Every single one of Kanye's albums has sound different from the other. You might not like what they ended up being but you can't say he's pressing the same shit over and over again.
Among Kanye albums, I rank this one #2 behind MBDTF, but I can make a good case for any of the others to take the second place spot. Or for every single one to usurp Yeezus. It needs saying again - every album is SO distinct, and all featured cutting edge musical styles. Who brought back autotune? (*cough* Kanye - 808s) Who debuted with a "classic" 90s style sound all you seem to idolize? Kanye. Who produced (created the beats) the ablums that made Jay-Z the mogul he now is? Yeezy did it. Who has already conquered the radio with countless chart busters? Yeezy baby, and real fans don't even talk about those tracks much.
couple things: Kanye has his phases but a lot of his albums sound alike: - LR & TCD are similar in sound - the good music releases & graduation were similar as well - mbdtf & 808s are pretty similar in the way his drum samples are the same, as well as using electronically tuned vocals as the basis of his hooks/chorus.
autotune was always in public consciousness during 808 release. 2007-8 aka when t-pain was at his peak was when autotune pervaded every song; saying 808s brought back autotune in the same year is pretty dumb, especially when NoID & ye & hov did DoA right afterwards.
TCD & LR were released early-mid 00s and not what we're talking about when we talk about 'classic 90s'. plenty of producers were making shit like that during those years.
jay had beats from a bunch different producers pre blueprint, and he was plenty popular before those albums
point is, kanye isn't reinventing the wheel each time he makes an album. he's simply expanding on vague ideas and making them easy for the public to understand. except for maybe yeezus, that's a reach. and you're going to have a difficult time convincing me how yeezus or 808s take second best album while LR and TCD exist.
I definitely don't think Kanye reinvents the wheel every album (or invent the autotune sound) but I do think you're a bit off on some points.
For one, I heavily heavily disagree that MBDTF and 808s sound similar, bar the hardness of the drums, almost everything else is different, MBDTF is much more sample based and layered a lot more, and 808s uses synths far more.
And while Autotune was already around, the sort of slightly disconnected heartbreak sound of 808s basically kick started Drake's career(in combination with Graduation), it was a pretty massively influential album, and unique to a lot of hip hop at the time.
LR & and TCD definitely aren't massively different, but there was a pretty clear leap forward between, LR is far more complex musically and had far far more orchestration (Jon Brion tha god).
Also Kanye's (and others) beats on Blueprint definitely gave Jay's career a huge boost, that was the album that pushed him into that classic artist territory and reaffirmed his ability to actually make great music, rather then just music that sells.
"classic 90s" is to me rap focused on lyrics and flow, and often using sampled backdrops on studio albums. "Stan" by Eminem, for example. Nowadays a studio album is expected to have high production value and big. fat. beats. This trend is in music in general, if you think about dubstep, EDM (remember when techno was uncool??), and pop.
No doubt technology leads this more than anything. Nevertheless if you want appeal with youth - the ones driving music trends - you gotta stay current and therefore gotta get electronic. Kanye made this transition with 808s. But yeah, I agree 808s is too experimental to be considered his best and there are lots of tracks that fall flat. MBDTF has no low points, and in it Kanye channels the power of a producer to get the best performance from every star he features. 808s is pretty much just Kanye. When it comes to the similarities, I would say Yeezus and MBDTF borrow equally from the autotune style of 808s, which kind of puts Kanyes albums in two groups for me, the first three and these three. But thats where the 808s and MBDTF similarities end.
I guess my list would be: 1) MBDTF - Favorite songs: Gorgeous, Runaway, Monster 2) Yeezus - Favorite songs: New Slaves, Bound 2, Guilt Trip 3) Late Registration - Diamonds from Sierra Leone, We Major, Heard em Say 4) College Dropout - All Falls Down, Through the Wire, Two Words 5) Graduation - The Glory, Can't Tell Me Nothing 6) 808s and Heartbreak - Heartless, Robocop
Yes, that's the list! Graduation seems a bit low but oh well. I must stress though for his studio albums Kanye's work is way more defined by lacking poor quality tracks, not by having huge chart busting singles.
Also, realize old school style does have an "end" to it and if you've gotten into rap within the past few years you will bump up against the soft-cap before too long. New stuff on the other hand has so many more artists able to reach the me listener the pool is much more infinite.
Every single one of Kanye's albums has sound different from the other. You might not like what they ended up being but you can't say he's pressing the same shit over and over again.
Among Kanye albums, I rank this one #2 behind MBDTF, but I can make a good case for any of the others to take the second place spot. Or for every single one to usurp Yeezus. It needs saying again - every album is SO distinct, and all featured cutting edge musical styles. Who brought back autotune? (*cough* Kanye - 808s) Who debuted with a "classic" 90s style sound all you seem to idolize? Kanye. Who produced (created the beats) the ablums that made Jay-Z the mogul he now is? Yeezy did it. Who has already conquered the radio with countless chart busters? Yeezy baby, and real fans don't even talk about those tracks much.
couple things: Kanye has his phases but a lot of his albums sound alike: - LR & TCD are similar in sound - the good music releases & graduation were similar as well - mbdtf & 808s are pretty similar in the way his drum samples are the same, as well as using electronically tuned vocals as the basis of his hooks/chorus.
autotune was always in public consciousness during 808 release. 2007-8 aka when t-pain was at his peak was when autotune pervaded every song; saying 808s brought back autotune in the same year is pretty dumb, especially when NoID & ye & hov did DoA right afterwards.
TCD & LR were released early-mid 00s and not what we're talking about when we talk about 'classic 90s'. plenty of producers were making shit like that during those years.
jay had beats from a bunch different producers pre blueprint, and he was plenty popular before those albums
point is, kanye isn't reinventing the wheel each time he makes an album. he's simply expanding on vague ideas and making them easy for the public to understand. except for maybe yeezus, that's a reach. and you're going to have a difficult time convincing me how yeezus or 808s take second best album while LR and TCD exist.
I definitely don't think Kanye reinvents the wheel every album (or invent the autotune sound) but I do think you're a bit off on some points.
For one, I heavily heavily disagree that MBDTF and 808s sound similar, bar the hardness of the drums, almost everything else is different, MBDTF is much more sample based and layered a lot more, and 808s uses synths far more.
And while Autotune was already around, the sort of slightly disconnected heartbreak sound of 808s basically kick started Drake's career(in combination with Graduation), it was a pretty massively influential album, and unique to a lot of hip hop at the time.
LR & and TCD definitely aren't massively different, but there was a pretty clear leap forward between, LR is far more complex musically and had far far more orchestration (Jon Brion tha god).
Also Kanye's (and others) beats on Blueprint definitely gave Jay's career a huge boost, that was the album that pushed him into that classic artist territory and reaffirmed his ability to actually make great music, rather then just music that sells.
mbdtf & 808s are conceptually very similar; disregarding the technicalities, the auxillary themes both albums draw upon are identical even though the musical genres and underlying goals are different. when you throw the same pallete of drum sampling in, it just gives me the feeling that they're exact same album done in disparate ways.
Drake didn't use autotune much, and his mixtape didn't really utilize autotune either. I'm not sure what you mean here. Drake just croons on his songs lol besides, 808s wasn't even hip-hop, it's electro.
I feel LR is just an extension of TCD because he had so much more resources/talent to draw upon, they're also very similar. I guess this is what you're talking about when you say the latter album is musically more complex.
I'm not going to argue the fact that Kanye's beats didn't give blueprints 1-3 a much farther audience reach, but to say that he's responsible for Jay's success is a bit of a stretch.
On October 18 2013 07:49 Woosixion wrote: Alright, as an actual black man.. the majority of the black community WANT to hear about money and hoes and drugs, not the state of the country or poverty or whatever the fuck. rappers know thats what sells, so thats what they rap about... they're in the business to make money. And besides... all that 80's shit where negros were in poverty, thats all over now... niggas have made it big and we'd like let everyone know... so get with the program fellas. on that note.. ill leave you all with some hood shit:
As a black man I can say, you are are wrong as fuck. You believe that all these black people made it big because they talk like they made it big? Let me guess, you one of those black people that laugh at the less fortunate people in the black community for not spending $200 on a pair of shoes or smoking weed every day. You are what's wrong with black america today bruh.
Sorry to be so brutally honest, but you got some things you need to work on.
Here is some real hip hop btw so I'm not off topic:
I'm not going to argue the fact that Kanye's beats didn't give blueprints 1-3 a much farther audience reach, but to say that he's responsible for Jay's success is a bit of a stretch.
Imo Jay pretty much sucks, his flow is unoriginal and his voice is boring. His rep is very uninteresting, sold some crack, blah, blah. His work is diffuse as all hell. But he got to wear the crown imo because others far more talented died too young, RIP Pac, Biggie, Eazy-E, Big Pun, even Big L, Pimp C.
The only thing relevant featuring Jay-Z in years is Watch the Throne. Holy Grail is good but he gets owned by Justin Timberlake. Everyone's already made all the MC hammer jokes we need Jay!
Every single one of Kanye's albums has sound different from the other. You might not like what they ended up being but you can't say he's pressing the same shit over and over again.
Among Kanye albums, I rank this one #2 behind MBDTF, but I can make a good case for any of the others to take the second place spot. Or for every single one to usurp Yeezus. It needs saying again - every album is SO distinct, and all featured cutting edge musical styles. Who brought back autotune? (*cough* Kanye - 808s) Who debuted with a "classic" 90s style sound all you seem to idolize? Kanye. Who produced (created the beats) the ablums that made Jay-Z the mogul he now is? Yeezy did it. Who has already conquered the radio with countless chart busters? Yeezy baby, and real fans don't even talk about those tracks much.
couple things: Kanye has his phases but a lot of his albums sound alike: - LR & TCD are similar in sound - the good music releases & graduation were similar as well - mbdtf & 808s are pretty similar in the way his drum samples are the same, as well as using electronically tuned vocals as the basis of his hooks/chorus.
autotune was always in public consciousness during 808 release. 2007-8 aka when t-pain was at his peak was when autotune pervaded every song; saying 808s brought back autotune in the same year is pretty dumb, especially when NoID & ye & hov did DoA right afterwards.
TCD & LR were released early-mid 00s and not what we're talking about when we talk about 'classic 90s'. plenty of producers were making shit like that during those years.
jay had beats from a bunch different producers pre blueprint, and he was plenty popular before those albums
point is, kanye isn't reinventing the wheel each time he makes an album. he's simply expanding on vague ideas and making them easy for the public to understand. except for maybe yeezus, that's a reach. and you're going to have a difficult time convincing me how yeezus or 808s take second best album while LR and TCD exist.
I definitely don't think Kanye reinvents the wheel every album (or invent the autotune sound) but I do think you're a bit off on some points.
For one, I heavily heavily disagree that MBDTF and 808s sound similar, bar the hardness of the drums, almost everything else is different, MBDTF is much more sample based and layered a lot more, and 808s uses synths far more.
And while Autotune was already around, the sort of slightly disconnected heartbreak sound of 808s basically kick started Drake's career(in combination with Graduation), it was a pretty massively influential album, and unique to a lot of hip hop at the time.
LR & and TCD definitely aren't massively different, but there was a pretty clear leap forward between, LR is far more complex musically and had far far more orchestration (Jon Brion tha god).
Also Kanye's (and others) beats on Blueprint definitely gave Jay's career a huge boost, that was the album that pushed him into that classic artist territory and reaffirmed his ability to actually make great music, rather then just music that sells.
mbdtf & 808s are conceptually very similar; disregarding the technicalities, the auxillary themes both albums draw upon are identical even though the musical genres and underlying goals are different. when you throw the same pallete of drum sampling in, it just gives me the feeling that they're exact same album done in disparate ways.
Drake didn't use autotune much, and his mixtape didn't really utilize autotune either. I'm not sure what you mean here. Drake just croons on his songs lol besides, 808s wasn't even hip-hop, it's electro.
I feel LR is just an extension of TCD because he had so much more resources/talent to draw upon, they're also very similar. I guess this is what you're talking about when you say the latter album is musically more complex.
I'm not going to argue the fact that Kanye's beats didn't give blueprints 1-3 a much farther audience reach, but to say that he's responsible for Jay's success is a bit of a stretch.
To me the similarity with Drake isn't the autotune but the subject matter and the melodies the singing has. Kanye's stated he autotuned cause he couldn't sing, to me he'd make a Drake type sing-song vocal melody if he could.
hov stopped caring for most of his projects years ago lol. saying he sucks is a little silly though. I mean sure MCHG was a huge phone in, and he has some awful albums every few years (BP3, kingdom come), to say he sucks means you're calling Reasonable Doubt and Blueprint bad lol. i do agree with your kanye list (cept i liked 808s) though.
also this thread blew up literally
please spoiler youtube videos. also mindlessly posting youtube vidoes of songs doesn't actually contribute much. at least explain why you posted those songs -_-. the discussion is far more interesting
i dont even know how the discussion came back to kanye lol. there was a debate about old and new stuff and then someone talked about kanye and idk. i like kanye.
me and corin remain the same person. though i dont necessarily think that ye carried blueprint or pushed drake to the top
it's so funny to me cause Magna Carta Holy Grail is one of my favorite albums i've heard this year and one of the better Jay-Z albums imo. sure, it's not a classic like Blueprint, Reasonable Doubt and the Black Album, but it's a really solid album if you actually listen to what he's saying and understand what he's trying to do on the album. and the production is just brilliant all around imo. the last two tracks are terrible but if you just ignore those two it's a really enjoyable hour of music to listen to imo.
but i guess i'm weird, i also like American Gangster more than any Jay-Z album aside from the three i listed above (his commonly agreed on classics).
me and corin remain the same person. though i dont necessarily think that ye carried blueprint or pushed drake to the top
I don't think Ye carried Blueprint, I think pretty much all the producers on there were a huge part of its success, it certainly wasn't Jay's lyrical content (bar a couple of songs). The album is flawless beats held together by boundless charisma and smooth as hell flow.
I think Drake is responsible for his own success, I just think he was influenced a lot by Ye (I'm pretty sure he's said as much in interviews), just like Ye himself was influenced by a lot of people.
On October 19 2013 04:49 Schelim wrote: it's so funny to me cause Magna Carta Holy Grail is one of my favorite albums i've heard this year and one of the better Jay-Z albums imo. sure, it's not a classic like Blueprint, Reasonable Doubt and the Black Album, but it's a really solid album if you actually listen to what he's saying and understand what he's trying to do on the album. and the production is just brilliant all around imo. the last two tracks are terrible but if you just ignore those two it's a really enjoyable hour of music to listen to imo.
but i guess i'm weird, i also like American Gangster more than any Jay-Z album aside from the three i listed above (his commonly agreed on classics).
I liked a lot of the production for MCHG but felt like a lot of the lyrics were boring and phoned in.
Maybe Kendrick's taken his spot now, but over a decade Kanye West has been the best thing to happen to mainstream rap. I read a review where someone called him "Pretty stupid for a Genius" and I think that pretty much sums him up, love or hate his personally the guy is an incredible musician and has had a huge role to play in modern hip hop.
The best beats on the Blueprint were Kanye West beats, back then he used a lot of Soul and Motown samples and that became the hot thing to do. When his first album came out 50 Cent was the biggest rapper in the world and most rappers had a really gangster image. But Ye paved the way for a generation of rappers like A$AP Rocky and Drake with his first 2 albums. 808s and Heartbreak also did that and was probably the precurser to Drake's entire career. He switched up his sound again on MBDTF and while I didn't like Yeezus that much, apart from Blood on the Leaves and Hold my Liquor he invented a sound that nobody has ever done before and it'll probably be a sound we hear a lot more in 5 years.
Also I don't think 808s and MBDTF sound anything alike, but they were both inspired by relationships he had. I wonder when his Kim Kardashian based album will be coming out, for her sake I hope it wasn't Yeezus.
Also Kanye album list is clearly #1 MBDTF #2 Late Registration (pretty much because of how hard Hov goes on the Diamonds remix. One of the GOAT features in music imo) #3 College Dropout #4 Yeezus #5 Graduation (more consistent than Yeezus but I really like Blood on the Leaves.) #6 808s and Heartbreak
My yeezy album list is kind biased and probably really different to everyone elses.
It goes:
1. Graduation 2. MBDTF 3. Late Registration 4. Yeezus 5. 808 and Heartbreaks 6. College Dropout
Graduation gets the top spot cause it was my first ever rap album, some of that stuff has just stuck with me forever, I can play songs off of it in any mood, but thats because of my history with the album.
The next 4 are pretty easy to expalin.
While I think College Dropout is a good album, Late Registration is basically an improvement in every way on it, and CD doesn't have one of the defining characteristics of later Kanye albums, the fucking incredible features. I get how important the album was for his career, but for me it doesn't compare to his later albums.
I guess I just don't get the appeal of college dropout :p
Also I've been on a huge MF DOOM kick, Madvillainy has managed to cement itself into my top 5 of all time, right now I'm listening to Keys to the Kuffs and MM.. Food. Both great records as well.
Graduation gets the top spot cause it was my first ever rap album, some of that stuff has just stuck with me forever, I can play songs off of it in any mood, but thats because of my history with the album.
Graduation is a sick album for your first so up beat and kid friendly. And the cover art is so gorgeous, if anyone hasn't ever held a physical copy of Kanye West Graduation the art is beautiful. Way improved seeing it IRL.
The only song I liked off Blueprint at first was Renegade, which as it turns out Eminem produced. So jay pretty much piggybacked onto the best track of his most famous album...
EPT
