Kanye West
The Life Of Pablo

Attention ladies and gentlemen (but especially ladies); you are about to enter the universe of Kanye West!

(""abandon all hope 'o you who enter" quote.)

In the magical universe of K.West, aka YEEZY, aka GOD, aka, Gay fish, aka grandissimostronzo, there is no room for the poor nor for humility of soul. Strip down and purify yourselves with holy water; put on the Yeezy season 3 and off we go. We pray to His Holiness yeezy, his wife, the divine Kim K., queen of selfies and of the cosmic void.

The little train to stronzolandia catapults us into a sonic orgasm full of heavy egocentrism: "the life of Pablo" wants to be original, wants to make its mark, wants to please Pitchfork; so you know what? Let's not sell it on physical support. Since I have 50 plus million debts, let's put it only on Tidal and stream it on Pornhub, as the rabble are silly and will sign up for the wonderful Tidal, the only streaming service WORTHY of being used for listening purposes...Utorrent? Come on, everyone knows no one would dare challenge my marvelous streaming services...(well, 28,000 copies sold, take that)

But the journey to stronzolandia has just begun: Ultralight Beam catches us off guard on the first listen, minimal beat, a beautiful melody, a gospel choir, a randomly placed rap towards the end: promising.

The autotune returns, a controversial tool, but with Yeezy, it has given us far more emotions than others at the time of Heartbreak. There's also Kid Cudi, a good guy. And then the "new discovery" of the moment, that "desiigner" who speaks like a drunkard, obviously full of autotune as well (erm, it's called Trap music, it's been big in America for a while now). Father stretch my hands, motherfuckers!

Many features, almost all excellent. A noteworthy Kendrick Lamar in "no more parties in L.A.", a nice track with an old school beat that seems to emerge from "to pimp a butterfly", just more futuristic, funky, less jazz.

There's the weekend in a brief appearance on FML (a track with a powerful crescendo until the end), Frank Ocean and a powerful-voiced Sia in the epic sound of "wolves"; Real friends with Ty Dolla Sign, a brilliant Young Thug in "high lights"... the rapper friends do a good job. Well done, disciples, spread my faith to the entire world (from the gospel according to Yeezy)

Then there's Rihanna, who returns to collaborate with West for the umpteenth time. It's not bad, but Kanye carved out the feature for her in the album's most controversial track, Famous; perhaps the most fitting example of Yeezy's boundless egocentrism. ""I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. Why? I MADE DAT BITCH FAAAMOUS!" (an example of intellectual honesty from kanye west). Despite all the criticism, the song is excellent, especially for the choice of samples. There's also a sample from the Italian band Il rovescio della medaglia (I woke up and...closed my eyes).

The journey to stronzolandia gets more and more beautiful, with lyrics getting more...AHEM,..humble, and the music getting more pumped, sumptuous, almost perfect in production (remember, behind these albums there's something like 600 producers, eh). At the center of the action, the album becomes a sort of Megazord of musical genres, as if Kanye had fun taking some old style from here and there (the autotune of heartbreak, the experiments of Yeezus, the pop of the first albums and the majesty, at certain points, of MBDTF) and combining them together, perhaps adding a bit of gospel and the perfect messy album is made. Just how those hipsters of pitchfork like it! And scaruffi!!! My mind is brilliant!!! (trallallà...)

This album is more of a life experience in the depths of Kanye West's sick mind. It's his most egocentric and daring album, from the choice to not release it almost anywhere, to the seemingly nonsense songs and the most idiotic/bastard lyrics you've ever heard come out of his mouth; if you are psychologists and want to study the philosophical thought of life according to Kanye West (who will soon reincarnate as Saint Paul if no one stops him) listen to this album from start to finish. Then take a nice break and watch the "fade" video to brighten your day; avoid the "famous" one like the plague if you don't want to be shocked for a good while.

...The journey is over, go in peace. Amen.