808s sees Kanye West delivering the goods once again when it comes to album packaging. The problem with last year’s Graduation was that it only came in digipak form. Fans of these cardboard sleeves had no complaints. However, the problem with digpaks is that they usually don’t come with a tray, which means the CD has to slide in and out of a cardboard sleeve – increasing the chances of your CD getting scratched. The other major issue is that cardboard is much more susceptible to getting frayed and damaged over time than a conventional plastic jewel case. The positives of the digipak format is that the production of the actual album art is of much higher quality. You get a much better resolution printed on the stock cardboard, and it really shows with 808s & Heartbreak. This time, however, ‘Ye offers packaging that should satisfy everyone. 808s comes in both jewel case and digipak formats. Both are pretty much exactly the same, save for the packaging materials. However, there are still some small aesthetic advantages the digipak holds. Using light colors of the spectrum, he literally has lines that run across as the digipak folds out. The effect looks really neat, and almost reminds me of a modern day Dark Side of the Moon design (i.e. the prism, except this prism is coming out of Kanye’s broken heart). The album art itself is great. While the heart on the front cover looks pretty simplistic, it really fits the mood of the album. The album itself is very cold and minimalistic. In that sense, they did a great job picking the ice blue/white cover. As a bonus, the album comes with a double sided poster. On one side, is Kanye West standng in his current get up. The other side contains an endearing photo of Kanye with his mom, the late date Donda West. Overall, I would recommend buying both. It’s nice to have both formats. But if you only plan on buying one, buy whatever format suits you best. The jewel case def has more longevity, and is more practical – as it comes with a tray and protective case – whereas the digipak looks better, and is definitely more artsy. But overall, they are fairly similar and well worth the money.
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-Brent K.
