The Life of Pablo

It feels far different from any of the tightly constructed, singular works of West’s past, and from a sonic standpoint, it sounds almost like a greatest-hits collection of nearly every sound and musical idea that he’s cultivated up to this moment.

Pablo may come just shy of being his greatest achievement (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy holds onto that distinction), but it’s the grandest distillation of West’s world-swallowing artistic vision, a sum of its superlative elder siblings.

Most pop stars are content with a me-against-the-world mentality, but The Life Of Pablo posits a mantra more like me-against-myself, expressed as a mainline rush of gospel, rap, soul, house, noise and pop, and full of digressions into the highest highs and lowest lows.