"What are you listening to right now?" thread | Page 626 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

11) Ye (2018) – 3/10 – Not a single song I actually like. For being so short it feels eternal to go through with it. I was really disappointed.

10) Watch the Throne (2011) – 5/10 – As it is a collaboration with Jay-Z, Kanye really dumbs his material down to the most basic and overdone hip-hop conventions to try to appeal to an older crowd, and that’s not the reason he was so groundbreaking in the first place. Outside of that, it would’ve made a decent hip hop release 10 years prior.

9) Graduation (2007) – 5/10 – Too much corn, and embodies the weaker pop side of The College Dropout, without any of the groundbreaking s**t.

8) Jesus Is King (2019) – 6/10 – I honestly don’t mind it. Most of the songs have diverse enough beats, some of them actually creative. It is a disappointment considering “Yandhi” (a potentially much better record) was on the way, and Kanye seems to not have the slightest idea of  what he’s talking about. But tracks like Everything You Need and Follow God are refreshingly good. The record on its entirety however does fall short of ideas, but it is a short record, it doesn’t try to elongate its lack of creativity. It feels honest and overhated.

7) The Life of Pablo (2016) – 7/10 – Called before “Kanye’s White Album “, and I honestly agree. It does have spots were it sounds weird and disconnected, but in the end it is all very diverse and interesting, even those songs that sound bad. And eventually you get fantastic tracks like Ultralight Beam, Famous, and one of my all time favourites: No More Parties in L.A. Some killer material.

6) Kids See Ghosts (2018) – 7/10 – I honestly don’t see the hype. First off, I don’t like Kid Cudi, I’m just not into his music very much. He is decent in this record, and with Kanye they create really feel good songs, surrounded by clearly focused production and vision. But there’s not a song I can grab and honestly listen to in repeat. It just doesn’t connect with me that way, even if I can recognize it is very well put together.

5) The College Dropout (2004) – 8/10 – An amazing debut. Some of the tracks like Spaceship I’m amazed by until this day. It doesn’t top my list because there are some tracks that are just… dated. Mainly something like The New Workout Plan, and the skits feel super corny. Still, his soul-influenced production sounds rewarding and the record overall is full of inspiration. And I never really liked Jesus Walks

4) 808s & Heartbreak (2008) – 8/10 – I didn’t get it at first either. And not many of its songs by themselves I listen to separately. But the record itself has such a new-vintage style. Every track has this very precise and fleshed-out aesthetic. It is dated, but not in the way other records are. It’s noticeable how this album set an entire world of pop in motion to convert it in what it is today. This heavy-autotune, electric sound floods through the record, eventually resulting in absolutely mind-blowing songs like Paranoid or Street Lights, even if some really awkward lyrics step in in songs like RoboCop. But still, super interesting.

3) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) – 8/10 – Ye just starts off the record with fantastic production and lyrics, with the first three tracks being some of the most striking material he’s ever put out: Dark Fantasy, Gorgeous and Power. This immense sense of reassurance Kanye gives with his music results in some of his most solid production, songs like All of the Lights or Devil in a New Dress decorate this album with this excellent elegancy. But if I have to be honest with myself, some songs are just not that perfect, especially Runaway, which I find super boring. Or So Appalled, that is good, but maybe not that good. But in the end Ye is really trying, and you can never really get bored of the record. Is just replete with top tier material. I just think it’s a little inconsistent, that’s all.

2) Yeezus (2013) – 9/10 – If My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was his most focused production, Yeezus is definitely his most creative. Every track in this album feels like a unique experience of neo-psychedelic electronic music. He really steps up his game, with some of the weirdest, most fun song progressions he’s ever composed. It may not have the club bangers other albums have, but it compensates by it really feeling connected by how weird and outlandish all of his ideas are. He inserts little bits of audio that really show how much he is into this new sound. Not that some of his ideas don’t fall flat, but they falling flat somehow adds to the appeal of the record being so open to new ideas. And I’m probably biased because Bound 2 is still one of the best songs I’ve ever head, the production on that track is just unprecedented. The album, in a way, just feels like an incredible journey building up to that closing track. It is not only Ye’s best closer, but probably my favourite song of his, period.

1) Late Registration (2005) – 10/10 – I love every song, no exception. One of my favourite hip hop listens, it is so chilling, and improves upon everything The College Dropout did wrong. It doesn’t feature a single dated song, nothing in it feels like fat. Even the skits are probably his best. All of the samples are classic soul-influenced hip hop, featuring songs by all of this classic African-American artists such as Ray Charles, Gil-Scott Geron, Otis Redding and Curtis Mayfield. And on the other hand, I mean, Roses, We Major, Drive Slow, Addiction!! They all sound so different, but complement each other so well. Even Gold Digger, I love that track. Many people don’t like it because when it came out it was overplayed, but in Argentina Gold Digger was never a hit, so it was an actual discovery when I found it, given almost no one I knew had heard it. It is a journey, seemed to be put together by a salesman: a 101 class on how to truly make anything interesting.