where are you yeezy?

Well this might totally ruin my indie street cred (completely all in my inflated head) but I wanted to write about Kanye West’s album ‘The College Dropout’ being named “Album Of The Decade” by Entertainment Weekly magazine. Credible source, probably not, but it didn’t stop Kanye from claiming it on his blog. Before all this Taylor Swift interrupting, bigger than Jesus-esque behaviour & South Park Gay Fish parodies I listened to this album, ALOT. So i’m going to have to do a retrospective review of sorts.



Released in 2004, this album took Kanye from well respected music producer (most famously working on Jay-Z’s highly acclaimed album, The Blueprint) to releasing this album which was the beginning of a huge career as a rapper and got him through his painful car accident in which his jaw was wired shut. Moving away from the stereotypical ‘Gangster Rap’ (which i’m pretty much an expert on), Kanye used a mix of samples from a wide variety of music ranging from genres such as soul, synth, rnb & classical.

Some standout tracks for me would have to be Get Em High feat the awesome Talib Kweli, All Falls Down, We Don’t Care & Breath In Breath Out feat Ludacris. Actually the whole album is full of standout tracks and with the almost theatrical Skits scattered in, it becomes an audio book of sorts with the tracks becoming chapters to the College Dropout saga. The only downside for me was the Jesus Walks track, holy fuck it’s preachy and whiny. If I wanted to listen to a Christian album i’d go down to Hillsong and join that cult.



For me I wouldn’t be able to name my top 10 list albums from this decade unless someone produced a detailed list of every album from the last ten years that I could go through. I have absolutely no concept of time. I highly doubt that this would by my favourite from the last decade, but Kanyeisms and douchebaggery aside, Kanye provides an amazing debut album that still hasn’t lost any of it’s appeal.

Although maybe I shouldn't talk it up, he did recently mention that he "wants less fans". Gah! On the plus side his second album introduced me to Lupe Fiasco who is just as good as Kanye, but without the egotism. FNF UP!