Of the entirety of Kanye West’s discography, 808s & Heartbreaks is the most divisive. Classified by Kanye as a pop effort, the album is usually either lauded as an under-appreciated stoke of genius or denigrated as a hackneyed, self-indulgent, auto-tuned mess. There was no denying 808s commercial appeal, however—the album debuted at number one on the Billboard chart and has gone on to sell well over a million copies.
You can credit a lot of that success to the album’s first single, “Love Lockdown,” which may be the simplest song West has ever written, and also one of the most infectious. It also happens to make for an interesting—if not terribly unsurprising—choice for a cover, especially when it comes from the hands of someone like lifelong rocker Dan Dixon. The former frontman for the now defunct Dropsonic has a new project called PLS PLS whose first single has already been praised within the pages of this blog. For his second effort, Dixon treats us to a mostly faithful rendition of West’s minimalist pop anthem, and it totally rules. To be honest, I feel that Dixon’s version has a bit more gritty soul to it and the guitar lead near the end gives it just the right amount of amplified aggression to break up the song’s otherwise monotonous structure. One-upping Kanye on his own material is no easy feat, but Dixon does just that, giving us even greater reason to put PLS PLS high on our lists of acts to look out for in 2012.
More Info:
Web: www.plspls.net
Bandcamp: www.plspls.bandcamp.com
