Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak

The album was formed off the back of an extremely difficult time for West; his mother died due to complications after cosmetic surgery, his relationship with on-and-off again girlfriend/fiancé Alexis Phifer finally ended for good, and Kanye was struggling to adapt to his celebrity status, often being criticized from the media. Emotionally drained and feeling somewhat lost, Kanye dealt with his pain by channeling it into a sonically stripped-down album, one dominated by his use of the titular Roland TR-808 drum machine and Auto-Tune. Kanye said:

It was just what was in my heart. The type of ideas that it was coming up with, the melodies that were in me — what was in me I couldn’t stop.

The album is heavily influenced by 1980s synthpop and electropop. Kanye used the “808” sound and altered its pitch to create the unique distorted and electronic sound you hear throughout the album. He called this effect the “heartbreak,” and said that it was ‘representative of his state of mind’.