117. Kanye West, "Late Registration"

 

I love this big, sprawling, inventive mess of an album, even though I came to it late.  Always more of a producer than a rapper, Kanye here teams up with Jon Brion, probably best known for his work with Extremely White artists like Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple and for film scores, and the collab turned out to be inspired; we really can't know who contributed what, exactly, but there's a certain playfulness and experimentation here that I like to think Brion helped with.  This may not be Ye's best album (that one, I'm sure, is coming up), but it's certainly one of the most fun.

Take "Touch the Sky," based loosely around a sample from "Move On Up" by Curtis Mayfield but thickly layered with other sounds and Kanye's dense rhymes, with a guest turn by then-nascent Lupe Fiasco.  I really love "Drive Slow," ostensibly an homage to cruising in your buddy's car as a teen but with the somber background message of don't try to grow up too fast.  Kanye shows off how funny he can be on "Gold Digger," blasting verses that still almost make me laugh out loud:

Eighteen years, eighteen years
She got one of your kids, got you for eighteen years
I know somebody payin' child support for one of his kids
His baby mama car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was supposed to buy your shorty Tyco with your money
She went to the doctor, got lipo with your money
She walkin' around lookin' like Michael with your money
Shoulda got that insured, Geico for your money

I could write a whole article just about this verse.  The interior rhymes of "Tyco," "lipo," "Michael" (which Kanye pronounces "My-co") and "Geico"!  The fact that Jamie Foxx, who sings the intro (taken directly from Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman") is in the film "Any Given Sunday"!  It's just great.

"Gold Digger" is probably the best song on the album, but the emotional center is "Hey Mama," an unabashed love song from Kanye to his mother.  I think I'm fascinated by the song not just because of the complex and intricate production but also because I had a difficult and largely unpleasant relationship with my own mother and imagining the kind of emotional connection Kanye sings about here is so foreign and strange to me that I probably have to talk about this in therapy instead of on this blog.

"Gone" is built over a sample of Otis Redding's "It's Too Late" and features guest verses from Cam'ron and Consequence.  Once again, Kanye's bars show off his sense of humor and dizzying control of cultural references:

Sometimes I can't believe it when I look up in the mirro'
How we out in Europe, spending Euros
They claim you never know what you got 'til it's gone
I know I got it, I don't know what y'all on
I'ma open up a store for aspiring MCs
Won't sell 'em no dream, but the inspiration is free
But if they ever flip sides like Anakin
You'll sell everything including the mannequin
They got a new bitch, now you Jennifer Aniston

Rhyming Anakin/mannequin/Aniston, haha.  In one of the more postmodern twists to this album, this song charted in 2013, eight years after this album came out, when it was the backing track for a viral video made by a white lady quitting her job.  Viralness aside, the song is gorgeous, and features not only the Otis sample but also a full string section and a harpist.  Brion's fingerprints are all over this one; it sounds like a soundtrack.  I'm sure that's why the video editor lady picked it as her quitting song.

One note about the cover.  The background was shot at Princeton and features "Dropout Bear," who became iconic in his own right. I think it perfectly captures the not-entirely-serious nature of the album and just looks cool to boot.

I don't want to say I listened to this album like 10 times this weekend but I listened to this album like 10 times this weekend.

Is this album in my personal Top 500? Yes please.