I'm now a believer
I wasn't as partial as many others were to Kanye West's first album, The College Dropout, and I figured that wouldn't enjoy his follow-up album as much as his work as a producer, particularly on Common's new album, Be. Hearing that West referred to Late Registration as "the best-produced record—ever" made want to hear it even less.
Fortunately, curiosity got the best of me, and the thing is, he might even be right. Or rather - before some Dark Side Of The Moon freak tracks me down - there's a case to be made that West might be right. The production simply couldn't be better, particularly the astonishing groove of "Addiction" and the creepy, hallucinatory strings of "Crack Music." And I don't know that an album can open with a better-sounding track than "Heard 'Em Say," which even includes a vocal loop by Adam Levine of Maroon 5 that doesn't make me feel like punching him.
This isn't the best rap album out there, just because West -- although possibly the best, most inventive producer working today -- simply isn't as good a rapper as some of his peers. Indeed, one of the problems of the iPod is that it invites immediate comparisons. After listening to "Heard 'Em Say" for about the hundredth time today, I switched over to other great opening tracks from rap albums. It simply doesn't get me like "Fear Not Of Man" from Mos Def's Black on Both Sides, "Bring the Noise" from PE's It Takes A Nation Of Millions, or "The N***** You Love To Hate" from Ice Cube's Amerikkka's Most Wanted. And, although it isn't particularly fair, I couldn't listen to West's lovely and clever song for his mother, "Hey Mama," without immediately switching over to listen to 2Pac's "Dear Mama" for possibly the one millionth time. "Dear Mama" doesn't have anywhere near the creative production of West's song, and on listening to it again, I'm not sure the lyrics are any more heartfelt or clever. But 2Pac's brilliant rapping -- his voice, his timing, his stretching out some of his rasps -- made him sound anguished in that song, unable to express his guilt at not being a better son.
So that said, I'm not sure I'd go with Rolling Stone's five stars for Late Registration, particularly since that's a higher score than they gave to Outkast's Aquemini, Things Fall Apart by The Roots, or The Low End Theory and Midnight Marauders, both by A Tribe Called Quest. Even with my fairly limited hip-hop collection, I'd list all of these classics as better than Late Registration, and more likely to reward long-term listening.
But I'm now a believer. West is a good enough rapper for the album to work, and I'm not sure I can easily pick a record that simply sounds better.