dave allen on 808s & heartbreak

Kanye West, Color Line Arena, Hamburg, 28.11.2008, testspiel.de | CC BY-NC-SA

Dave Allen, former Gang of Four bass player and new media/music theorist, recently posted a great article on Kanye West’s new album 808s & Heartbreak. He touches on a lot of things I didn’t, including the social factor inherent to this album’s release, one of the its most interesting aspects:

Kanye is nothing if unpredictable and he never shies away from experimentation. On 808s he has found the minimalism of the techno pioneer, Juan Atkins, who is credited as the founder of Detroit techno. On the track Heartless the simplicity of the 808 drum machine beat, the Auto-tuner and the arpeggiated synthesizer strings hark back to another pop genius, Prince – I awoke one morning to the sound of the clipped Linn drum beats of his single Sign O’ The Times and was so intoxicated by the song that I went out immediately and bought the double vinyl album.

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I see something else at work here too – the ability today for us all to mashup culture and broadcast it with ease. Video it, photograph it, record it, mash it, borrow and steal but most of all – share it. We have the ability to move our emotions rapidly out into the world now via personal blogs, newsletters, texting, and social platforms like Twitter.