Late Registration Redux.
On Monday, I “came out” so to speak- “admitting” that Kanye West’s ‘College Dropout’ is my
favorite rap album of all time. Maybe eventually I’ll explain why but I think it would take me like hundreds of pages to do it. I’d love to write on of those 33 1/3 books about it or something like that. Unfortunately, Kanye has disappointed me a great deal since ‘College Dropout’, I think ‘Late Registration’ is pretty terrible. Pretty much everything I have to say was already written here, by Joey of ‘Straight Bangin’:
“Later this year, Kanye will drop his third album. It will be a big deal–there will be big-name guests; expensive videos; extensive promotions; breathless reviews. The works. And if you’re like me, it’ll make you ambivalent. You’ll be happy to have some new music from a creative dude, you’ll delight in the few beats that are just right, and you’ll smile as he drops some of his witty punch lines. But you’ll also cringe as he sells out for top-40 radio, you’ll be annoyed when he whines about how great he is, and you’ll want to throw up when the some of the worst songs on the record get held up as masterworks by people with bad taste who don’t do much thinking for themselves…”
This is how I felt when ‘Late Registration’ came out and everyone was creaming over it. My opinion of the album has not changed but what I think Kanye was doing with it has. If you go back and read interviews around the time of ‘College Dropout’ you could tell it really pissed him off that no one realized how good ‘College Dropout’ really was. Instead of just doing his thing, it made him want to be accepted. I think ‘Late Registration’ was made to make an end-run around the “sophomore slump” as well as becoming accepted by those outside of the rap world. Releasing it fairly soon after ‘College Dropout’ allowed Kanye to never move totally out of the spotlight; he was occupying a weird place close to rap stardom and he learned from the past, knowing that only rappers like Biggie can wait years between albums and not lose any of their appeal. In a lot of ways, Kanye’s initial success was a fluke in the first place, it’s odd that ‘Thru the Wire’ or ‘All Falls Down’ became hits and Kanye had to be aware of that. So he got back into the studio knowing he could make a hit or two but also needing to please the critics, he got the king of over-producers Jon Brion, to “co-produce” it, solidifying its “artistic” credit.
‘Late Registration’ feels forced, it hardly flows as an album, it’s more a series of songs, certainly not what you’d expect from a guy who got his start producing. Although there isn’t a perfect album anywhere on ‘Late Registration’ I do think with a little rearranging something a bit closer to a good album could be found. I thought this might be fun. Below is my “version” of ‘Late Registration’. Obviously, since this is sort of a rap-dork fantasy type thing, I could have done anything but I tried to keep the rules to only removing tracks or rearranging the order.
1. Diamonds from Sierra Leone
2. Late
3. Wake Up Mr. West!
4. Heard Em’ Say
5. Touch the Sky
6. Gold Digger
7. Addiction
8. My Way Home
9. Crack Music
10. Drive Slow
11. Gone
12. We Major
Part One: The Tracks I Removed
-Skits (Tracks 5, 12, 15, 18)
Other than the introductory skit ‘Wake Up Mr. West’, the first thing to go are these totally pointless skits. They aren’t necessarily poor or anything, they just reek of Kanye’s attempt to make this random group of songs into a cohesive album. A similar thing is done on Consequence’s ‘Don’t Quit Your Day Job’ (which ‘Late Registration’ is a lot like, actually). They don’t make the album cohere as much as they string the album along. A similar thing could be said of the ones on ‘College Dropout’ particularly those on the second half but ‘College Dropout’ is a delightful mess that really does connect through the interludes and skits, not just maintaining the appearance of connecting.
-‘Roses’
This song isn’t poor but it does not fit with my track listing and it’s instrumental second half is really fucking tedious. Kanye should just cut this track after the last line “So instead of sending flowers/We the roses” CUT! It would be abrupt and actually powerful and cathartic in a way that Kanye and Jon Brion jamming for two minutes isn’t. I think they tried to emote through music, something rap rarely does, and they had some plan that it would be very powerful if the music matched the joy of Kanye’s grandmother surviving, but it doesn’t because Brion sucks. All of his music is quirky, sad-ass mood music. ‘Roses’ also highlights the problematic aspect many of ‘Late Registration’s songs share: rap song with a single topic. Rather than the kitchen sink approach on ‘College Dropout’ where verses counter-act and contradict one another, many of the lesser tracks here are on a single topic, often a narrative that quickly becomes boring.
-‘Bring Me Down’
Brion’s maudlin strings actually sort of work here but the beat needs something more, something that functions as a counterpoint to the strings. It all fits together too well. It’s not messy. It’s produced like rock music or something. Kanye also recycles a lot of lyrics from two very good mixtape tracks ‘So Soulful’ and ‘Wack Niggas’, both of which would be better on this album. Again, the lyrics are too singularly focused and unlike ‘Roses’, focused on an overdone topic: haters. And…Brandy? Come on.
-‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)’
Kanye seriously thought ‘Diamonds’ would be his mega-hit but it didn’t really catch-on because it was just a little too weird and not all that poppy. Panicked, I think he quickly followed it up with this remix which is really fucking amazing but only as remix. Jay-Z’s verse is weirdly dropped mid-Kanye verse, which I understand is the point but it sounds hastily done. Also, Kanye’s remix verse, although better than the original verse, sounds hastily recorded and stands-out as having a totally different sound than Kanye’s original verses. When I heard this on the radio I loved it, it has a mixtape feeling to it but it’s a remix for a reason. The only thing that is lost is Kanye’s purposeful placing of this before ‘We Major’ which has Nas on it, a sort of symbolic, near-pairing of the two rappers who, at that time weren’t best buddies yet. Even that however, reeks of publicity stunt, as Jay-Z loves these stupid hints of what’s to come and the placement of these tracks next to one another was one of the first “confirmations” of the squashing of the Jay-Z/Nas beef. Maybe Jay-Z even forced the remix on the album?
-‘Hey Mama’
Some of Kanye’s lyrics are legitimately touching (“As we knelt on the kitchen floor…”) but once again, no interacting is going on here, we’re just getting Kanye’s love-letter to his moms. No jokes, no complexities. It tries too hard, like Tupac too-hard, you know? It’s insincere. We all know Kanye isn’t going back to school. Why would he promise that in a song? This is the sort of song that ‘Time’ magazine would love. The earlier mixtape versions are significantly easier to listen to and shorter. It is perfect example of ‘Late Registration’s over-production. Like all of my removed tracks, it is not so much Kanye’s rather simplistic approach to his content but the fact that he approaches his topics simplistically and the beats sort of suck.
-‘Celebration’
There’s not a lot to say about this, everything about it is pretty poor but once again, it is the production that motivates me to remove it from the album. A song about celebrating that lacks any enthusiasm or joy; weird.
Part Two: The Final Track Listing
1. ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’
Part of me wants to just cut this track and begin the album with ‘Late’ which would make sense as its sort of the titular track but that wouldn’t leave a place for ‘Diamonds’ and it sort of should be on the album. So, beginning the album with the album’s first single just sort of makes sense. I had been hoping that the first song on ‘Late Registration’ would have somehow been a continuation of ‘Last Call’, particularly in the way that ‘Last Call’ echoes out with “Roc-A-Fella”. This song functions as a sort of “when we last saw Kanye…”as he discusses awards show tantrums as well as the dissolution of the Roc, so imagine if that “Roc-A-Fella” echo that ended ‘College Dropout’ began ‘Late Registration’ and transitioned into ‘Diamonds’! A cool double-comment on the state of the Roc would have been made.
2. Late
This was obviously written as some kind of intro or outro track but the weird thing about ‘Late Registration’ is every song sounds like an intro, an outro, or a crappy track that shouldn’t be on the album in the first place. The only justification for putting this as a “bonus track” is to enact the cute joke that goes along with the line “just throw this at the end if I’m too late for the intro”. Most of the lyrics are focused not so much on a story or narrative as an idea, which suits Kanye’s lyrics much better. He holds onto the college metaphor on this and only this ‘Late Registration’ track, so it makes sense to place this and ‘Diamonds’ earlier; they function almost as layover from ‘College Dropout’. The strings on the track also have a certain “collegiate” sound which functions as a transition from ‘College Dropout’. The song also drags out, setting the tone for the album being as much about musical “experimentation” as rapping. The end, with (presumably) Brion playing this sort of lazy, 70’s Bob Dylan-sounding keyboard segues nicely into the next track.
3. Wake Up Mr. West
Another remnant of ‘College Dropout’. ‘Late’ functioned as both an introduction to ‘Late Registration’ in content and a continuation of ‘College Dropout’ in sound and now, this initial skit returns, mocking Kanye for being late. The skit divides the tracks between tracks that began the album, which look back at ‘College Dropout’ and the rest of the tracks which deal with what has happened since ‘College Dropout’.
4. Heard Em’ Say
I’m not a big fan of this song but it officially introduces the ‘Late Registration’ sound in contrast to ‘College Dropout’. The guests are bigger, the music is stranger, and the overall tone a bit darker. Kanye’s rapping on here is a bit slower and different; for better or worse, this could never be on ‘College Dropout’ so it functions as the first true ‘Late Registration’ track. From here on out, the album is in the present or more immediate past.
5. Touch the Sky
6. Gold Digger
‘Late Registration’ really begins to fall apart after ‘Crack Music’ but it wouldn’t really work if you just removed all the crappy tracks after that one, hence this slight re-ordering of the tracks. I don’t think these three songs in a row can really be improved. They transition well and work off of one another in terms of energy and sound. ‘Touch the Sky’ and ‘Gold Digger’ also begin to address fame in negative ways, something of a theme throughout the album.
7. ‘Addiction’
Placing this track here continues what I have made the “fame” section of the album. We begin with ‘Diamonds’, ‘Late’ and ‘Heard Em’ Say’ songs that recall the content of ‘College Dropout’ and then with ‘Touch the Sky’ we move into the direction of Kanye’s celebrity in the wake of ‘College Dropout’s success. ‘Touch the Sky’ is primarily a celebratory song but there are already hints of the negative aspects of fame (“any girl I cheated on/ Sheets is skeeted on”). On ‘Gold Digger’ a truly bitter song, we get the dark side of groupies and sex. ‘Addition’ takes this darkness even further, it is the single-topic “confessional” song from ‘Late Registration’ that actually works. Kanye gets really honest and fucked-up here and Brion’s dark-sounding production fits it perfectly. At the end where he’s doing the thing every dude has done at some point or another, dancing around some weird sex thing with your girl, is vividly really and disturbing and then Kanye ends it with a quick joke, a reference to ‘Hot in Herre’ (“unless ya’ gonna do it”) that doesn’t change what he said before. The song obviously comes from a real place.
8. ‘My Way Home’
There’s also a downward trajectory in the tone of the production beginning with ‘Gold Digger’ and getting darker on ‘Addiction’ and becoming mournful here on ‘My Way Home’. ‘Addiction’ and ‘My Way Home’ share a warm, soul-sound that allows for a good sonic transition.
9. ‘Crack Music’
Again, I cheated here in that I just used the regular track listing but like I said, I’ve sort of recontextualized the earlier songs by placing ‘Addiction’ in there so I feel as though I’ve added something to it. You know how on ‘Spaceship’ from ‘College Dropout’ the Kanye verse ends with the sound of a spaceship and GLC’s ends with a gun-shot, but they sort of sound like the same sound effect implying that the same things that help us can harm us? I’m sort of going for that here, where suddenly we go from fame and how awesome it is to the same fame bringing problems and even addiction. The next transition is from the private sphere on Kanye’s conflicts with fame to the public sphere of addiction which he takes-on with ‘Crack Music’. I’ve always thought this song needed a really good guest verse and not from the Game. I remember “rumors” that the Game had a verse on it that was removed or something…Imagine if Kanye had put on the trap-rappers on here, like Jeezy or something? A interesting little comment on crack and crack-rap would have been made.
10. ‘Drive Slow’
This song has a similar sound to the tracks the preceded it, a sort of slow, dreary feeling. Also, the chopped-and-screwed ending fits with the overall drug/addiction theme. The song is minor in scope and putting it after the declarative ‘Crack Music’ brings the album back down into the private as Kanye reminisces about being a teenager.
11. ‘Gone’
This track ended the real album but like I said before, there’s a whole bunch of tracks that could begin or end this album. I think putting it second to last fits because it pulls the listener out of the depressive feelings of the past few tracks and back into typical Kanye excitement and bragging only tempered by sadness. On the original album, the track ends quickly with Kanye saying “Sorry Mr. West is gone” and all the music drops out and that would be a cool ending, making Kanye’s hypothetical absence from rap palpable but on the CD, after ‘Gone’ we get some silence, then “bonus tracks” ‘Diamonds from Sierra Leone’ and ‘Late’ so it doesn’t really “sell” the feeling it wants to. Putting ‘Gone’ second to last moves us towards a concluding feeling, mixing Kanye’s pride with a certain hurt and anger he stills feels (“I romanced the thought of leaving it all behind”). This track is also notable for being a track that to me, hints at ‘Late Registration’s somewhat rushed feeling. Listen to Kanye coming in at the start of the song, he comes in like, mid-line, as if whatever he said before was edited out. This is especially awkward on the ‘Late Orchestration’ live record where he tries to imitate the cut-up lyrics in a live setting.
12. ‘We Major’
This song is obviously the ending track. What the hell is it doing on the album as track 14? Other than the Jay-Z and Nas tracks having to follow one another up, there’s not reason not to end the album with this track. It sounds like the end of an album, all grand and excited and Vegas-y but sort of mournful, like a funhouse-mirror version of ‘Diamonds’, you know? It’s a curtain call. It even ends with Kanye “talking his shit again”, addressing the listener as he did on ‘Last Call’. The only reason for not putting it last would be that it has guests on it and it is a bit odd to have an epic, final track with guests but even that kind of works here because Kanye is rapping with Nas, a true legend, and Really Doe, an up-and-comer, putting Kanye in the middle, which is exactly where he is.
Part Three: Conclusion
So, there you go. Seriously, listen to ‘Late Registration’ in this order, it’s a lot better. I feel as though I’ve connected many of the threads throughout and plucked out the ones that don’t actually fit. It would work as wonderful album but it probably wouldn’t get the praise that ‘Late Registration’ got because my version is a lot less “diverse”. Critics have an odd way of getting excited by mediocrity almost as if something needs to have some shitty parts for them to really like it. In other ways however, I’ve made an equally “safe” album to the real ‘Late Registration’ cutting it down to something like 47 minutes is almost unacceptable in the rap world today and is also an easy way to make the album flow better. How about this? Kanye takes back the beats for ‘The Corner’ and ‘Go’ that he gave to Common, raps some better shit on them, and they go between ‘Gold Digger’ and ‘Addiction’?
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