{"id":3029,"date":"2016-02-26T12:42:29","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T20:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=3029"},"modified":"2016-02-26T12:42:29","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T20:42:29","slug":"kanye-west-living-the-life-of-pablo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/kanye-west-living-the-life-of-pablo\/","title":{"rendered":"Kanye West: Living \u201cThe Life of Pablo\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kanye-WestColor\"<\/p>\n

By:  Declan Hertel\r\nEntertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
This may end up as my favorite Kanye album.<\/p>\n
I dig his first three albums, but \u201c808s and Heartbreak\u201d is the first album of his I really, really dug, and I\u2019ve only dug each subsequent one more and more. \u201cThe Life of Pablo\u201d is the latest in a line of really great records. I love the gospel sound with all my heart, plus it keeps the weird industrial synths and sudden tone shifts of Yeezus, and lyrically speaking this is an album of a man struggling with his faith, his fame, his marriage, his baser urges, his fans, and his own mythology. It\u2019s heavy and weird and\u2014somehow\u2014a little bit inspirational.<\/p>\n
Look, my boy Kanye is a bit of a polarizing figure. For people who don\u2019t listen to his music or his interviews or anything, all they\u2019ve got is the award show outbursts and the Twitter rants. And while it\u2019s unfair, it\u2019s understandable. But that\u2019s Kanye West the Public Figure.<\/p>\n
I recommend listening to \u201cMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy\u201d and \u201cThe Life of Pablo\u201d to get a good idea of who Kanye West the Man is. I get this vibe from much of this album, and some of the tracks on \u201cFantasy\u201d and \u201cYeezus,\u201d that he is uncomfortably with finding himself happy. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s married to a woman who loves him and has guided him through his darkest times, not to mention mothered his children, and yet he still dreams of the destructive rock star life. He\u2019s one of the biggest names in music, but can\u2019t allow himself to take a break from work to tend to the rest of his life. On \u201cWolves,\u201d the beautiful and haunting closing track of the album proper, he worries that his deceased mother would disapprove of his life and art, that he\u2019s \u201ctoo wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
He is a man deeply troubled by a great many things (not the least of which is his ego, which he freely admits), and his level of unabashed honesty on \u201cPablo\u201d makes it really easy to empathize with a man who should be, by all rights, impossible to relate to.<\/p>\n
Currently \u201cThe Life of Pablo\u201d is only available on Tidal because who the hell knows, but just snag dat free trial, and I would be really, really surprised if it never found its way to a real release. <\/p>\n
Incomplete and Miscellaneous Thoughts I Wrote While Listening to this Album Stoned:<\/p>\n
Ultralight Beam:
\nOh man when the gospel backing comes in, blew my damn mind for a second. Chance the Rapper\u2019s verse is dooooope. Apparently this was why the album\u2019s release was delayed initially, I can see why.<\/p>\n
Father, Stretch My Hands Pts 1-2<\/p>\n
Damn Yeezy getting weird again. Dude\u2019s got a hell of a relationship with his family. His flow on Part 2 makes me uncomfortable and I loooove it<\/p>\n
Feedback:
\nMan what a cool song. Savage feedback-y synths warm my soul parts<\/p>\n
Low Lights:
\nMore weirdness. Love the gospel influence. Ye did say this was a gospel record, dude wasn\u2019t lyin\u2019.<\/p>\n
Highlights:
\nOh man that first hook is giving me flashbacks to Daft Punk\u2019s \u201cDiscovery.\u201d Love it.<\/p>\n
Freestyle 4:
\nThis song strikes me as uncomfortably honest. So dope.
\nI Love Kanye:<\/p>\n
Heheheheh Yeezy knows what\u2019s up, love the self-awareness of closing with \u201cI love you like Kanye loves Kanye\u201d.<\/p>\n
Waves:
\nThe almost-namesake song. Comes in SUPER HEAVY after \u201cI Love Kanye\u201d<\/p>\n
FML:
\nThis song is fascinating, trying to give up the rock star life he worked so hard for so that he can be good to his family. Way dark and a bit spacey<\/p>\n
Wolves:
\nUgh this song breaks my heart. I hope he \u201cfixes\u201d it like he said he was gonna. I miss Sia and the other dude.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This may end up as my favorite Kanye album. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}