbled rollout featuring different album tracklists, names and covers, “The Life of Pablo” has graced the ears of all listeners — so long as they are Tidal subscribers. The actual release of the album was an experience in and of itself, with Kanye leaping from the floor during his SNL performance and screaming about the album’s release. About an hour later, the album was up, and fans, eager to listen, rushed to sign up for Tidal’s 30-day free trial.
Kanye has not been shy in subjecting his work to criticism, speaking ad nauseam about how good he thinks his latest effort is, going so far on Twitter as to call it “ONE of the greatest albums.” While bold, this is nothing new even to the least staunch Kanye observer. In the weeks leading up to the album’s release, Kanye blitzed social media with strange episodes of antagonism — his 17-tweet rant toward Wiz Khalifa comes to mind, as does his confounding “BILL COSBY INNOCENT” tweet — vulnerability and introspection.
The release was the full Kanye experience. Taking in “The Life of Pablo,” it becomes readily apparent how impossible it is to separate the content from this ethos.
The album kicks off with the stunning “Ultralight Beam,” a heavy and soulful track featuring R&B artist Kelly Price, gospel musician Kirk Franklin and rap standout Chance the Rapper. The song is over five minutes long, allowing each artist a turn in the proverbial spotlight. It also establishes “The Life of Pablo” as Kanye’s attempt at a gospel album, not in the religious sense, but, as Kelly Price described it in an interview with Billboard magazine, “It just means ‘good news’ so when you are delivering good news you are, in fact, delivering the gospel.”
This album is not particularly deep — there are no dizzying bars needing meticulous unpacking — but it is Kanye’s sincere attempt to find joy in his many frailties. The hook on the album’s second track, “Father Stretch My Hands Pt.1,” — “I just wanna feel liberated / if I ever instigated I’m sorry” — speaks to this pursuit.
The song’s first verse, however, drops a tasteless bar about having sex with a model. This gross departure from an otherwise wholesome hook is largely the album’s, and Kanye’s, method of operation. There is always something appreciable about a Kanye song to justify any moral detours, much like how Kanye himself is just likable enough to distract from his many indiscretions. It does not make the album’s weak points any less so, but it does make internalizing the album a more palatable task.
These juxtapositions litter the album. “Famous,” for example, is a beautiful sonic experience, pitting a great performance from Rihanna and creative beat switching against a ridiculous line where Kanye references Taylor Swift’s fame. The melodramatic and minimalist beauty of songs like “FML,” “Real Friends,” “Wolves” and “30 Hours” butt against hard-hitting bangers like “Pt. 2,” “Feedback,” “Highlights” and “Freestyle Part 4.”
Kanye’s latest album is braggadocious yet tempered, ignorant yet introspective. It, much like the artist himself, cannot quite figure out what it wants to be. Whether or not this appeals to listeners depends almost entirely on the fan base’s emotional stake in the Kanye West brand. A sonic masterpiece, “The Life of Pablo” delivers Kanye’s best work in half a decade, taking the listener on the same rollercoaster its anti-hero so often does.
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