Fair use from GOOD Music

Misogynistic lyrics, incoherent tweets and a horrible album rollout are all recent events that parallel the quality of Kanye West’s latest album, “The Life of Pablo.”

West’s album, which released after his recent Saturday Night Live performance, shows how out of touch the rapper became with his audience throughout the last six years. Three projects removed from “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” one of West’s most acclaimed albums, he finds himself lost in an egotistical inflation.

“The Life of Pablo” begins with “Ultralight Beam,” one of the album’s few bright spots. Sadly enough, the shining moments of the song come when West hands vocal responsibilities to Chance The Rapper and Kelly Price. This sets a theme which haunts West for the entirety of the album — the supporting musicians always overpower his own musical ability. It seems West needs to contribute boring verses which only degrade each song. These ruin tracks such as “Wolves,” which features a beautiful outro from recent hermit Frank Ocean, and a catchy refrain from G.O.O.D. Music signee Desiigner on “Freestyle 4.”

On top of the general emptiness of West’s lyrics, almost every song features some form of misogyny. West clearly turned a blind eye to hip-hop’s evolution into a genre much more conscious and thoughtful than its early-2000s counterparts.

While artists such as Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole pioneer an introspective movement, West displays his blatant ignorance to modern trends with lyrics smearing the accomplishments of Taylor Swift and marginalizing women as sexual objects. If West set out to make an album accessible to a large range of demographics, he failed miserably.

One of the only positives aspects of “The Life of Pablo” traces back to West’s roots, production value. Aside from a few instrumentals, such as “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1,” which sounds quite synthetic, the album’s production gives listeners some of West’s most interesting sounds to date. The revamped Charlie Heat instrumental of “Facts” reenergizes a track once seen as a simple diss at Nike. Samples on “30 Hours” and the Lamar-assisted “No More Parties In LA” contribute a much-needed layer of beauty to an album plagued with the exact opposite.

Once “The Life Of Pablo” finally ends, multiple questions reveal themselves. Why were tracks such as “I Love Kanye” and “Low Lights” allowed to stay on this album? How does West find himself so astray from modern hip-hop? Who let him continuously hype the album if it sounded like this? The answers aren’t simple, but one point makes itself completely clear. Over the last six years, Kanye West’s music devolved into an unappealing experiment. Smothered with misogyny, boring lyrics and very few highlights, “The Life of Pablo” isn’t worth an hour of any day.

Kanye West’s “The Life of Pablo”: 2.5/5