Kanye West - ‘Ye’ Album Review

1. Album Overview

Aspect	Detail
Release Date	June 1, 2018
Duration	23 minutes
Number of Songs	7
Album Sales	1.1 million

2. Top 5 Bars from the Album

1. “I Thought About Killing You”: “Today I thought about killing you, premeditated murder”
2. “Yikes”: “Shit could get menacin’, frightenin’, find help / Sometimes I scare myself, myself”
3. “All Mine”: “If I pull up with a Kerry Washington, that’s gon’ be an enormous scandal”
4. “Wouldn’t Leave”: “My wife callin’, screamin’, say, ‘We ‘bout to lose it all!’ / Had to calm her down ‘cause she couldn’t breathe”
5. “Ghost Town”: “I put my hand on a stove, to see if I still bleed / And nothing hurts anymore, I feel kinda free”

3. Top 5 Songs by Production

1. “Ghost Town” - Produced by Kanye West, Francis and the Lights, Benny Blanco
2. “Yikes” - Produced by Kanye West, Mike Dean
3. “All Mine” - Produced by Kanye West, Francis and the Lights
4. “Wouldn’t Leave” - Produced by Kanye West, Mike Dean
5. “No Mistakes” - Produced by Kanye West, Che Pope

4. Review

At just 7 songs and 23 minutes of runtime, this self-titled album did exactly what it was intended to do. And that’s for Kanye to get more personal than he’s ever been on an album. Despite all the controversy and downward spiral he was facing going into this, this felt like Ye was saying, “Love me or hate me, this is who I am, and this is how my current mental state is.”

I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t one of my least favorite Kanye West albums, but I’ve come to realize that it’s still an important project in his discography. Without any filler, it tackled vulnerable mental health topics while keeping a short, concise, and quality tracklist from start to finish.

While songs like “Ghost Town” and “Violent Crimes” are huge standouts, sonically, this project isn’t too groundbreaking since we’ve had Kanye give us better-sounding music in the past, on numerous occasions. But it’s focused, and it’s a great balance of aggressive and soulful music, which perfectly resembles the bipolar disorder theme he wanted to showcase.

This album is great.

5. Best Feature Artist in the Album

The best feature artist on ‘Ye’ is Kid Cudi, especially for his contribution to “Ghost Town.”

6. Rating

8/10