Picture Postcard: Kanye West and Patrick Bateman

Dearest EJ

Have you heard any tracks off Kanye's new album?

There are a number of Kanye West fans out there who are somewhat puzzled by his latest musical offerings which by now are all over the internet before the album's (808s and Heartbreak) release date at the end of the month. His new muse is loneliness and the songs that I've heard are full of introspection, frosty synths and autotune. I only recently read about another one of his recent inspirations. MTV News reported earlier this month that Kanye was inspired by the movie version of American Psycho. “On this album, I kind of embody Patrick Bateman from ‘American Psycho. You know at the end of the movie [that] he didn’t really kill anyone. [I just liked] the clean aesthetic and the way he was all about labels. I wanted to express all of that in the video.” Despite only watching the film, Kanye was able to decipher the main moral of the piece...there's more to life than buying stuff, even cool Japanese stuff you can post on your blog. Kanye then added, "I had all these ideas and I just needed to get it out as an artistic vision. I don't have a rapper's name, (but) I have really good taste and anyone who likes it probably has really good taste too."

So even though West might have been inpsired by a shallow ’80s banker with an antisocial personality disorder and homicidal tendencies...it has to beat the generic inspirations and codes that most rappers live by. Whatever you think about the man and the music, you have to appreciate his sense of style and that he doesn't fit into the genre's stereotypes. Just look at him in the above press shot!