Yeezus

The first recordings were made in January 2013 in the living room of West's loft at a Paris hotel. West said he wanted to undermine the commercial, and no track used dubstep-style bass wobbles. Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk called the process very raw, and the engineer Anthony Kilhoffer called it the fastest record they ever made. Days before release West enlisted Rick Rubin to add production at Shangri-La in Malibu. The rough cut ran nearly three and a half hours, and the sessions were cut from 16 songs to 10. West said of Rubin that he is not a producer but a reducer. Rubin said they worked about 15 or 16 days, around 15 hours a day with no days off.

There was no traditional lead single. Videos were projected on buildings worldwide, and West debuted Black Skinhead and New Slaves on Saturday Night Live on 18 May 2013. Justin Vernon, Frank Ocean and Chief Keef appear on the credits. Samples include Nina Simone's version of Strange Fruit on Blood on the Leaves and Ponderosa Twins Plus One's Bound on Bound 2.

Reception

It debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 with 327,000 copies, his lowest solo opening week at that point, and fell 80 percent in its second week. It reached number 1 in Canada and the UK as well. Metacritic gives it 84. Alexis Petridis of the Guardian called it noisy, gripping, maddening and potent, and Jon Dolan of Rolling Stone called it the darkest, most extreme music West had made. Lou Reed praised it in July 2013, while Jon Pareles of the New York Times and Robert Christgau had reservations. Spin and The A.V. Club named it the best album of 2013.