Albums You Have to Listen to Before You Die: 808s & Heartbreak

Across the spectrum of music, the best songs seem to be ones that evoke emotion.

Even more negative feelings, like sadness or heartbreak, speak more to the soul of the listener

than some bubbly summertime hit.

Personally, I recognized a few Kanye West songs here and there, mainly what had been

played on the radio when I was younger. Recently I had shied away from his music because of

his tweets and his general haughty Twitter persona. While 140 characters may not seem like a

lot, it’s usually enough to give you a good idea of someone’s personality, and in this case, I

wasn’t really a fan. I had always dismissed him as being faux and conceited, being no deeper

than a kiddie pool. Until I was sitting in a playground tunnel with a good friend of mine, who

showed me the different shifts and developments of his musical career, I began to listen to the

words, and saw an emotion very unlike what I’d seen through his tweets.

Out of all eight of his albums, I chose 808s & Heartbreak because this friend told me that

he originally hated it; until he went through a difficult breakup of his own, and every song

suddenly made sense to him. I don’t take what he says lightly, so if it became of significance to

him, I figured it was surely worth looking into. Granted, the album was released in 2008, so it is

very possibly that the fame had changed him from then to now, reflecting the difference in his

2008 music and 2016 tweets.

The album itself grabs your heart and twists it, pulling at your heartstrings and bringing

you back to a moment of heartbreak, which I’m sure the majority of us have experienced. That,

to me, was one of the main reasons in choosing this album as one that “you have to listen to

before you die”, because it evokes emotion, which the majority of songs nowadays seem to

ignore. While many songs are extremely repetitive and lack lyric variation, what he does say has

an impact.

Coldest Winter, for example, with lines like “If spring can melt the snow away, can it melt away

all of our mistakes”, really gets you thinking about change in general, and how the past may not

reflect our future but does influence it. Other notable tracks on the album include Welcome to

Heartbreak, Love Lockdown, and Street Lights. When you “know your destination but you’re just

not there” (Street Lights), this album is perfect to turn to, and the feelings of heartache, of being

aimless and alone, echo through every chord.

#albums