Kanye West - Graduation
It must be hard to be someone like Kanye West. With the amount of fantastic material he's released in the last 5 years, following up his first two albums seems like a pretty daunting task, in addition to the fact that his previous albums aren't "Graduation"'s only competition. 50 Cent's trash talking has put West in a space where he probably wants to be, in direct competition with someone he (and most of the general public) knows he is better than.
Beating 50 in an album quality battle should be no problem for West, comparing his last 2 offerings with 50's last two. My question when I started listening to this album was not if it was better than "Curtis," because I had no doubt that it would be, but if it was better than "The College Dropout," and "Late Registration." In my mind, being better than those albums is no easy feat.
One of the first things I noticed was a lack of skits. The music starts with track 1, and doesn't stop. This is excellent. Small things between songs to make the album flow are one thing, but a good number of rappers take it overboard. With "Graduation," however, West has managed to make an album that flows very well throughout the whole disc, and also one that doesn't seem to drag at any point like parts of "Late Registration" do. Another common problem with hip-hop albums is that they are too long. "2001" by Dr. Dre, for example, is an hour and 15 minute long album, too long to be able to get through in one sitting for most people. Graduation's 13 tracks and 56 minute playtime make it a much more listenable whole album compared to his other two much longer discs, and most other rap.
Obviously, however, length isn't the only factor. A 56 minute album can still be awful if most of it is crap. Like the iPhone release a couple months ago, this album has suffered from over hype. There has been more talk about this release than almost any other that I can remember, and the "battle" with 50 doesn't help that. Many people, including myself, had such high expectations for this album that it was quite possible that even a perfect release wouldn't fulfill them. It also doesn't help that West has two excellent albums already under his belt. To tell you the truth, I was surprised when I didn't hear the trademark old guy talking to West at the beginning of the album, but "Good Morning" provides a fantastic introduction. It is, essentially, an intro track made into a full song, with West saying lines such as "welcome to graduation," and the obvious introductory aspect to the title. "Champion" is one of my favorite songs, riding off of a great Steely Dan sample. The one two punch of "Champion" followed by the lead single is a great way to start off the album. I have my gripes about "Stronger," like any good Daft Punk fan, but the song is a great single, successfully re-imagining Daft Punk's original from 5 years ago, and migrating it to a hip hop environment very well. If Daft Punk likes the track, it's definitely fine with me.
Several other high points of the album include "Good Life," the next single off the album, where T-Pain provides his trademark vocoder-infused singing voice to the chorus (and does a wonderful job of it), and "Flashing Lights," a definite club-banger that makes wonderful use of synths. The album does have a few weak spots ("Drunk and Hot Girls" comes to mind), but overall they are few and far between, and the highs definitely outweigh the lows. All of the tracks come together to create a great whole piece.
Because this album doesn't contain any hard hitting pleasure center overload songs like "Jesus Walks" or "Gold Digger," it seems like West is trying to change his sound a bit, which is definitely a good thing. Synthesizers are used much more frequently in this disc, as well as a lot of other sounds that seem to grab their influence from electronic music. I really appreciate him trying different things, because "Late Registration" felt more like a pathetic attempt at making another "College Dropout," without much success. This album is not trying to be a follow-up, it has it's own identity completely.
So how does it compare to the others? "College Dropout" is hard to beat, and I don't think this album did. In my opinion however, it is a worthy, and better, follow-up to "Late Registration."
8.8/10