What is your favorite album by Kanye West and why?

What is your favorite album by Kanye West and why?
I've actually never listened to a Kanye West album, but I'm currently listening to 808s and Heartbreak right now, it's good.

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yeezus and 808s are his best

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

this

Yeezus is my favourite. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a very close second though.

>808
808s & Heartbreak confirmed for third favourite.

Dubs of truth

808s > LR > Yeezud > CD > MBDTF > GRADUATION > TLOP > WTT

Late Registration is G R E A T

this boy likes:

1) graduation/mbdtf
2) the life of pablo/yeezus
2 but on a whole different plane of existence) late registration/808s
3) college dropout
4) only one/all day/ fourfiveseconds aka pre pablo hype kanye

watch the throne never listened to that, heard the singles. hov is not for me, never listened.

man i love all his stuff aside 808s

College Dropout is the album i listen to the most. Through the wire, New Workout Plan, Slow Jamz, All Falls Down, and Spaceship are all great songs.

Best to worst:
Late Registration
College Dropout
Graduation / 808s And Heartbreak
The Life of Pablo
Yeezus

Forgot MBDTF
Worse than Graduation. Better than Pablo.

MBDTF because that's before everything went sour

808 = LR > CD > MBDTF > TLOP > Yeezus > Graduation

Not sure if I should swap TLOP and Yeezus or not.

Yeezus is the superior album.

Swap 808s and MBDTF and this would be my ranking, nice taste user.

those are trips

MBDTF > LR = Yeezus > 808s > CD > Graduation > TLOP >>>>>>>> WTT

lucky quads are correct here

808s > TCD > MBDTF > LR > Yeezus > TLOP > Graduation

I've done my research, those are definitely quints

how the fuck is graduation the worse? get some taste you utter plebeian

Graduation has Kanye's best and worst songs, overall it's his weakest album in comparison to the rest of his albums.

shut up whiteboi you dont know shit

MBDTF > TCD > Graduation > TLOP > Yeezus > LR > 808s

because of Drunk and Hot Girls you fucking pleb.

How can you guys stand the disgusting autotune on 808s? Garbage IMO

Listen to Graduation, it's really accessible and gives you an idea of what he's about

>How can you guys stand the disgusting autotune on 808s? Garbage IMO
its called listening to a wide variety of music with an OPEN mind
plebs like you probably hate Cocteau twins because you can't understand what shes saying

Damn user, at least defend Graduation instead of crying like a bitch that people don't like it.
Not white either btw.

I don't understand how you can unironically put LR above Yeezus, TLOP, or Graduation. It's easily his worst album by far.

LR > CD > MBDTF > 808s > Grad > Yeezus > TLOP

Wow, what a shitty comparison.
Not enjoying vocal pitches wildly shifting all over the place for no reason =/= being close minded. It sounds fucking horrible to me.
This has nothing to do with Cocteau Twins.

808s>TLOP>Ye>MBDTF>LR>Gr>CD

fite me

CD > MBDTF > LR > 808s > TLOP > Grad > Yeezus

The College Dropout is just so fucking good in every way.
>Jesus Walks
>We Don't Care
>Spaceship
>Two Words
>All Falls Down
>Slow Jamz
>Family Business
>Through The Wire
>the motherfucking classic skits

t.pleb

i hate cocteau twins because they sound like shit

I would add
>Get Em High for Kanye's and Talib's verses, where Kanye shows a bit of his technical capability, and the mixing modification on Talib's verse
>The New Workout Plan for those great strings and bass, the bravado, and the overall elaborate and grandiose production
>School Spirit for its awesome chorus, the "I decided I was finished" line, and the outro
>Never Let Me Down for its energy, the overall great verses and chorus, and the gospel bridge between J. Ivy's and Jay's second verse
>Last Call for Kanye's enthusiastic call out of the suits who didn't believe in him (I love that shit), the overlooked/overbooked line, the multiple punny lines, and the 8 minute outro about his come-up that somehow remains interesting (the saxophone solo, the beat changes, the singing, and the bit of rapping Kanye does during it all help) despite its length
>Even Breathe In Breathe Out has those great a cappella bars from Kanye before his third verse

But wait, that's all the songs now, isn't it?

>heard em say
>touch the sky
>gold digger
>drive slow
>roses
>bring me down
>addiction
>diamonds remix
>we major
>hey mama
>celebration
easily his best

how could a motherfucker forget Gone?

every album is great except TLOP

complaining about autotune is like the most pleb thing you can do lol

In before I'm wrong, but TLOP is my favorite

New Workout Plan is a bit messy in it's production, but it's still got good verses

Why? I'm kinda curious. I feel like all Kanye albums had a sound and executed it very well. TLOP seems all over the place sound wise. But not in a good way

What do you mean by "a bit messy?" Are you talking about the mixing or something else?

I like all his albums. TLOP easily one of the best albums this year.

It's certainly kanye's best album this year

I personally feel that the strings' role is a bit intrusive and distracting, and kinda lower the overall quality of the song. That's just my opinion though, because I know people who love the song for the strings.

MBDTF>Yeezus>808s>CD>LR>TLOP>Grad
Disagree and you're wrong

Pablo

man it's crazy that out of all the replies no one had the same rankings as me:

MBDTF > LR >= CD > Yeezus > TLOP> 808s > Graduation

i respect all opinions except anyone putting Graduation as #1 which is objectively incorrect

Okay, that's understandable, they are a bit loud and intrusive. But as someone who loves the strings, I like them because I feel that they fit the "workout" theme of the production: frantic and uptempo, and the similarly grandiose, brash, in-your-face nature of Kanye's "I'm a baller, this is what you normal girls need to do to get someone like me" lyricism, and I feel that the strings in the mock interviews are a sort of "rising action" to the ensuing vigorous workout that seemingly accompanies Kanye's chanting and clapping and the outro chorus, and their grandiose nature, to me, is his way of showing "This is the best workout plan" in those parts along with those interviews.

It's a tier-based structure

MBDTF=CD>LR>808s>>TLOP=Grad>>Yeezus

Down with this, but LR+CD over MBDTF. Same order for everything else though.

Late Registration.
No bad songs on the album.
Perfect balance of great features, great solo moments from Kanye, and great range of subject matter.

Graduation is great, the closest to a Kanye solo album, but the features are mostly lackluster.

MBDTF has great features, but the features sometimes overshadow Kanye, making the album feel really short in length. So Appalled is on MBDTF and it's his worst song. See Me Now (original version without Big Sean) should've been the closing track. It sounds the most commercial/artificial of Kanye's albums, maybe because it's a concept album, still great though.

Yeezus is amazing. It has good lyrics (New Slaves, I Am a God, Blood on the Leaves, On Sight, Bound 2) but for the most part lyricism takes a backseat to emotion and sound.

808s is great. Doesn't have a lot of rapping. We still need a studio version of Pinocchio Story.

TLOP has the same problem has MBDTF and Yeezus, the features overshadow Kanye and lyrics take a backseat to emotion and sound. It's a good album, but feels lacking due to the lack of good lyrics outside of 30 Hours (which is only 2 short verses), Real Friends, No More Parties, and Facts. The lack of consistently good lyrics is acceptable on Yeezus, it's 10 songs, but TLOP is a 20 track album so it's disappointing.

College Dropout is the least Kanye Kanye album, if someone tells you TCD is their favorite Kanye album they're probably not the biggest fan of Kanye. It has signature Kanye elements, but he's still trying to find himself on that album, you can hear his influences more than you can hear him.

>Drunk and Hot Girls not Kanye's worst song
I can understand why you don't like So Appalled but it had some good verses and fit in with the album.

>College Dropout is is the least Kanye Kanye album

I pray to god this is bait

>he's still trying to find himself
So what would you say is the culmination of him trying to find himself, when the elements unique to him started to pop up? What would you say those elements are?

CyHi is garbage and the chorus is garbage. Kanye's verse isn't great, he doesn't even sound like himself.

So Appalled could've been replaced by a more cohesive version of Christian Dior Denim Flow.

You know, I haven't really thought about it. Great question.

I feel like the songs on TCD that sound the most like Kanye's later work are The New Workout Plan, Jesus Walks, and Last Call. I don't mean to say the other songs on the album are bad, but it doesn't sound like the rest of his music does. I couldn't tell you what the distinction is, I need to think about it more.

CyHi had the best verse on track, easily. Also don't know what you mean with Kanye, he sounded like his usual witty self to me.
My only gripe is the chorus and RZA's addition but overall a decent track.

Yeezus>808s>MBDTF>LR>TLOP>Graduation>CD

I wouldn't say he's garbage, he's got some relatively dense internal rhyming at the beginning of his verse, his verse is tied together by some of the religious imagery and terminology he uses, then there's that wordplay with the months and the PhD, and the parts about Lamar and Leinart that coincidentally work well together

I would say that the real problem with So Appalled is that it doesn't seem to fit with the album's overarching Greek tragedy-like story, all the tracks depict the hero's rise to power, and the ensuing failure of the hero's relationship, whether it be with just a girl or the game itself, due his fatal flaw, his egotism. All the tracks lay out a timeline for this, except So Appalled, so it seems rather unnecessary.

Please don't bring Cocteau Twins into this

people who say yeezus is their favorite kanye album are just people who haven't discovered death grips yet, prove me wrong

I meant Kanye's voice, I didn't even realize it was him at first.
>CyHi had the best verse on track
I'd put Kanye's above his, but his verse is definitely better than Jay Z's and Pusha T's. His voice is so fucking grating though. CyHi might have the most nauseating voice of all time.

autotune can be grating, accept that people can hold that as a valid opinion you fucking clod.

Wildly changing pitch shifts to stylize shitty singing isn't everybody's cup of tea.

I ask because I feel like that is fairly hard to argue because there are so many things to take into account when you say something like that; you have to find those elements which aren't "his" among many possible facets of a tracks, argue that those elements are specific to his influences and not him, argue that he intentionally tried to copy those elements, and then argue that conclusion is to his detriment. I know he said somewhere that he wanted the album to sound like Tribe, but then again the chipmunk soul sound is primarily attributed to Kanye himself, so he may have been talking about samples or something else; he wasn't too specific about how iirc. You would also have to address how the production style of albums like Graduation, Yeezus, and TLOP are uniquely Kanye and not his influences if you want to attribute the "lack of unique Kanye" to TCD alone.

At least for me, if we're talking about the influences overshadowing Kanye himself on TCD, I think that grounds the album in the mundaneity and normality it wants to present; we get this new guy calling shots about himself left and right, but under it all, he's still a normal person who idol worships like any other (as he describes on Last Call), and those influences and that worship seep into his music as a result. We get the impression that this is definitely a guy who is trying his best to find himself and make it in the game from working at the Gap. And at the end of the day, taking into account all the conflicting emotions and character facets of Kanye that TCD depicts, both vulgar and benevolent, my opinion is that the album has character that is still something uniquely Kanye, with his very own come up story that is so sacred a trope to hip-hop to boot, something that can't be replicated on later albums.

This is a good post. I never meant to insinuate that TCD is a bad album or that the sound diminishes the quality of the album, I was just trying to say that you can hear his influences in the album and the influences of 90's hip-hop.
>I think that grounds the album in the mundaneity and normality it wants to present; we get this new guy calling shots about himself left and right, but under it all, he's still a normal person who idol worships like any other
You make a great point.

PABLO. It's gonna be remembered as a masterpiece wait and see. The it's got such a unique structure.

Oh, I never meant to imply you did, and if I did, then I'm sorry. I was just curious on what you meant by that part of your post. I'm quite a CD stan haha

back to plebbit cuck

Been listening to a lot of 808's recently, but Graduation is the GOAT

Before I go though, would you go on a date with me?

You're good. I'm sorry I wasn't really able to explain myself.
> I'm quite a CD stan
Any particular reason why? Is it just the authenticity that you mentioned?

MBDTF > Graduation > Yeezus > The College Dropout > TLOP > Late Registration > 808s

> Kanye's rhyming and flow is mostly basic compared to similarly lauded hip-hop artists across his discography, but on this album in particular, it adds to his artistic integrity, along with the album's intention: he was a producer from a middle-class background trying to make it as a novice MC fairly late in the game (late 20's), and the rhyming and overall diction reflect that; it's "delightfully flawed" if I could describe his raps succinctly. You really get the impression that this is his own style and voice that present themselves in his raps. This trait of Kanye's (the basic rapping) does become more indefensible in subsequent albums, however.
>has an admirable underdog to champion story that can pretty easily win you over, and is a classic element of hip-hop
>has a number of daring called shots which pretty much all came true at some point, so they end up being quite funny
>does what Kanye wanted it to do as stated in one of his interviews, which is "whatever you may have felt in the last week, I have a song about it on my album," it expresses defiance, frustration, longing, disdain, uncertainty, hope, confidence, sadness at points, sexual desire, hype, triumph in the face of adversity, camaraderie, familial warmth, and celebratory merriment
>has Kanye's characteristic ego, but a little bit more down-to-earth so it's not as off-putting; there's good balance
>has some of his most classic punchlines and braggadocio, coupled with the more heartwarming verses about his faith in God, his girl, his recovery from injury, and his family, and sometimes these two things happen at the same time, which definitely become moments to remember
>all the songs come together to present Kanye's multifaceted personality in an amusing manner
>overall, it just oozes spirit/resolve

I can go into why I really like it musically too if you want, but on the most basic level, under all of that, the album just makes me really, really happy, more than his other works.

>This trait of Kanye's (the basic rapping) does become more indefensible in subsequent albums, however.
That's one of my favorite part of Kanye's music, he keeps it simple, unlike other "conscious"/backpack rappers. Kanye's lyrics hold the intelligence and insight of "conscious" rap, but he presents them with the style and simplicity of street/gangsta rap. Nobody else does that, I've been trying to, but it's more difficult than it seems.
>coupled with the more heartwarming verses about his faith in God, his girl, his recovery from injury, and his family, and sometimes these two things happen at the same time, which definitely become moments to remember
LR has that too with Hey Mama, Roses, and (to an extent) Celebration.

bum,p

Cruel Summer and I ain't even baiting.

TLOP has some real great songs

Famous is a 11/10

Last Call just has a phenomenal beat and presentation as well. Kanye's delivery on this song is so straight forward and fact-toting. He spits it with such confidence. Probably one of Kanye's best songs in my opinion.

See: This is bait.

I loved TLOP for the same reason many people hated it, the variety. TLOP seems like a culmination/celebration of his entire career up until now. Feedback and Freestyle are what Yeezus was trying to do, but polished. Old Kanye reminded me of shit like School Spirit. Wolves, Real Friends reminded me of MBDTF. ULB reminded me of family business (my all time favorite Kanye record). Highlights -> Graduation, etc. etc. yada yada.

This, in combination with songs like All Day, 4-5 seconds and this incredible remix ( soundcloud.com/kanyewest/say-you-will ) make me think we're seeing Kanye at his strongest so far. But hey, that's just me. I can listen to any of his albums on repeat for the day and not get bored. This album is just endlessly listenable to me. It keeps me on my toes

**Disclaimer - I weight lyrics less than most when evaluating an album. I can look past a lot of corny lines, it’s a super power **

Yeezus, followed by MBDTF.

Yeezus is unfairly shit on IMO. There are some top-tier bleak and stark soundscapes on that thing.

The College Dropout was his best IMO (MBDTF is my second favorite, I remember this album broke Sup Forums when it came out RIP Sup Forums)

Full ranking:
Yeezus > MBDTF > Late Registration > College Dropout >>> Graduation

Still not sure where to fit TLOP and 808s yet, haven't listened to them enough. I'd put 808s above TLOP though.

1. MBDTF (Almost perfect)
2. 808's (Almost perfect)
3. The College Dropout (Classics on classics, great feel of an up and coming rapper)
4. Yeezus (Different and unique, short and sweet, ends kinda bad)
?. WTT (Don't know where exactly I'd place this one, great tracks throughout, feel like a dynamic duo just putting in work on most tracks, feels awkward on the two tracks that sample "I Can't Stop" and "Love You So," normies probably stop listening after the first 5 tracks)
5. Late Registration (Contains some of his best tracks, but too long, skits out the ass)
6. Graduation (Almost full of great tracks, but also contains his worst. Feels more like a greatest hits album, ending is dead af with the bonus tracks)
7. TLOP (Even though it's my most listened to project this year, feels like almost everything about this album is sloppy af. Worst bars out of all his albums, feels more like a collection of Kanye West songs someone gathered together)
8. Cruel Summer (Project was ruined by putting out literally all of the best tracks as singles, everything else sucks)
9. Get Well Soon, Freshman Adjustment Vols, other projects (Every single one of these I've listened to has been boring af)

>indeed

-MBDTF
-College Dropout
-Yeezus
-Graduation
>TLOP would have been here if he had not ditched the original "swish" tracklist
-808's

I like the first two. Graduation is fun at first but has no depth. Yeezus lacks lyricism. MBDTF is definitely his magnum opus, but I like the early stuff in the same way some like Talking Heads: 77 over Remain in Light.

changing 808's for Graduation

1. Yeezus/MBDTF
2. TLOP
3. Graduation
4. WTT
5. Late Registration
6. The College Dropout

Big if true

MBDTF > LR > 808s > Yeezus > CD > TLOP > Graduation

I'm really all about the top 3 though.

MBDTF is his best. It's pretty much considered a landmark album for the genre at this point and it came out when I was 15 so pretty important during my taste-forming years. It's his most introspective album, it has great production (albeit terrible mixing), and the guest features are varied and interesting.

Late Registration is College Dropout but better. The best early Kanye album as it expands upon the CD sound. Jon Brion is the real difference maker here.

808s just gets better with age. One of the most influential albums of the last 10 years, regardless of genre. People who rate it as their last by default are acting a fool imo.

His whole discog is good though, hasn't released a truly bad album imo.

I've listened to every Death Grips album and regard them as my favorite band of all time and I still love Yeezus and think it's Kanye's 2nd best album

My ranking would be
> 1. MBDTF
> 2. Yeezus
> 3. CD
> 4. 808s
> 5. LR
> 6. TLOP
> 7. Graduation

8 and 9 would be WTT and Cruel Summer respectively if you want to count them