Round of 64: (2) Kanye West - MBDTF vs. (63) Phoebe Bridgers - Punisher Bracket • Page 5

Hated that write-up lol.

Graduation being his weakest really just proves the run of quality he had. Even with those two tracks, it might be his weakest, but somedays, it is my favorite. It's so joyous and triumphant and colorful and fun.

 

Indeed it does

 

Without starting the same argument as the Kendrick thread, I’d be very interested to see a person’s entryway into the genre vs how highly they rank the last few Kanye albums

 

The run of Stronger-I Wonder-Good Life-Can’t Tell Me Nothing is much better than anything on Late Registration. That alone puts it Graduation as one of his best albums even with some of his worst pre-TLOP songs

Not only was MBDTF a huge comeback, but the preceding ~3 months of all the build up and the GOOD Friday songs was a really big moment. It feels like he’s tried to mimic that energy every time since then, but it’s only resulted in him having increasingly embarrassing public meltdowns

 

This is what I love about it. It feels like this big, fun, technicolor cartoon.

 

The last few? I don't. Lol. Pablo was the beginning of the end - you can see the cracks forming, but on that particular release, I think they worked in his favor.

 

TLOP is such a mess, IMO. Some top-tier songs, but a bunch of stuff that feels half-formed to me -- a notion that his repeated efforts to edit the album after releasing it did not disabuse me of.

 

To be clear I’m not trying to be a dickhead or passing judgement with that statement, I’m genuinely curious

 

"Champion," "Everything I Am," and "Big Brother" deserve love, too.

 

It’s definitely the most palatable of the nu-era, but I still think it is an entire echelon worse than anything before it. It put him toe to toe with contemporaries for the first time since Graduation and this time he didn’t come out the winner.

 

Champion rules.

Pablo was my entry and exit into Kanye. Everything after is unlistenable even if his beliefs and actions weren’t absolutely awful.

 

That's a fair assessment. I don't agree with it, but it's a subjective thing and I've written a bunch about how that record basically soundtracked my senior year of college. To answer your earlier question, I'd say my entry points to the genre as a whole were Illmatic, Enter the Wu-Tang, a bunch of pre-Cherry Bomb Odd Future (including EARL), and GKMC. I didn't listen to a full Kanye record until Yeezus. Not trying to start a ranking thing in this thread, but for reference, my very subjective list that everyone will hate would look something like this:

TLOP
MBDTF
808s
Yeezus
Late Registration
The College Dropout
Graduation
------------------
Donda
ye
------------------
Jesus is King

If I were to try and make my list more "objective" or whatever, TLOP and Yeezus would be somewhere between Late Registration and Graduation, but that's obvious and boring.

 

i fell out of my chair at TLOP #1

 

Listen, it's the first rollout I got to be a part of, I got to hear the album for the first time on theater speakers ON MY BIRTHDAY before getting BBQ with all my friends and family, it's the album I got to see him tour on before he fucking imploded, I stand by the fact that it is at the very least a fascinating release if not an outright great one

 

Graduation is just poppy Kanye. I always say to myself "they're not a real one" when someone says Graduation is his best.

 

you shouldn’t be talking to yourself about kanye west

 

You shouldn’t be talking to yourself.

 

Would never say graduation doesn’t have absolute top tier Kanye songs on it, I just don’t think it works as well as an album in comparison to virtually everything up to Pablo. And while Pablo is a mess too, I kind of feel like that’s more the result of overthinking and overtinkering whereas I’d argue I can’t imagine any incarnation of Graduation that feels like a great album as a whole. The stuff on Pablo that’s not great is just so obviously half assed, the misses on Graduation feel like bigger whiffs.

 

yes

 

Disagree with that wholeheartedly. Sonically it flows as well as any of the early Ye albums. The only whiff is Drunk and Hot Girls

 

I was disappointed lyrically even then

Yes

 

Yeah the lyrics are easily my least favorite part and why I don’t consider it one of his top albums

 

Lyrically Graduation was actually the end of old Kanye, or at least the beginning of the end

 

I will say that Barry Bonds should be much better considering how hot Wayne was at the time. We definitely forced that shit and were in denial that it was a weaker track. Still, "Stove on my waist turn beef to patties" is a great line

 

I...don't know if I've ever heard the bonus tracks on Graduation. That's wild