That The Life of Pablo is a masterpiece is immediately evident. There’s none of the difficulty of To Pimp A Butterfly or the earlier Yeezus here. This is approachable from the beautiful, gospel-like opening of “Ultralight Beam” to the end. There’s an attention to detail in all of Kanye’s albums that leads to quality that you just cannot find elsewhere.
This album sprawls pretty far though. Musically, it jumps from point to point incessantly and like MBDTF before it, the album features a wide supporting cast. Those artists are at their best here though. The Weeknd’s piece on the brutally emotional “FML” is the best hook of his career, the clarity of his voice plays beautifully against the breathless nature of Kanye’s rap and the menacing, sparse beat. Similarly, Frank Ocean’s closing verse in “Wolves” was exactly what that song needed to cap it. Even Ty Dollar $ign on “Real Friends” is excellent. His collaborators seem to have subsumed themselves for their songs. Even people as individual as Rihanna or Young Thug just appear as a part of the music and not the whole package that they normally provide.
This is why for an album as rambling as this one, there is a surprising consistency. Where Yeezus or 808s and Heartbreak were about single emotions, this is about the full spread of Kanye, and so this album can be difficult if you’re not so into him. You have him referencing the Kanye Fresh meme and talking about the old Kanye to being impossible to relate to when he takes needless shots at Amber Rose or chants the word “couches”. Both To Pimp A Butterfly and Beyonce were similar in how they forced a (possibly alien) viewpoint on their listeners and so can cause discomfort, but Kendrick and Beyonce are much better people than Kanye and that makes them easier to listen to. Neither of them really care if you agree with them, but they use that callousness for social progress, Kanye just uses it to be Kanye. This is how he can go from “I didn’t mean to instigate” on the heartfelt “Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 1” to the intentionally instigating Taylor Swift line of “Famous”, it’s just who he is.
He is also a musical genius though. The music is deep enough to always find something new and things work together in ways that I have never seen before. The Life of Pablo is a magnificent album and I highly recommend it.
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