i listened to Graduation after i saw kanye with burzum and peste noire shirts and i enjoyed it more than i thought i would
Good taste. Graduation is a great place to start if you're new to Kanye.
Following the success of The College Dropout and Late Registration, Kanye West sought to embark on a new artistic journey, aiming to challenge himself, disrupt the status quo, and explore uncharted territories. In an attempt to elevate his career to new heights, he wholeheartedly embraced the fusion of pop, electronica, and rap, and the results were undeniably good for its time. However, despite its merits, there were certain factors that prevented me from ranking it higher.
I would even say that he innovated within those sounds with a handful of the songs here, namely cuts like Flashing Lights and Stronger by tastefully incorporating elements of dance music and electronic music. The problem is that a bulk of this album sounds so dated because it just reeks of the bling era that it was born out of, which in retrospect, seems like kind of an odd move considering that Late Registration and The College Dropout were so great
because they were a breath of fresh air from that. Prime examples of tracks that did not age well on this album being Barry Bonds with Little Wayne, The Good Life with T-Payne, and nevermind Drunk and Hot Girls, because that track was just awful upon the release of this record.
Nonetheless, for its time, this album marked a significant success for Kanye. Despite facing backlash from some hip-hop purists for straying from his trademark sound, it demonstrated Kanye's unmatched versatility and his penchant to explore beyond the confines of the hip-hop genre, which he would continue to do with album after album after album.
Some of the best tracks on this album are Flashing Lights, Good Morning, Everything I Am, and Big Brother, an amazing autobiographical track by Kanye, and I don't think he gets enough credit for the Homecoming track with Chris Martin on this album because at the time, this kind of collaboration was considered unconventional and unorthodox for a hip-hop artist, which made it very uncool in the eyes of the genre's audience. However, despite these circumstances, the song went over really well. With Graduation, Kanye West continued to prove himself as an artist who has way more eclectic and unique tastes than most of his contemporaries are willing to consider.
