It’s really funny and kind of awesome that Kanye debuted his new “Love Lockdown” video on Ellen. It’s really cool that again Kanye’s made a video that’s different from the materialistic and misogynistic platitudes of stereotypical hip-hop fare.

But I feel like I’m the only one who hates the damn thing.

One of the things I love about Kanye’s best work is its narrative cohesion. We see a young woman’s frightened and false superciliousness in “All Falls Down,” a cute yet poignant race to the graduation ceremony in “Good Morning,” and, of course, the (original) “Flashing Lights” clip.

“Love Lockdown” features similarly jarring visual moments—intense tribal dances, beautiful and powerful poses, the occasional and appropriate blurring of the camera lens—but lacks the cohesion to put those images together in a meaningful way.

Kanye appears in his trademark minimalist-chic style, singing in a beige room in which everything is draped by curtains; this scene is interspersed with shots of ancient African warriors, some sort of spacecraft, and the shockingly cliche image of gyrating girls in neon body paint. Yet none of these themes get fleshed out, either visually or through narrative. Why is Kanye in that room? Does he notice the tribesmen? What’s the point of all these images?

It’s not that videos must have a cohesive narrative arc, but they should at least be composed of images that fit well together and whose optical artistry can arrest the viewer. There are a couple of potentially fine music videos in “Love Lockdown,” but the end product seems like Kanye was in a rush to release something “cool.” A little more time in the developmental stages would have resulted in a more coherent work of art.