Kanye West

Despite what's been written, Kanye West's new style on his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak — which incorporates "tribal"-style drum machines and auto-tuned vocals — doesn't sound especially shocking to the ears. Immediately satisfying singles like "Robocop" and "Love Lockdown" make Yeezy's much-discussed crooning and his T-Pain-assisted use of vocoder non-issues here. Kanye was never much of a rapper anyway, but he's always found a way to stay cutting-edge. Young Jeezy, on the other hand, sounds dated and stale when he drops his usual dope-boy rhymes on the song "Amazing," while Kanye zooms past him stylistically. It's no shocker that the album plunges deeper into Kanye's typical neuroses — insecurity, spiritual unease, and the difficulties of celebrity — and the death of his mother and a relationship failure have brought these concerns into sharper focus. As a whole, Heartbreak's tracks avoid many specific details about Kanye's losses, dealing instead in generalities. On "Coldest Winter," he sings: "Goodbye my friend/Will I ever love again?" The move from slang-heavy rap particulars to clearly articulated pop universals completes a transition he started with his last album, Graduation; the idea is to enable crowds worldwide to sing along at his shows like they do at U2 concerts. Heartbreak's strict commitment to its aesthetics helps Kanye achieve what he's set out to create, an immediately gelling, singular testament to indescribable suffering.