Kanye West

The idea of Kanye West singing (with help from Auto-Tune) for a whole album sounds like a disaster because, well, he can't sing. Surprisingly, it works thanks to the sincerity and vulnerability he displays while crooning about losing his mother and breaking up with his fiancee, the album's central topics. West's production here is much darker than in the past on tracks like "Welcome To Heartbreak" (featuring Kid Cudi) and the witty "Robocop." Although some will pray that his love hangover ends soon, most will appreciate a successful attempt by one of the best rappers alive to stretch hip-hop's creative boundaries.

Kanye West announced long ago that mere hip-hop superstardom was not enough for him —
he wanted to be "the number one artist in the world." So it's no surprise that his
untrammeled egotism has led him well beyond the usual limits of his genre. With Kanye
largely abandoning rapping in favor of digitally altered crooning, his fourth album
represents a cultural high-water mark for Auto-Tune, that now ubiquitous pitch-... More >