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
- Make this repeating word stop. #NowPressSkip
- 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.
