Kanye West's new focus-grouped 'Love Lockdown'

Kanye West's perpetual must-read blog has been a forum for many things: accolades for modernist architecture and deeply unnecessary consumer goods, new videos from his friends and caps lock-assisted jeremiads against those who impede his vision. Now it appears that the input's going two ways: less than a week after an official recording of his MTV VMA song "Love Lockdown" hit (for which he took a good bit of flak for an anemic and soppingly auto-tuned chorus), West's revised it extensively and, it seems, taken the advice of his blog's commenters into account. Is "revise-how-you-like" the new "pay-what-you-want?" 

The first version of "Love Lockdown" started with a great idea: a throbbing kick drum evoking a heartbeat like a space-funk Tommy James and the Shondells. It introduced some artfully rudimentary piano chords and martial drums to great effect, but the song spiraled off when you got to the chorus, which was effected out beyond recognition, and made it sound like he was embarrassed by it.

The new version solves a good bit of those problems: He dialed back the Auto-Tune a few clicks and mixed his voice back up to the front, and he added an absolutely slaying taiko drum corps to the background. It could probably benefit from a bridge, as the repetition sags a bit around the 3/4 mark, but the final outro buries a banshee scream or a freaky guitar effect in the background and it ends the tune on a fiendishly unsettling note.

Kanye's had a great streak of luck in creating the year's pop memes with each of his albums, so it's sort of weird for him to implicitly admit mistakes on the first go-around of "Lockdown." But maybe it's part of a new continuum for his songwriting -- get rough drafts out in the open, see how they land with the audience and remix them in real time at his discretion. There's no word on the progress or veracity of "808's and Heartbreak," his alleged quick-turnaround follow-up to "Graduation," but he has promised an extensive riposte to his recent LAX kerfuffle with paparazzi on his blog soon.

-- August Brown

For another take on Kanye's revamped "Love Lockdown, see Todd Martens' post at Extended Play.

Photo by Justin Lane/EPA

Comments

[Dustin]

Heck, i'm just glad to hear there is something new coming out from him! Have ALWAYS liked his music and lyrics because they are much different than the garbage that has been recorded for the past 10-12 years by most rap artists. His style, not to mention his friends who also rap WITH MEANING, is refreshing and gives fans of the genre HOPE!

[Casey]

Kanye is just a perfectionist. Remember, he did this with "Stronger" last year after it leaked, reworking the drums for the album version.

[Alan Diamond]

He simply rocks! Hes amazing! And hes a really talanted guy who actually cares what his fans think and make it better for us to like... Heck he might have liked the first version of love lockdown but when ppl critisised him he changed it to perfect it for his fans...
Im going to see him in November in the RDS... gotta get some of his classes to rock them at the concert.. Wonder can u buy them there?