Reading the Amazon reviews for this “album” are, well, telling. From the booming voice of Amazon’s “editorial” department comes this missive: “Import only release! Recorded in front of 300 personally invited guests and fans at Abbey Road Studios (the famous Beatles studio) in the UK on September 21st, 2005. Kanye was backed with a 17-piece all-female string orchestra.” How’s the thing fare against less ruthless critics? Says one fledgling Landau, “I'm sure anyone checking this out is familiar with all of these songs, and this might not be up some peoples ally. But damn, It was recorded at Abby Road, you can almost hear John Lennon smile in the strings. This man will single handedly change hip-hop forever. Much like the Beatles changed pop music.” (sic all over the place)

Could Kanye’s legacy possibly approach the nigh-insurmountable watermark he’s set himself in verse and interview? Late Orchestration, the album fawned over above, is the most crushing argument yet against the dude. Hearing Kanye bellow over maudlin, teased-out string lines is like hearing the Beatles try their hand at Krautrock. The signature opening swells of “Through The Wire” are full of fluttering accoutrements, quick cannon blasts of strings; Ye’s “all-female orchestra” (ch-fucking-rist) sounds as nervously unnatural as that “It’s Hard Out There For A Pimp” performance from the Oscars. While Ye screams over neutered drums, every ounce of his charisma spattering feebly on the “personally invited” (read: suits) audience, one imagines interpretive dances, all jazz hands and fake knife-fights, a cardboard car crashing slowly against a brick wall with controlled flames blasting in the background for dramatic emphatics. It flairs out, breathless and expensive, in ten seconds less than it takes the original (which felt too brief, if anything) to push its plate forward, satisfied. The experience is nasty, flutish and short, and it undermines all of the appeal of the original recording. Kanye, I expected better from you.

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