The Cold Cut

Kanye West- Love Lockdown (Link 2)

I feel relieved. I feel happy. I feel exhausted. Many emotions. First, the good news. I am now able to get back into the swing of things. I have internet. I have lots of stuff to catch up with. I need to burst the bubble around me. The Cold Cut needs to become relevant again. Most of all, I have a blog to run. And run-it I will.

So how does one burst the bubble that's been enclosing you? With difficulty... I must admit, my lack of contact with the internet, TV and news has been a bit of an eye opener. As in, what the hell would we do without it? Now I appreciate it even more- I feel lucky to be connected again.

Anyway, back to the music. I've missed it ever so much, looking through my emails longingly on my phone. Able to see, but not to listen. Out of all the music that has flooded my inbox (about 250 emails and counting from the last few weeks- keep 'em coming), one track stands out. It's so 'now'. Kanye West's new track 'Love Lockdown', from the upcoming album release, '808's And Heartbreak'. A live debut at the VMA's was incredibly promising (watch it), and yet the recorded version falls annoyingly flat.

Disregarding an over-generous bass track that I could listen to all day long, it's hard to like this song, let alone love it. 'Love Lockdown' starts, peaks, starts, troughs, restarts... and finishes. It goes nowhere... Instead, we are treated to 270 seconds of Kanye living out a T-Pain fantasy. Jittery pianos and a vocoder dominate proceedings. There is no Chris Martin this time, though. And no intelligent sampling.

The VMA's were the perfect platform from which to launch the new album. Kanye performed well, his voice fragile, but hidden away behind Autotune. He sings better than you might expect, but will struggle with the live demands of this song. Still, it was a great performance, with strong images through lighting and his performance. Unfortunately, these fixtures cannot be translated onto the studio version.

This song hurts. Where has the genius of 'The College Dropout' gone? The concept is all wrong- Kanye isn't a singer by nature. It's brave, but a whole song of slow vocals is really pushing it. And in using a vocoder, you immediately take the emotion out of a song. I mean, who would attempt to prove that 'Lollipop' is an emotionally affecting song?

'808's And Heartbreak' drops on December 16th. Pre-order it on Amazon. The chips seem stacked against Kanye at this point in time. I'm not even going to mention the whole arrest fiasco. Still, I would never bet against him. Oh, and good luck Kanye. May you shock us all.