What it was like to watch the debut of Kanye West's strange, soulful new album with a lot of celebrities

Tidal

The premiere of Kanye West's new album on Thursday afternoon got off to a rocky start.

The rapper hosted a listening party and performance piece at New York City's Madison Square Garden, in which he played "The Life of Pablo," his latest record, and showed off his fashion line's new season. The event was live-streamed for free via Tidal, but it kept freezing.

"Pablo" is definitely an evolution from "Yeezus," his last album, which had a harder edge. The beats are still minimal and there is still some Kanye screaming, but he layered in soulful vocals, including by Rihanna. There's also one Taylor Swift reference that's definitely not safe for the whole family.

Kanye wrestles with a lot of personal themes in "Pablo": where he came from, his mega-celebrity, his family, and his relationship to his fans. He promised gospel and, in his own way, delivered.

The debut itself saw everyone from Pusha T and Naomi Campbell to Kim Kardashian and Lamar Odom joining the occasion.

See what happened when Kanye debuted his new album below:

The premiere of "The Life of Pablo" at Madison Square Garden was sold out, but anyone could watch the live stream through Tidal — even non-Tidal members.

The problem was that as soon as things kicked off at 4 p.m., the stream started freezing. It was soon up again and you could watch on a low resolution.

Kanye West entered, along with family and friends, while speakers played the new album from beginning to end. Kanye grinned a lot, and danced and mouthed along to some lyrics, but he did not do any actual performing.