Auto-tune. Either you love it or you hate it, and chances are you hate it. Not Kanye West, though. He likes it enough to have used it on every single song on his new album, 808s & Heartbreak. And, having heard that, chances are you’ll probably skip out on buying Kanye’s newest album. That’s why I’m here: to convince you how foolish that would be.

There’s a lot of backstory to this album, so I suppose that’s a good place to start. This album is much darker than West’s previous releases, and that’s due to a bunch of factors, namely the death of his mother last year, and the cancellation of his engagement to then-fianceé Alexis Phifer. Also, all the beats on the album were created with the Roland TR-808 drum machine in order to evoke specific emotions and take a “minimal but functional” approach to the songs. So the basic concept behind this album is literally expressed in the title: 808s and heartbreak.

That being said, I have to point out that Kanye absolutely nailed it. This is an album full of truly unique, catchy, and memorable songs. I found it seriously impressive that Kanye could go out of his comfort zone in so many ways and come back stronger than ever. Each song is totally different from the rest. The opening track, “Say You Will”, is a plaintive, lengthy song. I love the minor to major key change he throws in a few times, but half the song is just the beat, and when the song comes in at over 6 minutes, that might be a little too much. But the album doesn’t suffer from it. In fact, it pushes forward, giving it a bit more gas, ending up at “Welcome To Heartbreak”, which sounds nothing like a Kanye West song, which is something you’re gonna have to get used to quickly on this album. It’s got a nifty piano line coupled with a simple beat, with Kid Cudi adding a catchy chorus. “Heartless” is the first real single aside from “Love Lockdown”, and it’s a great song. Just to recap: it’s a straight up radio single, the singer uses auto-tune, it’s about being heart broken because of a girl, and it’s STILL a good song. Well, at least until it saturates every nook and cranny of the club and mainstream radio scenes. But it’s great right now! “Amazing” is one of the darker tracks, one that conjures images of ghetto cowboys idly ambling along a lonely trail. Young Jeezy contributes a verse, but it’s nothing special. “Love Lockdown” is a song that mostly everyone knows by now, and for good reason. Even over a month later, it’s still fresh and fits perfectly with the rest of the album. “Paranoid” is one of my favorites on 808s, and is closer in style and substance to what Kanye usually does; it resembles hip hop more than the rest, played over what sounds like a remixed 80s pop song. This brings us to “RoboCop”, my current favorite. It starts out with a badass beat, leading you to believe it might be some sort of hardcore hip hop song, but then the strings come in, bringing Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” to mind, until you realize Kanye did it better. This song is boundlessly catchy, and the lush instrumentation in the chorus and the way he uses RoboCop sounds in the post-chorus make this song a serious standout. “Street Lights” is a slower, hopeful song where Kanye claims “I know my destination, I’m just not there.” This is followed by “Bad News”, which is seemingly a sort of interlude song, but valuable all the same. Lil’ Wayne makes a guest appearance in “See You In My Nightmares”, which puts Young Jeezy’s verse earlier to shame. “Coldest Winter”, a touching song in which he reminisces about his mother, closes out the actual album. There is one more song, however, but it’s a live recording from Singapore, entitled “Pinocchio Story.” It’s a freestyle from that concert that was included because Beyoncé Knowles convinced Kanye to include it. It’s good, but it does not need to be there, and the album would’ve concluded so perfectly after “Coldest Winter”, but when you’re Beyoncé and you’re famous and you’ve never done anything good before, why start now?

If you’re still hung up on the auto-tune aspect, don’t be. After a song or two, you won’t even notice. West noted that certain parts of them album are auto-tuned to represent heartbreak. Most of the songs aren’t very heavily auto-tuned, anyway. It’s a minor issue, especially when compared to the album as a whole.

So let’s get one thing straight. This isn’t hip hop, rap, or anything like it. It seems that ‘pop’ really is the best word to describe it. Since he’s not rapping on most tracks, it forces Kanye to use his voice in more and different ways, especially as far as singing goes. His singing on this album is top notch, and the amount of vocal, musical, and atmospheric hooks Kanye has produced on 808s & Heartbreak is absolutely outstanding. Upon first listen, about half the songs are memorable. Upon second listen, every single one of them is. It baffles my mind how Kanye, by effectively limiting his resources, managed to make something so unique, creative, and diverse. In fact, I think it’s fair to say that Kanye pushes himself harder on this album, in terms of music, lyrics, vocals, creativity, and hooks, than on any of his previous efforts. It solidifies and furthers his status as a trend setter, and shows how unequivocally unmatched Kanye is, as far as progressiveness goes, in his genre.