Kanye has totally gone emo on us: Strip away the Auto-Tune on “Love Lockdown” and “Heartless” and you have yourself a pop-radio dude self-deprecatingly singing about his heartache (over a Tears for Fears sample, no less). Maybe Pete Wentz should suggest Fall Out Boy use more Auto-Tune, less Elvis Costello. West’s formula doesn’t shift too much on “Cold Winter,” but we do get interestingly upfront percussion, as if he borrowed at least one stick from Brian Chippendale’s recent Björk collaborations. (OK, more likely, his percussion dudes from “Love Lockdown”’s Miami Vice version). It’s a short piece, like Kanye … wouldn’t be surprising if on 808’s & Heartbreak it worked as a transition into something bigger.
