Donda

Kanye West

I'm tapping out. I've spent a month playing this on regular rotation to try and wrap my head around it, but it's just too much and I need to move on. Donda, Kanye West's tenth studio album, is an exhausting experience that has 27 tracks and clocks in at almost two hours in length. It really isn't something you can sit down and listen to all the way through, at least not for me. The frustrating part is that there is an album in here somewhere, a good one at that. However, West shows that he is incapable of self-editing, padding this record with so many unnecessary tracks in order to just get his ideas out there, regardless of how refined they are.

The strongest song in my opinion comes right at the very beginning, and that's Jail. The instrumental has these rich resonant shots of bass and is accompanied by these bending, fuzzy guitar leads in the background. The vocals are truly stellar on this song for two reasons: West's performances are super passionate, and all the vocal delays, modulation, and overdubs come together to create all these overwhelming layers of sound that I find very compelling. Jay-Z's verses I think are a little awkward, but do very little to tarnish the strengths of this track. It's honestly not until Remote Control that we get another decent track. Perhaps, I should preface by saying that I am aware this song can feel kind of monotonous as Kanye sticks with this same vocal melody, but holy moly is it super catchy. I also really love the beat, especially for the little hi-hat shuffle it has going on. I don't know, the whole thing just has this loose, 'laissez faire' air about it. It's a vibe.

The following track, Moon, I also happened to enjoy. The track is backed by these layers of harmonious guitar fuzz provided by one of the members of electro-rock duo Ratatat, who has been a frequent Kanye collaborator. Don Toliver and Kid Cudi I think also provide great guest vocals that are quite soothing. West later appears and the vocal round the three of them make is actually quite beautiful. One more track I enjoyed before moving on was Jesus Lord, the album's longest track if you don't count the second part at the very end of the record. I think this track features the strongest written verses and rap performances on the entire record thanks to West and Jay Electronica. Despite the beat being fairly stagnant for the better part of the track, it does benefit from a strong hook and a fairly emotional voice recording at the end.

There's a few more tracks I could get into, but again with 27 tracks, you'd be here all day if I talked about every single one. I won't even get into the nitty gritty of why the rest is not really working for me, and instead just try to summarize. The instrumentals are generally uninteresting. Most of the guest verses are pretty awful, especially the pitched up, Playboi Carti type features which are unbearable. And Kanye West continues to punch under his weight, opting to give into his impulses instead of writing a refined verse that is thought provoking. All of these issues really brought down the song quality average and when you further take into account the sheer length of this monster, it's hard to feel remotely positive about this thing.