today
1 p.m. Pet Photos with Santa "Claws" Henderson Center
read >4 p.m. Young Parent Support Group College of the Redwoods Kinship Site
read >4 p.m. Teen Writing Group Ink People Center for the Arts
read >6 p.m. The Tumbleweeds Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Blue Lotus Jazz Libation
read >6 p.m. State of the Watersheds Bayside Grange
read >6:30 p.m. The Transgender Day of Remembrance Humboldt County Courthouse
read >7 p.m. John Ludington + Chris Parreira + Colin Begel (acoustic) Mosgo's
read >7 p.m. Peppino D’Agostino Mateel Community Center
read >7:30 p.m. A Commedia Christmas Carol Carlo Theater (Dell'Arte)
read >8 p.m. Humboldt Folkdancers Arcata Presbyterian Church
read >8 p.m. John Ludington + Scott Garriot + Chris Parreira (acoustic) Mosgo's
read >8 p.m. Stones in His Pockets Arcata Playhouse
read >8 p.m. A Christmas Carol North Coast Repertory Theater
read >8 p.m. Keller Williams (sound) Humboldt Brews
read >8 p.m. Air Supply ('80s soft rock) Cher-Ae-Heights Casino
read >8 p.m. KJNY 3rd Annual Glow Party Arcata Community Center
read >9 p.m. NightHawk WAVE @ blue lake casino
read >9 p.m. The Melodramatics (ska) Central Station Cocktail Lounge
read >9 p.m. Cadillac Ranch Six Rivers Brewery
read >9 p.m. DJ Touch Pearl Lounge
read >9 p.m. Bondage Bash Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >9 p.m. Latin NIght The Red Fox Tavern
read >9:30 p.m. Phil Berkowitz & Dirty Cats (blues) Riverwood Inn
read >9:30 p.m. David Starfire Arcata Theater Lounge
read >10 p.m. Music by DJ Sidelines
read >10 p.m. DJ Ninja Retro Dance Party Aunty Mo's Lounge
read >10 p.m. SexyTime: MiMosa and Sleepyhead Mazzotti's Arcata
read >previous columns
Jan. 15, 2009
Cryland
By Don Cavalli. Everloving, Inc.
read >Jan. 8, 2009
Sunday At Devil Dirt
By Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. Fontana/V2 Records.
read >Jan. 1, 2009
thebignooneunderstandsme
thelittlestillnotbigenough
read >Photos
808s and Heartbreak
Kanye West. Roc-A-Fella/Island/Def Jam.
By Joel Hartse
Kanye West has come a long way since The College Dropout, way back in the distant, innocent year of 2004, when he was idealistic and almost naïve (if a record full of raps about how awesome he is and how he deserves to be a best-selling rapper can be deemed naïve). 808s and Heartbreak would have been Kanye's senior year, but apparently he skipped a grade -- album No. 3, just last year, was Graduation -- and, if we can ludicrously extend the metaphor, has entered the post-university gap-year existential moaning phase.
808s is thematically akin to West's other records in that it is full of self-doubt, but the difference is that the conflicted emotions are being emitted from a place of pain rather than one of cocksure awesomeness. He used to rap about the conflict between just wanting to be a good guy but getting the gold chains and the women, and that was pretty compelling, but now that West has lost his longtime girlfriend it's almost as if the compelling tension between "conscious" and "cash" has been destroyed by the general collapse of his soul. This is truly a smooth, polished, beautiful album, but at its core is a guy who can't quite get it together to care about the stuff he used to care about. No tributes to other rappers, no social commentary, no innovative samples (to speak of) -- just hurt.
And so enter the Sad Robot, a character that's been around almost since the idea of robots was invented. West employs it effectively here. The much-dissed Autotune, a piece of software that works like a vocoder to make vocals sound on-pitch (and computerized), is not at all out of place -- it makes West sound like a good singer, and it channels his raw emotion through an electronic medium, keeping it at arm's length. This is a record about heartbreak, but the presence of Autotune and the titular 808 drum machines (providing what are at times truly punishing beats), make it feel like a clinical examination of the emotion rather than a journal entry.
It's difficult to pick out any songs that don't achieve this study of sadness, so the record works well as a cohesive whole, but "Love Lockdown," "Coldest Winter" and "Robocop" particularly capture the relentless numbness of it all. The most palpable anguish is on the live track (a weird choice in itself) "Pinocchio Story," an improvised solo on which West reaches past the Sad Robot, past the stylization of depression and attempts to become, like the puppet, "a real boy."



















No comments for this entry
post a comment