On August 31st 2008, at the Nike+ Human Race Concert, Kanye performed - for the first time ever - "Love Lockdown" in front of thousands of fans.
On September 2nd 2008, it was announced that Kanye's brand new single "Love Lockdown" would be released in a matter of days, and that he would be releasing a new album before the end of year.
Not long after this, Kanye performed another new song – "Heartless". A poor-quality video surfaced on Youtube on September 6th.
The next day, Kanye performed Love Lockdown in full for the first time at the MTV VMA awards.
The day after the VMA performance, Rap-Up.com posted the cover for Love Lockdown
On September 10th, the song was released on Kanye's blog... to negative feedback. Kanye listened to his fans and released a new version of the song on September 16th, along with a slightly altered cover.
Two days later, the song was released on iTunes.
Around this time, Kanye announced that he will have the album finished within 2 weeks and that it will almost definitely make the deadline to be released December 16th.
On October 7th, Kanye premiered the Love Lockdown video on The Ellen Show.
A few days later, Kanye posted this on his blog:
A snippet of "Heartless" leaked soon after, followed by full versions of "Coldest Winter", "Heartless" (on Kanye's blog) and an unfinished "Robocop", which was first posted on the kanYeLive forums.
A tracklist surfaced soon after.
1. “Welcome to Heartbreak”
2. “Heartless”
3. “Love Lockdown”
4. “Robocop”
5. “Anyway”
6. “Streetlights”
7. “Say You Will”
8. “Bad News”
9. “Amazing” featuring Young Jeezy
10. “Tell Everybody That You Know” featuring Lil Wayne
11. “Coldest Winter”
Later, it was announced the the album would now be released November 25th, and Rap-Up.com posted the heartless cover.
October 25th, kanYeLive.com posted the 808s & Heartbreak cover.
On November 7th, Heartless was released on iTunes, and the Heartless video appeared on Youtube out of nowhere:
After many leaks in November, and the announcement that the album would be released one day earlier, iTunes officially started taking preorders for 808s & Heartbreak, and a special edition version of the cover was posted.
A few days before the U.S. release, the album was released in Europe, Australia, and other countries and was purchased by hundreds of thousands of fans.
And now, November 23rd 2008, and 808s & Heartbreak is hours away from its U.S. release.
Click here to buy on iTunes OR GO TO A STORE TOMORROW AND PICK UP A COPY!
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