Kanye West Graduates

When we first started writing this we did a couple album reviews, but never really got back to them, I think partially because that it seems unnecessary to write about music everyone has already heard of. However, I want to write about Kanye's newest release Graduation for a couple reasons. 1) I'm in the process of moving and haven't really developed any other posts to write about. And more importantly 2) Kanye has been key in expanding the audience of hip hop to new areas and I think what he creates (good or bad) is very important in the world of music.

Graduation is Kanye's third release, and he is working under high expectations, both from critics and himself alike. Kanye has been very influential on me and was really one of the reasons I started listening to a lot more hip hop and rap. What I have always loved about him is his ability to draw from so many influences into his music. He creates rap songs that use sped up soul samples, string arrangements, and drum beats all blended together, and I think really pushed the ideas of production in the hip hop community to a new level back in the beginning of the decade. Lyrically he also has a knack for creating unique songs which often touch upon topics that are ignored by most other rappers.

So how does his new album fit in with these ideas? In short, I think Kanye has put together another great album. Despite some people who had told me that it wasn't very good, I tried to listen with an open mind and found that there are some damn good tracks. No there aren't the evocative, powerful songs from his previous albums such as "Jesus Walks" and "Diamonds", but there are still some great tracks.

I like to look at this album in two ways, one with Kanye as a producer and the other with him as a rapper. As a producer I think he has kept up his game, and the beats he has created are still up to his usual standards. Where the album lacks a little is in the lyrics and rapping. Kanye has never been the greatest MC, but has made up for this with creative lyrics. I was less impressed by the lyrics of the album and rhyming of this album compared to his previous efforts.

I think this album will go down as acclaimed by critics, do well in sales, but be pretty well ignored by the college crowd that first brought him to prominence years ago and who believe he has become over hyped and lost his touch.

To sum it all up, I think there's a great album here, not as good as College Dropout but comparable to Late Registration (Not top 10 rap album all time like Kanye said either). There are a couple pretty weak tracks which is unusual for Kanye's standards, but nothing too bad. I'm posting some of my favorite tracks thus far, and I definitely encourage you to give them a listen, especially since I think some of the singles released so far are not the best representation of the album.

Kanye West - Champion

Kanye West - The Glory

Kanye West - Bittersweet Poetry