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DONDA 🤮

At 1 hour and 48 minutes with 27 freaking tracks, Kanye is back with a HUGE new record. Despite what you think about the man, his art has, and always will be, polarizing. I spent my Sunday in the church of Kanye, listening to the misguided DONDA, so you don’t have to. With 66% of the album a 🤮, it’s a hard pass outside of the four tracks mentioned below.

OVERALL RESULTS:

  • 4 🤩
  • 7 😊
  • 16 🤮

EXPERIENCE NOW 🤩

  • Track 2: JAIL
    • Jay-Z and Kanye are back! But it’s not entirely WATCH THE THRONE-worthy. Also, it’s a missed opportunity with the hook dropping with only 30 seconds left.
  • Track 5: HURRICANE
    • Woohoo – The Weekend makes a guest appearance, and yes, “lightning strikes the beat” with a catchy track.
  • Track 10: BELIEVE WHAT I SAY
    • This HEARD EM SAY-like beat is the best song on the album. It will be on repeat when I shoot hoops.
  • Track 17: JESUS LORD
    • “Tell me if you know someone that needs – Jesus.” This song is the spiritual successor of Kanye’s LAST CALL but feels even more personal with themes of politics, loss, and finding Jesus.

EXPERIENCE WHENEVER 😊

  • Track 13: MOON
    • Kid Cudi is back and once again is grappling with the MOON in this inspired track. Although the song doesn’t quite put a MAN ON THE MOON, it orbits just out of this world to make it worth a listen.
  • Track 14: HEAVEN AND HELL
    • Only Kanye can connect Jeff Bezos and LEGO in a rap.
  • Track 15: DONDA
    • A spoken word track trying to say something about life and Kanye, but it ends up being an empty preacher’s sermon.
  • Track 16: KEEP MY SPIRIT ALIVE
    • I am “praying and strategizing” that Kanye goes back to the catchy songs and leaves the gospel behind.
  • Track 18: NEW AGAIN
    • And we are back! The gospels are once again catchy and feel like something NEW AGAIN.
  • Track 21 PURE SOULS
    • A conflicted Kanye discusses giving up his soul to become pure for his kids yet still flexes about all that he has done.
  • Track 22 COME TO LIFE
    • This song should be cut from the album, but it hints that Kanye might be making a hip-hop musical concept album and not just a new release. Wait, Broadway Kanye? Sign me up!

EXPERIENCE NEVER 🤮

  • Track 1: DONDA
  • Track 3: GOD BREATHED
    • Like bad morning breath that has not been touched by God.
  • Track 4: OFF THE GRID
    • Kanye should’ve left this song ‘off the grid’ and not on the album. Or at least, come up with a less annoying beat.
  • Track 6: PRAISE GOD
    • The overcomplicated hook is too repetitive. God would not be praising this track.
  • Track 7: JONAH
    • Not quite ready to cry on the shoulders of this song nor give the key to Chicago to Kanye.
  • Track 8: OK OK
    • My takeaway is that even though Kanye is saying he is OK, he’s “not OK.”
  • Track 9: JUNYA
    • I guess this means Kanye is a Bucks fan since he went with Giannis? #SunsFan4Life
  • Track 11: 24
    • The gospel has taken over this album and not in a good JESUS WALKS kinda way.
  • Track 12: REMOTE CONTROL
    • “I was in my hovercraft and had another laugh” is the most Kanye verse in a throw-away track on DONDA.
  • Track 19: TELL THE VISION
    • Wait, so the last several songs were about being thankful for Jesus, and now we get a song about boasting? 🤔
  • Track 20 LORD I NEED YOU
    • Well, Kanye has done it. How the heck does he pull off these two raps? Comparing “Palm Springs and Walgreens” and “we used to do the freak like seven days a week. It’s the best collab since Taco Bell and KFC.” 😂
  • Track 23 NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
    • Throw away gospel that no one should have to suffer through.
  • Track 24: JAIL PT 2
    • I don’t have FOURFIVESECONDS to pay Kanye’s bail to release this misguided song.
  • Track 25: OK OK PT 2
    • Another pt 2 that’s not needed.
  • Track 26: JUNYA PT 2
    • FML, this album is never going to end.
  • Track 27: JESUS LORD PT 2
    • Eleven minutes and thirty-second version of the same as Track 17. You should get a badge for surviving the PT 2’s on this album.

Aaron "Dobler" Goldstein

Aaron Goldstein is a Product Manager by day, ludicrous speed content consumer by night. He’s a LA Film School Alumni and TV Academy / Producers Guild of America member. Aaron is a proud parent and dad joke enthusiast.

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