Is Kanye's early shit actully good? Or is that all just dick riders? Legitimate answers please

Is Kanye's early shit actully good? Or is that all just dick riders? Legitimate answers please.

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Listen to it lazy faggot form your own opinions for once

Yes. It is very good. The samples and string heavy production is fantastic. What music have you heard from Kanye?

I could never get into this one. But I really like Late Registration

College Dropout is definitely not his most consistent work but if you like the Kanye wordplay kind of shit it's a lot of fun and the best tracks on there (Family Business, Last Call, and a bunch of the singles) are really great. Late Registration is a lot more polished though, and more consistent

Yeah, mixes pop and hip hop expertly. Many forget but his early work lead to a ton of chipmunk soul knock offs and it created the whole nerd superstar archetype

His lyrics were really great at the time when the mainstream was still doing mafioso bullshit.

I like more his old stuff than the new.

i'm sorry friend

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

>808s at Bottom
Well at least you got that part right.

The singular tracks everybody always mentions (Jesus Walks, Through The Wire, etc.) are all still great. A lot of it hasn't aged well though due to he himself kinda being a transitional player in hip hop going through change so there's still a lot of generic sounding raps, filler skits, etc. in his older stuff.

i'm sorry friend

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

College Dropout is a great character study on an up and coming rapper, and it's distinctly Kanye in the way that it juxtaposes ego and humility in the same person on many of the songs, with a fresh version of the classic hip-hop come up story to boot. The skits are pretty funny and are as up front as he is, and the chipmunk soul production style is, to me, great, especially on songs like "Through The Wire," whose beat is a pitched up version of the chorus from Chaka Khan's "Through The Fire," where the vocals are pitched up so much that you can't really tell if she's saying "fire" or "wire" unless you know the song, which in effect makes a new and fitting chorus out of an existing one, a chorus which is interestingly overshadowed by Kanye's own spoken-through-the-wire dialogue to the listener in those sections. You probably won't find a better example of the production style, since the style was basically popularized by Kanye. You also see some of the influences he uses on later albums; he plays around with autotune on some songs, and The New Workout Plan and Last Call implement some beat changes. I could go on but there's a lot to like about this album, it's very charming and delightfully flawed, if that makes any sense. Don't listen to the people who say it hasn't aged well (this opinion is often influenced by their own music tastes and their difficulty in acclimating to a different type of sound, and this opinion is very difficult to prove objectively); listen to it yourself first. I promise you there's a good album waiting there.

>this opinion is often influenced by their own music tastes and their difficulty in acclimating to a different type of sound, and this opinion is very difficult to prove objectively
Fucking bullshit. First of all, most people started listening to Kanye when he first got big on his own and release Through The Wire as a single before CD came out. There's no difficulty in acclimating to the sound as most enjoyed this stuff right when it came out.

Second, you say your own subjective bullshit about the skits as many find them funny the first few times, but often exhausting every time one goes through the record.

Third, a somewhat decent argument can easily be made on why skits are bad as they are mostly non-musical interludes which interfere with the musical flow of a record. It's like a page long AUDIOBOOK when trying to listen to MUSIC.

Fourth, you also only talk about the good tracks on the record (what a surprise). You take away All Falls Down, Jesus Walks, The New Workout Plan, Slow Jamz, and the final three tracks, you are left with nine mediocre tracks plus five skits that again, are fun the first couple of times, but annoying the rest of the times.

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

i'm sorry friend

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

>Graduation tied for #1
>808s so low
good god i've never seen such terrible taste

>implying 808s and heartbreaks is a good album
>implying Graduation is not a great kanye album
please explain how it feels to be a plebian

>Second, you say your own subjective bullshit about the skits as many find them funny the first few times, but often exhausting every time one goes through the record.
You're not exactly making a case for yourself here in refuting the legitimacy of what I said, since you used a vague word like "many," and then another vague adjective like "exhausting" in an attempt to refute the point; you're essentially arguing subjectivity with subjectivity in this point, and disregarding that, it seems like you're strawmanning a bit; I simply said the skits were funny, which is an opinion, I admit, but I made no claims as to how funny they would be after repeated listens; you implied I made that claim and proceeded to attack it.

>Third, a somewhat decent argument can easily be made on why skits are bad as they are mostly non-musical interludes which interfere with the musical flow of a record.
One skit is around 14 seconds long and is the intro skit, and four of the skits (Graduation Day, I'll Fly Away, School Spirit part 2 has some choral bits and serves as a fade out to the eponymous track, and Lil' Jimmy) have musical elements to them. This leaves two skits that are completely spoken word, one of which begins to address the main idea behind "The College Dropout" and the other serving as a buildup to decently elaborate and grandiose instrumentation (a technique he also uses on MBDTF with All of the Lights), though admittedly, I too think this one is a bit unneccessary. These two skits are the only ones I can think of that could disrupt the musical flow of the album, and one is very important to the album's message, quite an important thing in conscious rap, so I don't see what you're on about.
>Fourth, you also only talk about the good tracks on the record (what a surprise).
Do you want me to go into why I think every single track on the album is good? I have time.

Fuck it we're ranking albums now I guess.

LR=MBDTF>CD>Grad>Yeezus=WTT>Tlop>808s

don't even know what to say, i think you're beyond help

aight lets do this

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

you forgot CD

Why is graduation so low for you?

>You're not exactly making a case for yourself here in refuting the legitimacy of what I said, since you used a vague word like "many"
That's because I am saying that your subjective opinion doesn't start holding water because you start saying that someone else's isn't objective. It's a pointless thing to say.

>Graduation Day, I'll Fly Away
I didn't include them and count them as skits since they do have a heavy enough musical element on their own to not be a skit. Intro is short, but thus is skip-worthy since it doesn't add to the music on consecutive listens.

>a technique he also uses on MBDTF with All of the Lights
That one's completely instrumental though and actually builds up to the track by constantly layering each sound until the track itself actually starts. Nothing like what's happening on CD.

>one is very important to the album's message
Well, shit that would be great if this was a goddamn speech, but we are here to listen to music not hear people talk about music.

>Do you want me to go into why I think every single track on the album is good? I have time.
Feel free if you really wanna do track by track. That being said, I do find it fascinating that people very rarely talk about anything outside the same seven tracks on this.

>It's a pointless thing to say.
Not in my post; I was basically talking about why I think CD is good, The wording makes it a bit implicit, so I recognize that I should have talked about the skits and how they play into the main idea of why I think the album's good in the first place.

>Intro is short, but thus is skip-worthy since it doesn't add to the music on consecutive listens.
I wouldn't say this because it serves to establish the small timeline that is resolved after We Don't Care and Graduation Day, and gives a bit of context to the introductory line on We Don't Care, while gaplessly transitioning into the track. I personally don't think it's skipworthy on that basis.

>Nothing like what's happening on CD.
That's why I said I thought it was the only one purely unneccessary. I was agreeing with you on that skit.

>We are here to listen to music
I am here to listen to music, yes. Specifically, I'm here to listen to conscious backpacker rap, a genre where its practitioners more often than not sacrifice complexity of instrumentation and technicality of lyricism in order to convey some sort of message. I know what I'm getting into when I listen to this subgenre, so I don't particularly mind that skit because I know that the way it is, this is what I can expect. I know that this doesn't make it objectively necessary, but to me, it is a contributing factor to why I think the album is great: it's a character study, and for that reason, I don't think it's unneccessary or skip-worthy, since it fleshes out the character Kanye wants to depict on this album, and a big part of the rags-to-riches story he wants to tell, a beloved concept in hip-hop.

>That being said, I do find it fascinating that people very rarely talk about anything outside the same seven tracks on this.
How about this then, you name the tracks you want me to talk about, and I do that, and if you're still interested, then I can talk about the tracks most people talk about.

shite, place between mbdtf and 808's

Because besides Flashing Lights, Good Life I Wonder and Stronger, the tracks there are just bland. His flow his much more lethargic (tho his flow was never his strong suit), the lyrics are a lot less memorable, and the production is just boring af.

Idk, maybe it's just me but that album is just the worst.

>I wouldn't say this because it serves to establish the small timeline that is resolved after We Don't Care and Graduation Day, and gives a bit of context to the introductory line on We Don't Care, while gaplessly transitioning into the track. I personally don't think it's skipworthy on that basis.
This would matter more if the concept of the record was as tight as you imply it to be. It's not though.

>Specifically, I'm here to listen to conscious backpacker rap, a genre where its practitioners more often than not sacrifice complexity of instrumentation and technicality of lyricism in order to convey some sort of message.
>Kendrick Lamar, A Tribe Called Quest, Cunninlynguists, The Roots, De La Soul, Common, Gangstarr
>Sacrificing complexity of instrumentation or technicality of flow/lyricism
?

>it's a character study, and for that reason, I don't think it's unneccessary or skip-worthy
Most of the record is a character study on Ye himself, that doesn't mean that it needs skits to explain what's happening. It's telling rather than showing. Not a great example of using the medium compared to say...Kendrick's complete change in delivery as he either starts to strengthen or fall apart in his narratives, or for a non-musical example, how the movie Memento was shot which again, SHOWS why the main character may not be so trustworthy.

>How about this then, you name the tracks you want me to talk about, and I do that, and if you're still interested, then I can talk about the tracks most people talk about.
All the boring ones. Aka the ones I didn't name a few posts ago.

Talked to hippie/jam band/schpongle type who said regarding Kanye "I hate him. His music is so awful. Except his first album was pretty good"

Yeezus way too high

WTT is underrated. Listen to it as a comedy album with dope beats.

Alright, so We Don't Care, Spaceship, Never Let Me Down, Get 'Em High, Breathe In Breathe Out, School Spirit, and Two Words? I actually hear people talk about We Don't Care, Spaceship, Never Let Me Down, School Spirit, and Two Words far more than say, The New Workout Plan, but okay. This will take a while though. I'll talk about the rest of your post later.

I mean they're good but not as good as his newer stuff.

TLOP Yeezus MBDTF > CD LR Graduation

WTT has some fucking great songs, its a little boring compared to kanyes usual stuff but its for sure underrated

It's fantastic but honestly it's one of my least favorite Kanye albums to listen to front to back. LR was a big improvement imo and his stuff since graduation is better.

Listen to this, its from the college dropout the beat he came up with is really sick:
youtube.com/watch?v=tkFOBx6j0l8

Also when Kanye told Mos Def the song was two words he took it literally and rapped his whole verse two words at a time.

Okay, here goes.
>We Don’t Care

So, coming off the intro with the hammy voiced teacher, we hear Kanye answering the request in a sarcastic, confrontational manner, which right away establishes him as a rebellious type of person, and immediately conveys the essence of the mentality of this album: it’s a rebellion and a call out against all those who never believed in him. A rebellion against his mother’s wishes for him as an English professor at college, a rebellion against the societal idea that a college dropout can’t succeed in life, a rebellion against the gangsta rap trending on the charts of the time, and a rebellion against traditional values of what is good and what is not good, as is the main idea of this track.

But since this is music, let’s talk about the music first. The track begins with a slow build-up, which is likely Kanye warming up for his performance at a graduation ceremony, as we find out on Graduation Day, and then we hear the main beat. The most prominent element of the instrumentation is a sample of “I Just Wanna Stop” by the Jimmy Castor Band. One strength of The College Dropout in general is how well the sampling and production plays into the lyricism on each of the track, and this one is no exception. The sample is pitched up, as is the case with chipmunk soul, and other elements are incorporated. Watch this video if you’re interested in the specifics, since I’ll just talk about the main idea. youtube.com/watch?v=LEdT-xHps7E When the beat comes together, the pitched up saxophone gives a sort of “juvenile” quality to the song, as it sounds quite a lot like a squeaky toy, much like the chorus of kids and the pitched up vocals do, and “I just wanna stop” is repeated over and over. Going off on the idea that this song is about rebellion, this bit is perfect for this song, and so is the “juvenile” quality of the sound.

(1/?)

The song is about a juvenile (as he says on Through The Wire, he’s a grown ass kid) along with other juveniles who just want to stop conforming to traditional ideas of morality and what constitutes someone who’s a success in life. The beat does all this while giving us a taste, musically, of what is to come, the chipmunk soul guy is here, and he’s dropping his debut in style.

Now let’s talk about the lyricism. The chorus consists of Kanye and a bunch of kids singing about drug dealing in order to survive and the fact that they weren’t supposed to make it in life because of their life choices. Because of who sings them (the kids) we’re treated to a bit of dissonance intended for comedic effect: how’d he get a bunch of kids to sing about this stuff? And going off the intro skit, you know the teacher is going to be very cross after the song is over, which he is. Like I said before, this song is about rebellion, and this chorus encapsulates this idea: it rebels against the expectations of who is normally supposed to sing about this stuff, and it presents the idea that Kanye talks about in the verses: that you can’t say that drug dealing, or on a larger scale (like dropping out of college) is an inherently bad path to take because they’re still alive and they’re successful. "How can a person question success just because of the way it was achieved?” is a big question here, and Kanye poses this to everyone who doesn’t believe in him, him mom, the teachers and the record labels alike.

(2/?)

Going into the verses, Kanye conveys the rebellious attitude right in his first couplet: when people like a song in rap, people say it’s “hot,” but here, he says you’re about to experience something “cold.” Gangsta rap was hot at the time, now Kanye implies that his rap is different, and he says that it’s cold because of that. He also says what we’re thinking: it’s not gangsta rap, so we think it’s not hot, but he thinks differently, and he turns out to be right, since of course, The College Dropout almost went gold in it’s first week. Moving on, he rebels against the idea that looking up to the dopeman is a bad thing by presenting another idea, what if he’s our idea of success as opposed to yours? The idea of success isn’t concrete, and he rubs that in your face by shouting out all the drug dealers working outside this winter because they’re outside making something of themselves and trying to get places as opposed to the “good” community college kids who are sitting at home doing nothing for winter break. Then we get another dose of perspective. What is just dope money to you is scholarship money for another person’s kid. Again, a rebellion against societal standards of success. And the last three lines call out the college kids once more; he explains why people who don’t go to college and do this do what they do, and he encourages them to be productive as well. Notice that he doesn’t specifically say all college kids are bad; he simply derides those naive kids who think college is an instant ticket to success, won’t do anything else besides college, and proceed to decry other, more productive people on their life choices. Rebellion.

(3/?)

Okay, the second verse. Kanye shouts out the people working retail, seen as a dead end job for people with no future, but again, they’re still more productive in this time period than those who just go to college. He also shouts out the guy who passes around mixtapes in public, not only because he did the same, but as a way of empathizing with those who the majority of society find annoying and useless. He then explains what people like him do in order to succeed, and then, in the first show of wordplay on this album, using bulimia, homosexuality and straightness, and baking cakes (baking coke) Kanye explains the difficulty of getting into and out of the drug game, and that despite this, they persevere because they don’t care what society says, they’ll rebel if it means they can provide for themselves.

Third verse, Kanye criticizes the school system he rebelled against, and the state of the kids the school system influenced: vulnerable and dyslexic (12 Questions as opposed to 21 Questions- good choice of song too, it shows his awareness of the popularity of gangsta rap at the time) and then addresses the dubious nature of success again: how can you say Kanye belongs in a slow class for failures if he’s making all this money, since isn’t money a measure of success in the first place? Have some perspective, teacher, people like him aren’t necessarily retards. As I said earlier, this album is a call out against all those who never believed in him, and this is one place he does it. He then fleshes out the presumptions the school and society had of his failure, and he’s sad because he thinks people like him are always forgotten about, but despite this, he’ll keep moving forward: this is his come up story, and look what’s happened now: people thought he was a failure because of his life choices, and now he’s signed to one of the biggest rap labels on the East Coast at the time, dropping his landmark debut of rebellion.

(4/5)

Despite this, the next skit depicts him becoming the college dropout, and the last two lines of the teacher’s rant further fleshes out what I’ve been talking about this whole time: he no longer has college, so what’s he gonna do now? The teacher seems to imply that he’s screwed because he doesn’t have college, but this album is again, a rebellion against that idea. The autotuned portion has a bit of that character depth I said is all over the College Dropout: he shows his well-professed care for his mom because he actually does care about what she thinks despite the message in the previous song, and the “don’t tell anybody” implies a bit of fear about his future despite his confidence on “We Don’t Care,” which is one of many times he shows that under the ego, he’s still a normal person on this album, and this mood segues into his critique on one of his big flaws, self-consciousness, on “All Falls Down.”

Overall, everything comes together quite nicely, the wordplay, the storytelling, the lyricism and the instrumentation reflecting the state of rebellion on this track and all over The College Dropout. No word or musical element is wasted; it’s an upfront message of “we don’t care” and it’s a great way to kick off the album.

(5/5)

Do you want me to continue now? Because I have to say, though writing these up is very interesting to me, it is quite tiring.

Has any artist ever been written about on here as much as Kanye is in this thread?

Yes it's good, too bad he started caring more about celebrity than art after Late Registration. Waste of talent.

Its great. But the first album was originally going to be better. Some of the original tracks were leaked before release so last second he removed some of the leaked tracks and put new ones in so the album would still sell well.

Here's one of the removed songs, for example.

youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1_sOD4d_M

Not the person you were replying to, but I found it a really intresting read.

College Dropout is one of the best hip hop albums ever, so yes.

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

this changes on any given day, however.

Thanks man, glad somebody read it.

For me its

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

This is close enough that I can get behind it, my man.

>808s at the bottom
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

NOW IF I

college dropout and MBDTF are good, some would say great

Cool, doesn't excuse the track from having a pretty straightforward, forgettable beat that doesn't stand out in any way at all. It does that initial burst at the start and then that's it.

Well what's at the bottom of yours?

>All good tracks tier
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

>Mostly good tracks/the bad tracks aren't that awful tier
College Dropout
Late Registration

>Almost an equal amount of good and bad
Yeezus tier
808s and Heartbreak

>Only about three good tracks; the rest is trash tier
Graduation
The Life Of Pablo

>Don't let me get in my zone tier
Watch The Throne

Yeezus>LR>CD>Pablo=MBDTF=Grad>s

It's straightforward, but you're saying that as if that's an inherent flaw; it's really not in my opinion, since I just said there is no unnecessary excess on it. It's like a phone: if there's less stuff on it, there's less stuff to go wrong, less divisive elements. it isn't more elaborate because it doesn't have to be. And it may be forgettable for you, but for me, since I was able to write a few hundred words about why I like it (bearing in mind I took the lazy route and just linked a breakdown instead of discussing each of the production elements and how they play into the overall sound), it's not forgettable, and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree in that regard.

college dropout= top 10 all time
yeezus= top 10 all time
graduation= top 20
everything else= ranging from decent to shitty

I guess so. For me, if something's really simple, I would rather it make up for it in some other way (ex. punk music being simple but highly energetic, abrasive, and visceral.)

Okay, that's cool. For me, I like simplicity because when someone who knows how to do simplicity does it right, it shows cunning and a sense of discernment to me. Look at a beat like Still D.R.E. for example. It's two piano chords, some drums, and added bass at some parts. All Dre needed was his trademark excellent mixing ability and crisp drumming in order to make that song go 5x Platinum and create the latest rap anthem. It's the same with In Da Club: very simple beat, albeit with shakers as percussion instead of drums, but with great mixing and a discerning ear for what gets people moving, you get one of the most well-known songs of the early 2000's, and a club staple. It's the same idea for some modern songs that caught on like Panda and Broccoli. I find that really amazing and interesting in rap; to me, it shows not only an ear for music but a great business sense as well.

I love those tracks because of how visceral they are despite being simple. The interplay between the bass and the percussion sections, and how the percussion especially is mixed, is what makes them work as these groovy bangers. I think most of CD's tracks wouldn't feel as aged to me if they were mixed like a lot of Dre's stuff. Hell, even way back in the day with a track like Fuck Wit Dre Day he knew how to make his rhythm section so punchy and accented in the right places that it's still banger material to this day.

>conscious backpacker rap
Excuse me?

I can see that. Kanye's mixing has never really been anything special, even on an album as grandiose as MBDTF, it's downright amateurish in some places, and I can see why it hurts the sound for people. I guess this goes back to that bit in my first post that started this whole thing; I criticized the idea of an album aging because for me, music doesn't really age; each album is in it's own little space in time, and for The College Dropout, there were so many elements that made me fall in love with it; to me, it has a living, breathing heart, soul and voice when I listen to it, and it made me ignore things like the mixing and the rather old sound by modern standards. For me, every album I've listened to has some sort of character, and to me, an album never ages and is never boring if it has character, no matter how old it is or what genre it is. To me, The College Dropout will always be one of those albums, and all the tracks on it have that sort of character to me.

Also, now you've got me really wanting a Dre and Kanye collab; imagine the banger that could come outta that.

/Thread

College dropout is his best and Yeezus is pure unfinished dogshit.

Maximum pleb.

For me to ignore those things, usually a track's really gotta go above and beyond with what it does. Case in point a track like Jesus Walks with how it does its arrangement of various vocals. Very interesting and ambitious.

>Also, now you've got me really wanting a Dre and Kanye collab; imagine the banger that could come outta that.
Dre and Ye would be a million times better than Hov and Ye. Though post-Beats By Dre, I am not sure...

I guess I'm pretty forgiving then compared to you, but it keeps the music enjoyable pretty enjoyable in almost all cases. I think the collab would still be good, but I'm saying this as a person who rather likes Compton and thinks it's a very good album overall, so I am biased.

Accurate

MBDTF>808s>yeezus>pablo>lr>grad>cd

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