mixtape maestro (2.0)

While most of this year’s VMA’s oddly came across a little too sedate, the show did feature at least one performance that got folks REALLY talking the next day, whether positively or negatively. Mr. Kanye “I’ll never appear at another VMA again” West capped the night off with an extraordinary performance of neck hair-raising new single “Love Lockdown”, featuring a glow-in-the-dark heart brooch thing, shadowy tribe-men filling the air with booming drum work and some neat explosion tricks. Oh yeah, and the track saw the rapper/ producer SINGING robo-voice-styled for it’s entire length. As expected, message boards across the vast World Wide Web lit up with all kinds of extreme public reaction concerning his latest artistic move, much in the same way the masses got all uber-excited once his game-changing “Stronger” dropped last summer.

With the release of this sub-quality studio rendition, we now have the opportunity to better absorb what the hell he’s doing. Is “Love Lockdown” the best song ever, or does it’s demented soul-tronica edge come off a little underwhelming in this off-stage translation? For the time being, we’ll have to say our initial reaction lands somewhere in between the two.

Kanye manages to make nearly every one of his records a ginormous event and “Love Lockdown” ranks as one of his biggest and strangest. From the clever bass-as-heartbeat that hauntingly back-ends the track to the manic percussion explosion, freaky piano lines and animal shrieks that eventually emerge, the spooky instrumental lures you with it’s sinister mood. The lyrics feature him crooning with the weight of a heavy sadness, sounding like the ghost of a soul-man raised from his grave. “I’m not lovin’ you/ The way I wanted to,” he opens, succeeding lines echoing the same gloomed melody as he further colors the internal strife he’s found himself trapped in-betwixt (“See I wanna move/ But can’t escape from you…”; “I can’t keep myself/ And still keep you too”).

As far as smart career trajectories go, “Love Lockdown” lands as the logical next step for an artist aiming to keep challenging himself and his audience creatively. But where it slightly disappoints is in it’s failure to retain some of that edge-of-your-seat suspense demonstrated in it’s introductory VMA execution, something that’s not entirely his fault since that was the first time most of us had got a strong gist of what the song was. Thankfully, we’re given hope in that this isn’t the final version, and if we know West as much as we think we do, once the final mix is unearthed, this alt-blues confessional will truly shine as the classic stunner he most likely already thinks it is.

DL: “Love Lockdown (Studio)” (YFH)