West angrily brushes away other people’s concerns and offers of support, but then discusses his despairing thoughts of suicide and depressive “bad days” in starkly affecting terms: “Screamed so loud got no lungs, hurt so bad I go numb”. It’s hard to think of another major rap album that exposes and dwells upon its star’s struggles with mental illness to this extent. You might hesitate to say that Ghost Town sounds like the work of a mind in the process of unravelling – the ongoing speculation about the state of West’s mental health is lurid and unsavoury – were it not for the fact that West himself spends large chunks of ye telling you that his mind is unravelling. Neither of the curious, attention-grabbing singles that preceded it are included, though the lyrical concerns of Ye vs the People are peppered throughout – you hear quite a lot about how no one fully understands the genius-level thought processes that led West to come out in favour of Donald Trump, which to hear him tell it was an act of nonpareil selflessness in the service of humanity. Its cover was apparently snapped by West on his phone en route to the launch. Its seven tracks – none of them an obvious hit single – clock in at a trim 23 minutes. It is neither a bold stylistic statement in the vein of 808s and Heartbreak (from 2008) or Yeezus (2013), nor a sprawling address along the lines of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy or ye’s immediate predecessor, The Life of Pablo.
I t seems a strange thing to say about an album premiered at a globally live-streamed exclusive playback that involved flying journalists and “influencers” to the mountain ranges of Wyoming – an event with its own merchandise range, including a long-sleeved T-shirt that retails for $145 – but there is something curiously low-key about Kanye West’s new album.
0 kommentar(er)
