Kanye West, '808s & Heartbreak'

The buzz: Like you don't know: in the past five years, Kanye West has gone from revered hip-hop producer to worldwide superstar, influencing everything from fashion (those ubiquitous blinds-shades) to rock music (Fall Out Boy enlisted him to remix “This Ain't a Scene”) to politics (“George Bush doesn't care about black people”). “808s and Heartbreak” is the followup to his mega-successful third album, “Graduation.”

The verdict: Whenever a megastar goes out on a limb, it's at a great risk to his career; for someone like Kanye, who has made a public spectacle out of his ego, if it were to go wrong, it could be potentially devastating. “808s and Heartbreak” veers far out of West's traditional hip-hop structures into speak-sung, Auto-Tune corrected pop—which could work, if it were done with the obvious passion that he's put into his best work, from “Jesus Walks” to “Stronger.” Most of these songs, though, are tuneful, bitter ruminations on what sounds like a high school-style breakup, making this album at the least utterly confusing and at most a hopeless mess—though potentially the kind of mess that, a year from now, could end up sounding prescient and revelatory.

Did you know? Maybe Kanye's actually letting go of his ego—at the recent American Music Awards ceremony, he dedicated his Favorite Male Rap/Hip-Hop Artist trophy to fellow rapper Lil Wayne.