Many felt Kanye had abandoned what had made him good and was now catering to a white audience with pop songs instead of rap. The famous TR-808 drum machine was vital to the album's construction and West's choice to use auto tune over his voice (mainly to produce a distorted robotic sound and to pitch correct some flat notes) was the source of some media scrutiny. Seeking change, Kanye had away with hip hop beats and samples, instead focusing on crafting a record vastly different from his previous.

Now without the women he loved and the women who he idolised, Kanye was well and truly alone. Recently, his fiancé Alexis Phifer had left him, ending a longtime relationship and worse yet, his Mother Donda, the inspiration for the track 'Hey Mama' from Late Registration, had passed away due to complications following plastic surgery. It's an album dealing with personal demons and West certainly had a few af this point.

There's very little fun to be had in 808s and Heartbreak (bar maybe the surprisingly bombastic yet out of place 'RoboCop'). Instead, 808s takes on distorted icy synth landscapes, lead by West's robotic auto tuned voice. Gone are the stylish beats and soul samples, the uplifting but at truthful lyrics. While his first two records were lush, soulful upbeat hip hop and his third, a full on anthemic stadium rap album, 808s and Heartbreak takes a wildly different approach. Recorded in a quick 3 weeks after a series of intense emotional stress and trauma for Kanye, 808s is a complete turn around from his previous work. I pray you willĨ08s and Heartbreak is the sound of a man falling apart at the seams.

Does 808s and heartbreak have swearing