“I like all of albums because of the versatility that he has,” said freshman Josh Baskin, “but Graduation stands out to me because of just how many phenomenal songs are on it.” The fresh production adds to many praiseworthy tracks. The traditional rap is imbued with catchy pop hooks and a more mainstream sound, a big factor in why hip-hop is so popular today. Reinventing a genre of music is no easy feat, but Graduation did exactly that. “Who Gon Stop Me” ventures too far into the realm of dubstep and the album is fairly frontloaded, but Watch The Throne ’s low placement doesn’t do justice to how entertaining it is.
MY DARK TWISTED FANTASY ALBUM COVER UNCENSORED FULL
Songs like “Otis” contain excellent sampling and “N****s In Paris” has an instrumental for the ages, the verses on the latter chock full of excitement. A collaboration with fellow hip-hop innovator Jay-Z, it’s an album more concerned with having fun than being good. Popular online music critic Anthony Fantano described Watch The Throne as Kanye’s “victory lap” following the commercial and critical success of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which is the best way to put this album. The album’s sound is consistently inconsistent but the context behind what West set out to accomplish with it helps to enhance the listening experience. “I can truly feel my soul rumbling when I hear Kanye rapping about his mother.” “ Donda is a spiritually intimate experience to listen to,” said Hills junior Austin Sibley. Named after and dedicated to Kanye’s late mother, the album succeeds as an inspired tribute.
In contrast with the lower-ranked entries, Donda clocks in at 108 minutes, proving to be far too lengthy, but the overarching subject matter may make it worth the listen. Anticipation built up heavily over many weeks, and when it came time to listen, the project might have been seen as underwhelming. The most recent album in Kanye’s discography, Donda was released after several delays. “Ghost Town” and “Violent Crimes” close out the album well, but much is still left to be desired. Its topics are promising, but the project is ultimately too short to reach its full potential. Multiple albums on this list were revolutionary in shaping the hip-hop scene, but this one appears to be following trends more than setting them. Ye covers themes of mental health that none of Kanye’s previous albums up to this point had done, setting it apart instantly. Regardless, it has a couple good tracks and a breezy length of 27 minutes. “Hands On” includes the lyric “Said I’m finna do a Gospel album,” and for the artist to summarize this entire record in one simple adjective should speak to how few layers it has. The album does little besides express West’s love for God, which isn’t much of a problem on the surface, though he isn’t able to do enough with the instrumentals to justify its concept. With the first part of his documentary event, jeen-yuhs, set to hit Netflix within the week and his new album, “Donda 2,” also lined up for February, it seems as good a time as ever to compare and contrast his current catalog.Įven Kanye’s worst album is by no means terrible, a testament to his skill, but JESUS IS KING rings of a general lack of inspiration. On top of numerous controversies and celebrity drama, 11 albums have followed, each with their own distinct sounds. Kanye West has been a leading artist in the music world since he dropped his debut back in 2004.