Early this morning (right past midnight eastern time) Kanye West dropped a new track off his upcoming yet-to-be-titled album.  “Devil in a New Dress” features a background tune that is very reminicent of his old work (think The College Dropout and Late Registration).  Though ‘Ye’s blood pressure doesn’t spike here (the song takes a detour from “Power“, the “Power” remix, and last week’s G.O.O.D. Friday track “Monster“), the Bink production grows on you after multiple listenings so give it a preview (and then download it) below.  In a tweet Kanye described the track like this: “classic… instantly gave me a feel I’ve missed in music for so long.”  At only 2 minutes and 52 seconds in length (plus there’s that abrupt ending) I have a feeling this is not the final version of the song.

Predictions for next week: Kanye still has “All of the Lights” up his sleeve (but I’m hearing that he’s waiting to perform it at the VMAs on September 12) and then there’s the Jay-Z collab EP waiting in the wings.  Will the EP drop soon, or will we be handed individual tracks before it releases?  Time will tell.

Download: Kanye West – “Devil in a New Dress”

[audio: Kanye West – Devil in a New Dress.mp3]

Update: Kanye hinted at what’s to come next week.  My predictions were a bit off this time.  “We might drop 2 new Good joints next week!!!” he tweeted.  “I got new joint with Pusha T and Big Sean… The Summer has to have this one …. I might drop it Tuesday if I finish my verse.”

Update 2: After releasing “Devil in a New Dress” Kanye West jumped onto Twitter to express all these thoughts that have clearly been bottled upside him for some time.  Nearly one year after the Taylor Swift incident at the 2009 MTV VMAs, Kanye addresses a second apology to the country singer.  Here are some choice quotes (erm, tweets) from his “stream of consciousness”:

“How deep is the scar… I bled hard.. cancelled tour with the number one pop star in the world [Lady Gaga] … closed the doors of my clothing office.”  “Remember in Anchor Man when Ron Burgandy cursed on air and the entire city turned on him? But this wasn’t a joke. This was & is my real life.”  “I wrote a song for Taylor Swift that’s so beautiful and I want her to have it. If she won’t take it then I’ll perform it for her.”  (Possibly at the VMAs?)  “She had nothing to do with my issues with award shows. She had no idea what hit her. She’s justa lil girl with dreams like the rest of us.”  “She deserves the apology more than anyone. Thank you Biz Stone [Twitter creator] and Evan Williams [Twitter CEO] for creating a platform where we can communicate directly.”  “I’m ready to get out of my own way. The ego is overdone… it’s like hoodies.”  “With new found humility … who am I to run on stage? I would never ever again in a million years do that. Sorry to let you down.”  “It is distasteful to cut people off as a general rule. What’s the point of dressing tastefully if I’m going to act the complete opposite?”  “Yes I was that guy. A 32 year old child.”  “When I woke up from the crazy nightmare I looked in the mirror and said GROW UP KANYE … I take the responsibility for my actions.”  “Why was it made into such a race issue. Taylor loves rap music… I love country music.”

After all this Kanye speaks directly to his haters: “I’ve hurt, I’ve bled, I’ve learned. I only want to do good. I am passionate I am human I am real. I wish I could meet every hater.  I wish I could talk to every hater face to face and change there a opinion of me one conversation at a time.  I wish they all knew how much I really cared about music and pop culture and art and peoples feelings.  I wish they could accept that I’ve grown and only want to do good for the world. I want to help as many people as I can.  I want to help starting with the music and ending with the smile.  I want to win there hearts back so I can continue to bring my take on culture to the masses with a clean opinion.  It starts with this…  [Drumroll, please] I’m sorry Taylor.”

Take what you will from this apology of sorts, but it looks to me that ‘Ye is finally turning the corner here.  He’s not holding back the music and he’s publically expressing himself like never before.  I welcome the “new” Kanye with open arms.  And I am really looking forward to this year’s VMAs.

[Via KWBlog]