Kanye West’s Updated The Life Of Pablo Is Now On Apple Music And Spotify
Haha, remember when Kanye said that The Life Of Pablo would “never never never be on Apple” and it would “never be for sale” and “you can only get it on Tidal”? Well, uh, just kidding! Gotcha! Wasn’t that a funny joke?
Two of the album’s tracks, “Famous” and “I Love Kanye,” are already available on Apple Music, Spotify, and pretty much everywhere else — including Rhapsody and the newly launched SoundCloud Go — and it seems the rest of TLOP isn’t far behind: Mashable reports that the whole thing is expected to be released on other streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music, Rhapsody, and Google Play on Friday. So much for that Tidal exclusivity! (Not that I’m complaining.) I guess Kanye needed the extra funds since Mark Zuckerberg presumably never came through with that sweet sweet investment money.
Following his changes to “Wolves” and “Famous,” Kanye has also been continuing to update the rest of the songs, thus fulfilling his promise that the LP would be “a living breathing changing creative expression.” At this point, pretty much every track has been updated, and thanks to a few enterprising Redditors, here’s a comprehensive list of the changes:
- ULB: The choir is mixed better. Everyone’s vocals except Chance have a lot more reverb. New Chance line “No one can judge”
- FSMH1: Background vocals at the end of Kanye’s verse and a little on the hook. The snare isn’t as loud as the original release. Beat is a lot more clear.
- FSMH2: Way more full. fuck. Everything is a lot more prevalent. This is such a good mix.
- Famous: Swizz’s adlibs on the bam bam outro aren’t as loud and they echo more.
- Feedback: It’s shorter. Kanye’s vocals are more balanced with the beat now. The bass is also a lot more mixed. Beat is a lot more different in general.
- Low Lights: Reverb and echos? I don’t see that much of a difference.
- Highlights: Vocal’s now sit behind the beat. Thugs vocals are a lot more clear and less harsh.
- freestyle 4 was changed at 0:45 (and each time this pops up) and at 1:38 there’s a new sound. – r/jewishbrick
- I love Kanye: Noticably louder?
- Waves: Kanye’s first verse is rerecorded. Lots more echos. The snare doesn’t make you deaf anymore! Thank you Kanye.
- FML: Vocal’s are more mixed. They sit on top of the beat now. Background vocals added.
- Real Friends: No change
- Wolves: No change (Let’s hope he removes those off-beat drums in 1.3)
- Frank’s track: No change
- 30 Hours: The shout out/adlib outro isn’t in time with the beat like it is in the original. I don’t know how no one on Kanye’s team noticed. He added the pause from the soundcloud version for the Victoria’s Secret line.
- NMPILA: Transition to Facts is smooth. Not as jarring as it was before.
- Facts: Piano line from MSG is back but is barely noticiable. Synths are a lot louder.
- Fade: Way more minimal. The bass line is back too. More like the Yeezys SZN 2 performance. Doesn’t have all the cool sounds from the previous album version and the transitions aren’t as clean as before IMO. It actually ends with an outro instead of cutting off abruptly though.
UPDATE: Def Jam has confirmed to The New York Times that “a newly updated, remixed and remastered version” of TLOP will be streaming on all major services by midnight Friday. “In the months to come, Kanye will release new updates, new versions and new iterations of the album,” they said in a statement, calling the release “a continuous process.” (No shit.) According to data provided by Tidal to The Times, the album has been streamed 400 million times globally through Monday, which is equivalent to about 267,000 albums sold, thus making it the best-selling hip-hop release of the year so far. Because Tidal doesn’t report streams to Nielsen Music, though, the album never earned a spot on the Billboard charts — but now that it’s coming to other services that do report to Nielsen, it could be making its chart debut two months after its initial release. Wild!
UPDATE 2: You can now buy the album for $20 from Kanye’s site.
The Life of Pablo is now available for purchase https://t.co/xYu7lGJR7z pic.twitter.com/mNTAUiie2V
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) April 1, 2016