Graduation
| Kanye West
Graduation
Graduation is the third studio album by American rapper Kanye West, released on September 11, 2007 by Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios, Sony Music Studios, Chalice Recording Studios, and the Record Plant. It was primarily produced by West himself, with contributions from DJ Toomp, Mike Dean, Nottz, Brian "All Day" Miller, Eric Hudson, Warryn Campbell, Gee Roberson, Plain Pat, and Jon Brion. The album also features guest appearances from Mos Def, Dwele, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, DJ Premier, and Chris Martin of Coldplay, among others. The album's cover art and its interior artwork were designed by Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami, who would design the cover art for West's collaborative effort with Kid Cudi, eponymously titled Kids See Ghosts (2018). -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
Though it doesn't quite match College Dropout or Late Registration in pleasure-center overload, Kanye West's third album is both his most consistent and most enterprising yet, indicating that he might actually deserve the legendary status he constantly ascribes to himself.
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DJBooth
Graduation is a monument, a hip-hop treasure, a Kanye classic.
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Rolling Stone
This is an album that you first like, then love.
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Genius
This is my 4th fav Kanye album and it popularised the sounds of electronic style and it crushed 50 cent in a huge first week sales battle.
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Hip Hop DX
Graduation perfectly completed the holy trinity of school-themed albums for Kanye and serves now as both a starting point and ending point in his illustrious career.
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NME
If Kanye’s first couple of albums saw him still perfecting his sound, tweaking and calibrating his beats, listening to ‘Graduation’ makes you wonder if all that talk of being an “innovator” has gone to his head.
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The A.V. Club
Fascinatingly flawed, Graduation finds an imperfect man seeking, and occasionally finding, perfection in his music.
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Albumism
It’s probably safe to say that if Kanye had never made Graduation, he never would have toured the world many times over and become one of the most popular and influential people making rap music.
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Pop Matters
On Graduation West comes off as content with his stature. The implication of many of the tracks is that he no longer needs to strive for success; he’s made it.
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Beat
Graduation certainly lives up to that hype….and it’s my favorite rap album ever.
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The Guardian
It is not so much arrogance as a mind game: if he says enough times that he's great, then the self-imposed pressure will goad him to be great.
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BBC
While Kanye West’s reconstructed, (slightly more) politically correct shtick may not be the seismic shift that many fans and critics would love it to be, he does represent a significant move in the right direction, and for this we must continue to be grateful.
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Sputnik
Graduation easily has the most influence on music than all of West’s works.
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IGN
Graduation ultimately suffers from lack of focus. It doesn't play out like an album, certainly not in the way that The College Dropout or even, to a certain extent, that Late Registration did.
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Slant
Graduation is worth note in the sense that it offers proof Kanye isn’t on the five-year plan (The College Dropout registered in 2004), but I’m sort of looking forward to hearing the next album built around the disillusionment of his first entry-level position.
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All Music
Graduation is neither as bold nor as scattered as The College Dropout, and it's neither as extroverted nor as sonically rich as Late Registration.
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Spin
West’s third album is mesmerizing and alienating, like all the purest forms of pop culture. Its music is a rush of designer adrenaline, its personality insatiable self-justification.
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XXL
Graduation, is leaps and bounds beyond much of the material released in the “Hip-hop is dead” era, but the plateau ’Ye resides on has a population of one, making his true competition himself.
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Now
With producer Jon Brion back in the sidecar, West delivers another failsafe collection of sharp, soulful songs, exposing his new affinity for synths and electronic drums while adding new lyrical ground to that campus-sized ego.
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No Ripcord
While another concise and accomplished release from an immensely talented rapper, it fails to really deliver the one thing Kanye's always excelled at: beauty.
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Coke Machine Glow
As bad as Graduation can often get, it's constantly compelling in how it splays the conflicted makings of its maker.
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Entertainment Weekly
Maybe Kanye West the producer and Kanye West the rapper should stop competing and look out for each other a little better.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
Like a good term paper, much of Graduation sounds great in theory but flounders in its execution.
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Drowned in Sound
He’s got that hit-making part down pat... it’s just that he can’t make good hits anymore.
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The New York Times
Here’s a concept: starcissism, a pop star’s mixture of self-love, self-promotion, self-absorption and self-awareness. It’s the core of Kanye West’s third album, “Graduation” (Roc-A-Fella), due for release on Tuesday, and yes, he has earned it. But it’s also a letdown.
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The Young Folks
Kanye West has created a certain blueprint on how to create albums that will be remembered ten or twenty years from now. His third record (a classic) Graduation, is a perfect representation of that blueprint for multiple reasons.
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Hot New Hip Hop
Gone are the themes of black middle class struggle and in their place is Kanye's personal struggle. He alternates between boasting and looking inward, still including some of his signature self-deprecation, but most of this still in service of his fast-ballooning ego.
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Grammy
Many considered it the last pure moment of Kanye West before the effects of fame would seemingly muddy his spirit. Perhaps that's why Graduation is regarded by most as the greatest West album to date.
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Prefix
Pretty much every aspect of his third full-length, Graduation, reflects this bigger and grander Kanye, far removed from the one that many fell in love with on his highly anticipated 2004 debut, The College Dropout, but certainly no less talented.
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Red Bull
Every Kanye West album has pushed the boundaries of music— sonically, visually and culturally. From fashion shows at Madison Square Garden to projections across the world, West’s vision is unpredictable and Graduation in a lot of ways was the tipping point in his innovation.
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Substream
Graduation is West at his most braggadocios, but also contemplative and thankful.
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Brightest Young Thing
Ultimately, Graduation is a frustrating record to review. Tracks like “Homecoming” and “Flashing Lights” showcase Kanye’s genius, but there are plenty of head-scratching embarrassments combined with disorderly production to siphon some of the enjoyment away from the album.
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Focus Hip Hop
It’s slightly less consistent than the first two albums in my opinion, but it has more exciting and memorable singles.
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The Couch Sessions
Even with its misses, Graduation is an great album, not as good as Late Registration, but most likely one of the best albums I’ve heard all year.
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The Student Playlist
The debate as to what is Mr. West’s best record is still very much an unanswered quandary, but Graduation is certainly one of them
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Plugged In
The producer in him continues to experiment. But don't let the cute anime animals on the cover fool you; Graduation is an arrogant, profane disc that should be expelled.
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Ratings Game Music
Kanye plays with several different moods on this album, and opens up in ways that he doesn’t in person or in his future albums.
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Contact Music
Graduation is probably the finest mainstream US hip-hop album of the year because of its seeming lack of concern for hits, even though you know that the man behind the beats is supremely confident that they're present in abundance
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Common Sense Media
Insightful, fairly clean, and never ever boring.
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Rock Music Review
Not only did Graduation win the sales battle, but it wins just about every other battle as well.
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