Kanye West may have an ego the size of a blimp, but he too seems susceptible to criticism. Less than a week after the rapper/producer released his new song, Love Lockdown, online, he is already re-recording it.
The new recording is understood to have taken place in Hawaii, after Kanye posted bail from a scuffle with Los Angeles paparazzi.
"Your prayers have been answered!" Kanye wrote on his blog. "There's a new version of Love Lockdown coming. We used new taiko drums and I re-sung it... it's being mastered now ... "
It remains to be seen whether Japanese taiko drums will be enough to redeem a track roundly scorned by hip-hop fans across the 'net. Rather than rally behind the MTV Video Music Awards-premiered song, fans were bewildered by its diffuse, auto-tuned style.
"There must not be anyone in Kanye's inner circle or in the Def Jam building with both the cojones and the authority to tell Kanye West that ... Love Lockdown should [never] have been released," wrote influential hip-hop blogger Byron Crawford. "The result is a song so awful I'm wondering if radio stations are even gonna be able to pretend that it's good enough to put into heavy rotation."
His comments were echoed by a critic at the Underwriter blog. "Ask me about any other song Kanye has produced and/or performed; I'll probably defend it as either great, good or misunderstood. This one is just weird, and seems similar to the news of [Governor Sarah] Palin being picked [by John McCain] for VP, not very well planned out and intended for shock value. ... Speaking of which, where's the rap? Eff that, where's the beat?"
Even 50 Cent - whom Kanye soundly trounced in a chart battle last year, - was able to score some points, mocking Love Lockdown with an out of tune rendition in Albany, NY.
But at least when it comes to the autotune, Kanye is unrepentant. "If you don't like auto-tune," he wrote on his blog, "too bad cause I love it and have been using it since the College Dropout!!!"
Extra exclamation marks aren't going to be able to save this one, sir.
