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I agree w/ louder tho, everyone should hear Dark Twisted. It is brilliant.
Here's my longer take on 3 Kanye album if ya'll are interested
Kanye West
The College Dropout
2004, For a long time Kanye West was just a name printed in liner notes. Thanks to a string of good-to-great beats for Jay-Z, his name started to get brought up as one of the up-and-coming producers to keep a serious eye on. But nobody knew this guy could rap. Not until he go into a terrible car accident and recorded a song about it with his jaw wired shut. It was an odd way to introduce yourself to the world as an artist. But in a sense it's also fitting. From his very first single Kanye established himself as impulsive. This is a guy who says something because he needs to - right now. The College Dropout was hugely anticipated and went through many leaks and changes before it finally saw release. And when it finally dropped it was greeted with critical and commercial acclaim. The thing is, while it's certainly got plenty of great songs, it doesn't hold together very well as an album. First off, it feels overly long thanks to an overabundance of skits that feel like they derail momentum rather than create some thematic glue. But this is a debut album, and as such it's an interesting one. Kanye discusses materialism on "All Falls Down," religion on "Jesus Walks," and bounces between his more backpacker roots (see collabs with Common, Consequence, Talib Kweli, Mos Def) and his Roc-A-Fella future (see collabs with Jay-Z, Freeway). There's also some touching moments like his reflecting on family ("Family Business") and the outro where he narrates the journey that ended with this album. There's a sort of frustrating charm to it all. It is certainly a nice starting point, but as a debut fails to live up to the hype that was created for it.
Kanye West
808's And Heartbreak
2008, When Kanye announced his fourth album would feature him singing in autotune on every track... well, that didn't sound too promising. But when the final product was revealed it turned out that this would be a defining moment in his career. Here Kanye boldly ventures off into new sounds that would be a precursor to an entire sub-genre to follow. I'm not saying there would be no Drake nor Cudi nor Weeknd had it not been for 808's And Heartbreak, but I am saying they wouldn't sound like they do. While Graduation started thinking globally with an ear towards French electronica, here Kanye's pallet is far more interested in 1980's synth-pop and even touches on industrial. He's comfortable here to let the beats ride out long after his vocals have ended, allowing songs to stretch out and make themselves at home for as long as they feel natural to do so. Equally interesting is the lyrical content. Forget the fact that almost all Kanye vocals here are sung rather than rapped - this is a dark, atmospheric album. One which exists under a dark shadow of the passing of Kanye's mother; the breakup of his longtime girlfriend; and the struggle to make sense of his newfound fame. This is "Love Will Tear Us Apart" for the rap crowd. It's an album so interesting, so ground-breaking and so damn good that it felt baffling to me at the time. But repeated listens reveal so much to reconsider, slowly making it clear that this is a total masterpiece. It's even more impressive when you realize it was recorded in less than a month.
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
2010, I've often compared Dark Twisted Fantasy to Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral. I mean, nobody dies at the end. But it feels like an album-length examination of a soul descending into madness. This is the voice of somebody so unhappy - nay, disgusted with their self, but repurposed as a work of art. And if that title sounds cinematic, it should. Kanye recruited an insanely talented and expensive cast to make this album a reality. While it's rational to view 808's And Heartbreak as a grieving album, this record feels far more cathartic. There's heaps of debauchery and guilt that get piled on to the point where lines are blurred and it becomes a chicken and egg scenario. Key line: "the plan was to drink until the pain's over/but what's worse? The pain or the hangover?" At times the album may feel decadent, but it seems more a study of loathing. All of the fame and hype here is embarrassing or a letdown. The flashing lights are a burden. Indeed the glass is half-empty everywhere on this album. Kanye lets the death of his own childhood hero - Michael Jackson weigh heavily. He's upset about airplane seating. About drinking. About drugs. About women. Take "Runaway," a sprawling opus to his inability to have a functional relationship with a woman. Or the major hit, "Power," which is basically a self-deprecation when Kanye spits the line "no one man should have all this power." This is one of those albums that's it's possible to talk about for hours. You can talk about the production - and producers involved. You can talk about the myriad guests - fucking Chris Rock doing a long outro about being a cuckold. Or how about the insane samples? I mean who the fuck licenses an Aphex Twin sample... from Drukqs? The point is that this album is a sprawling mess of a masterpiece. One that I really could talk about for hours, but instead would insist you listen to.
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