Kanye West – Graduation

Kanye’s Late Registration came out two days after I moved to LA, and it was the first record I bought here. (This was, incidentally, the same day New Orleans flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.) So a new release from Kanye is cause for some personal reflection. Kanye seemed to be thinking the same thing, as Graduation is packed with his self-evaluations as a producer, rapper and star. It’s a shame it isn’t a better album.

Maybe my expectations are too high, as the record has several no-doubt-about-it singles and some great moments. The sterling “Good Life” is one of the former, with a can’t-miss sample from Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T.”. Singer T-Pain adds his wonderful talkbox/vocoder shtick, which is a lot of fun to imitate. (Who doesn’t love talking like a robot?) Another standout is “Champion,” which includes a great patios sing-along section.

But the album suffers in comparison to his prior efforts, especially in the (even more) introspective second half. Honestly, Kanye isn’t good enough as a rapper to overcome tepid production. In the past, that hasn’t been a problem, as his songs typically overflow with full-bodied soul samples and original instrumentation. But starting with track 7, “Barry Bonds,” the album gets real dull real quick. The production gets minimal and experimental, and it’s just no fun to listen to. The worst of the bunch is “Drunk and Hot Girls,” which combines a terrible beat with an unfortunate rhyme pattern. Most egregiously, it wastes an appearance from commander cool Mos Def. Come to think about it, I’m not sure I remember hearing him at all. Unforgiveable.