The song called for him to sing alone, and he botched the first take in front of the studio audience. There was a manic quality to his promo tour: Just one week before his New Zealand press conference, he was in New York performing 808’s lead single, “Love Lockdown”, on “Letterman”. In the time leading up to the album’s November release, West gave the impression of a man running on fumes, flooring the pedal through the most nightmarish moment in his life. Still reeling from the death of his mother as well as a breakup with his fiancée, he explained how “ 808s came from suffering multitude losses at the same time-it’s like losing an arm and a leg and having to find a way to keep walking through it.” When a reporter asked what he planned to see during his visit to New Zealand, he replied dryly: “The back of my eyelids.' Sporting Tom Ford shades so dark that they seemed to obscure half his face, he waded through a 40-minute press conference in seeming slow-motion. He was in New Zealand to promote-or perhaps explain- 808s & Heartbreak, the new album he recorded in an ungodly rush amidst his continent-hopping Glow in the Dark tour.

This album is admirable for much more than just its creator's chutzpah.Kanye West arrived at Auckland’s Westin Hotel in December 2008 looking exhausted, at the end of every possible rope. Taut string arrangements, doomy bass and looped piano motifs add to the claustrophobia captivating as it is, the isolated moments of levity (the disco bounce of Paranoid Young Jeezy's guest spot on Amazing, on which he rhymes 'podium' with 'sodium') are a relief.

In his hands, Autotune is a weapon, not a gimmick: ironically for a device used to dehumanise the singer, it makes him sound more vulnerable, as though playing smoke and mirrors with his own emotions. That he ultimately pulls it off is testament to his talent: it is the stylised, minimal music that lends the album its power, and which helps West convince as a man beset by demons and femmes fatales. 808s & Heartbreak shouldn't work: West's takes on the solitude of the superstar are solipsistic and clumsy ('How could you be so Dr Evil?' he asks on Heartless). E ven by Kanye West's standards, delivering an album of meditations on loneliness and paranoia, entirely sung through Autotune, is an audacious statement.

Best songs from 808s and heartbreak