Tell Me More About: Kanye West - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

AAL2014

Tell Me More About- #3: Kanye West

A few years ago, after being the final white person from Michigan to get into Eminem, I decided to take a step further into rap. It was around the time To Pimp A Butterfly dropped but that wasn't on my radar until about a month after its release.

This might be the point in which my general outlook on listening to music changed. Up to this point I deemed it acceptable to stay 90% within my comfortable rock canon, and obviously there is nothing wrong with rock music, but at some point you just have to realize there is more out there. As a musician and overall lover of music taking in everything you can is the whole point. It's how we evolve and learn. Learning to appreciate is a skill in itself and we have all developed it to different degrees. Summer of 2014 to late spring of 2015 is when I opened myself up to this ideal. And it's also the time in which I found a copy of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Except it was a censored version. I knew $4.99 was a price that was too good to be true. However, even with every 14th word being erased from the album's vocabulary, I was still able to enjoy the record for the grandiose piece that it is, furthermore on subsequent listens.

My only problem is, for some reason MBDTF is still the only Kanye album I've ever heard. I would enjoy your first hand accounts with Kanye's music and recommendations on where I should go from here. Is Kanye's catalog one that I should start from at the beginning? What is your favorite Kanye record? And where does he rank on your greatest rappers list?
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DJTommy

I think Kanye is a great artist, but some people really overhype him. I don’t think he’s the greatest thing to have happened to hip hop (or music) in the 21st century, but he’s good nonetheless. His music is full of personality, and his beats are very focused on vocal-heavy samples, which was a very influential technique as most hip hop before his debut sampled instrumental music (or at least the instrumental parts of tracks with vocals). Allot of the time he’ll pitch the samples up to near comical extends, but they’re still undeniably catchy, and nice on the ear. Don’t go into a Kanye album thinking that all the tracks are self-produced, but a good chunk are. He isn’t that technical of a rapper, but he has allot of good lyrics (some bad too), and if not that, at least some good lines here and there. He has a pretty varied discography and isn’t scared to go in new directions. I personally think he’s fallen off a bit after MBDTF, especially in the lyrics department, though there are some great tracks here and there.

IMO the essentials are:
The College Dropout (2004)
Late Registration (2005)
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)

glynspsa

Gender: Male
Age: 52

I wish I got him but I honestly don't. Good producer but I think he's a terrible rapper. I hope everyone realizes I won't put down someone for liking him he'll I love the spin doctors pocket full
Of kryptonite who am I to judge anyone's taste in art. Like what you like live what you live and hate what you hate don't let someone else's option effect yours on art. That said I still don't like Kanye but cool
If you do.

Tap
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Gender: Female
Age: 38

alternate title

Kanye West: You CAN Tell Me Something

that's abt as deep as my kanye knowledge goes, I got enough for that reference.

travelful
BEA's Official Florida Man

Age: 27
Location: Davenport, Florida

Honestly I would advise just starting from the beginning. Kanye is one of the trend setting artists that you can never predict what he will do next. He has so many different sounds, and therefore everybody will rank his discography in a different order based on personal preferences (MBDTF is the only one everybody can agree on, since its his obvious best).

Personally I rank his albums like this:

1. MBDTF
2. Yeezus
3. 808's
4. College Dropout
5. Late Registration
6. TLOP
7. Graduation

Although I'm sure many people think that ranking is ridiculous..but that's the thing about Kanye he has so many different unique projects that it just comes down to personal taste at the end. None of them are bad, and all of them are worth your time (I rank them all at least an 8/10). He's probably my second favorite hip-hop artist of all time.

Last edited by travelful on 12/13/2017 07:29; edited 1 time in total

Lachapelle

Gender: Male

Here are some great, classic songs produced by Kanye West to help appreciate the talent he has as a producer.

'Dreams' from
The Documentary by The Game

'Get By' & 'Guerrilla Monsoon Rap' from
Quality by Talib Kweli

'Guess Who's Back' from
The Fix by Scarface

And he produced the entirety of this classic..
Be by Common
Give the songs 'Go' or 'Testify' a listen.

Many people seem to forget that he is a highly skilled producer in the hip hop game, not just a rapper.

HoldenM
To Pedantically Split Infinitives

Gender: Male
Age: 29

Oh man, Kanye West is fucking amazing. I love Kanye West. In fact, I almost always adore an artist if they are unabashedly themselves, and Kanye West is as unfiltered as can be. I'm not saying everyone should be, but I appreciate that Kanye is. And not to mention he's as inventive as can be, turning hip hop into whatever he wants it to be, calibrating every track to optimal catchiness and beauty with the right samples, beats, guest spots, etc. Hell, how many artists can say that their weakest album--in this case, 808s and Heartbreak--is their most groundbreaking? Kanye West certainly can. And yeah. He's a mediocre MC, but he's also one of the most interesting voices in pop music, and easily the most important hip hop artist of the 21st century.

Personal rankings: Late Registration > My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy >> Graduation > The College Dropout > Yeezus >> The Life of Pablo >>> 808s and Heartbreak
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RoundTheBend
I miss the comfort in being sad

Location: Ground Control

I kinda wish this was: tell me more about any other rapper. hehe. Mostly kidding. I'd love to hear more about why people love Kanye. I don't dislike him, but as far as hip-hop/rap music, he's not who I would put a the top...

Now I say this being totally uneducated. Maybe he's someone I should look up to.

I can't really think of anything specific, but when I hear him talk and what I've heard bad publicity say about him, it's been a turn off. At the same time I haven't really spent much time getting to know anything about him - in all fairness bad publicity happens to a lot of artists and it often is people looking for things to write about.

I will say the dude should NEVER, EVER sing... sorry dude. Just don't. I do like his rapping though, as much as I give him crap. And what I do like most about him, is he crafts songs. A lot of rappers don't care about making a song, and you can tell he does, and he does it pretty well.

Here's how I rank his albums I've listened to: (song for song average)
Title Band Year Year Rank Rating
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Kanye West 2010 3 86.9
Late Registration Kanye West 2005 12 80
Yeezus Kanye West 2013 22 77
Watch The Throne Jay-Z and Kanye West 2011 34 75
The Life Of Pablo Kanye West 2016 9 75
Graduation Kanye West 2007 18 74.6
The College Dropout Kanye West 2004 16 67.1
808s And Heartbreak Kanye West 2008 19 65

Probably my favorite songs if his:
School Spirit Skit 1 by Kanye West 100
Stronger by Kanye West 100
Gold Digger (Feat. Jamie Foxx) by Kanye West 100
Hey Mama by Kanye West 100
Heard 'Em Say (Feat. Adam Levine) by Kanye West 100
Gone by Kanye West 100
Dark Fantasy by Kanye West 100
Who Will Survive In America by Kanye West 100
Gorgeous (Feat. KiD CuDi & Raekwon) by Kanye West 90
POWER by Kanye West 90
No Church In The Wild (Feat. Frank Ocean) by Jay-Z & Kanye West 90
Ultra Light Beam by Kanye West 90
Jesus Walks by Kanye West 85
Good Morning by Kanye West 85
Barry Bonds (Feat. Lil Wayne) by Kanye West 85
Flashing Lights (Feat. Dwele) by Kanye West 85
Can't Tell Me Nothing by Kanye West 85
All Of The Lights by Kanye West 85
Monster (Feat. JAY-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver) by Kanye West 85
So Appalled (Feat. JAY-Z, Pusha T, Prynce Cy Hi, Swizz Beatz & The RZA) by Kanye West 85
Runaway (Feat. Pusha T) by Kanye West 85
Hell Of A Life by Kanye West 85
Blame Game (Feat. John Legend) by Kanye West 85
Lost In The World by Kanye West 85
Feedback by Kanye West 85

I need to work on this BADLY, but here's a beginning of rap albums I like (not artists or songs, but artists who made good albums):
Hip-Hop/Rap/R&B by sethmadsen

AAL2014

glynspsa wrote:

I wish I got him but I honestly don't. Good producer but I think he's a terrible rapper. I hope everyone realizes I won't put down someone for liking him he'll I love the spin doctors pocket full
Of kryptonite who am I to judge anyone's taste in art. Like what you like live what you live and hate what you hate don't let someone else's option effect yours on art. That said I still don't like Kanye but cool
If you do.

I've heard worse than Pocket Full of Kryptonite haha, but I get what you are saying.
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AAL2014

I appreciate everyone's responses, definitely has intrigued me even more to get into his other albums.

Is College Dropout, Late Registration, Graduation some kind of trilogy of albums? Or do they just happen to have similar titles?
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