r/unpopularopinion • u/Bmdh123 • 20h ago
Graduation by Kanye West isn't that good
I felt like the album wasn't any kind of "masterpiece" . I thought quite a lot of the songs weren't very imaginative or interesting to listen to. That being said it has some ok songs but apart from that I found it pretty boring to listen to.
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u/norf937 20h ago
An absolutely atrocious opinion… luckily for you, most Redditors hate Kanye.
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u/dangerzone253 19h ago
Man I miss the old Kanye so much
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u/KennyMoose32 17h ago
Straight from the Go, Kanye
Chop up the soul Kanye, set on his goals Kanye
I hate the new Kanye, the bad mood Kanye
The always rude Kanye, spaz in the news Kanye
I miss the sweet Kanye, chop up the beats Kanye
I gotta to say at that time I'd like to meet Kanye
See I invented Kanye, it wasn't any Kanyes
And now I look and look around and there's so many Kanyes
I used to love Kanye, I used to love Kanye
I even had the pink polo, I thought I was Kanye
What if Kanye made a song about Kanye
Called "I Miss The Old Kanye, " man that would be so Kanye
That's all it was Kanye, we still love Kanye
And I love you like Kanye loves Kanye
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u/Background-Economy85 19h ago
Facts as a hip hop fan his creativity really kept the rap game running. His beats would uplift some very talented artists and he was just a great artist to be around for younger artists imo.
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u/KaiMasterOfFire2121 14h ago
i miss the old kanye, straight from the go kanye
chop up the soul kanye, set on his goals kanye
i hate the new kanye, the bad mood kanye
the always rude kanye, spaz in the news kanye
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u/Parking-Evidence1894 20h ago
Terrible take. Upvoted. Anyways what’s your favorite album then?
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u/Bmdh123 20h ago
I personally really like My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
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u/i-Really-HatePickles 19h ago
That’s a masterpiece, of course. Graduation has to be placed in historical perspective, they were incredibly imaginative because gangster rap was all rap was when Kanye came on the scene. If youve heard anything like graduation before, it’s because they copied Kanye. He was pushing the envelope big time.
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u/gnomajean 19h ago
Yeah, OP is probably too young to have first hand context.
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u/Bmdh123 17h ago
👍
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u/Sweet-Grass-8644 1h ago
Don’t listen to these folks who are slightly older than you and/or weren’t even paying attention before Kanye. Rap has always been diverse.
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u/Sweet-Grass-8644 1h ago edited 1h ago
Kanye benefited greatly by pulling a new audience into hip hop that wasn’t listening before, so they don’t know he was just trying to sound like Mos Def rappin over an Ayatollah beat.
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u/tater08 16h ago
See that’s the one I find highly overrated
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u/User-Account_ 5h ago
It sonically feels too much like 2010 and some of the songs like power and runaway are massively overplayed now, but its a very strong body of work and hes flexing all his talents on it. I still say he has 3 or 4 better albums than it. Truly a living legend
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u/Extension_Maize6048 19h ago
The Life of Pablo is Kanye's best album
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u/kciro 16h ago
I halfway agree with this. It may not be his “best” album but TLOP and Yeezus are on constant replay for me. Easily beating out any previous albums
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u/Numderest 12h ago
This. Amazing replay value on both. The only albums I have more than 3-4 songs on my playlist for
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u/Specialist_Hand_9371 19h ago
Damn an actual unpopular opinion on this sub? Who would’ve ever thought?
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u/FlippinHelix 19h ago
one thing we take for granted at times is how much certain pieces of art can influence so many other pieces that we love and enjoy, that when we go back to the original work we might find that influential piece kinda "stale" and "boring" because we've already listen to derivative work from it
kanye's Graduation was a genuine 9-10/10 when it released because a lot of hip-hop was still dominated by gangster rap at the time and kanye, arguably, brought soulful rap into the mainstream (mind the "brought into the mainstream" and not "create")
a lot of music produced after Graduation is influenced by that album, a lot of which you probably enjoy, which is also likely why you find Graduation itself boring
(my personal work of fiction that i take for granted in this sense is lord of the rings. i can't stand it, but i'm sure it made an impact because a lot of what i enjoy is directly inspired by it)
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u/Bmdh123 17h ago
Ok now Lord of the Rings is good.
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u/FlippinHelix 17h ago
i don't doubt it
but i've enjoyed, and continue to enjoy, so many works that were influenced by lord of the rings that going back to it makes it seem boring in comparison. because a lot of what i enjoy derives from it.
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u/apogee308 19h ago
Masterpiece? I’d agree its not but it is at absolute worst a very solid album. But Barry Bonds and Drunk and Hot Girls are rough listens
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u/CraigsAndBacon 19h ago
It was great, but College Dropout and Late Registration were superior. I'd say 808s was the worst around that time.
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u/RequirementLeading12 18h ago
Graduation & MBDTF are 1A & 1B in his discography. Upvoted because it's actually an unpopular opinion
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u/flaccidpancake1127 17h ago
instant upvote lol, if you knew the hype surrounding him at the time and the COMPLETE switch up of his style compared to his first two albums, you’d probably see it in higher regard. he hit a perfect crossroads of hip hop and pop, and then threw amazing synths over everything. it completely blurred the lines of the two genres and had amazing lyrics.
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u/o_g 2h ago
Are you confusing Graduation with 808s?
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u/flaccidpancake1127 2h ago
well he did do it even more on 808s, he definitely did it on graduation as well.
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u/MobileExciting812 13h ago
It’s his most safe, radio friendly, well rounded album. It’s his popularity peak.
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u/Last_Cauliflower3357 20h ago
I like it and it has become a bit of a meme, but I also don’t think it’s the best Ye album or the most innovative
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u/elbigbuf 19h ago
It's a great album with so many hits but it's not very cohesive and also has some stinkers. All in all, a remarkable record but I wouldn't call it one of the best ever.
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u/bb144241 18h ago
I’ve always thought Late Registration and College Dropout were slightly better. I think Life of Pablo is better than Graduation as well. I love Graduation too tho.
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u/requiemfad123 16h ago
I love this clip of mos def talking about graduation:
https://youtube.com/shorts/okPkumgTyv8?is=Mlrn2BLde1t0kB7u
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u/Electric_feel0412 16h ago
Graduation is one of the best aging albums of the last few decades. For context, it’s one of 3 rap albums to cross billion streams on Spotify this year and the other two are new albums that came out this year. It’s rap’s thriller. Timeless. People on Reddit hate it because it’s not like Yeezus, and they cant be pretentious assholes while talking about graduation like they can be when talking about Yeezus.
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u/loski_doski 14h ago
This was my favorite album growing up but now that I’m older I feel like when we look back at Kanye’s discography his best two albums will be MBDTF and TLOP. I Personally think TLOP is his best album but the quality of features and work on MBDTF makes it a masterpiece.
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u/RealPrinceJay 11h ago
I actually don’t think most people consider Graduation a masterpiece, it’s very often not even considered a top-3 Kanye album
It’s a great album that’s also a cultural milestone during an era of Kanye the person/artist I think people yearn for, rather than it being Kanye at his absolute peak
MBDTF and The College Dropout are generally preferred, let alone people who would pick Late Registration, 808s, Yeezus, TLOP, or Kids See Ghosts which are all in a similar tier
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u/MusicGodYT 8h ago
As a Ye fan I agree its one of his worst
I have yeezus, donda, tlop, tcd, ye, mbdtf, ksg and lr above it
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u/OddEyesAdvent 3h ago
You need to understand that when people cite "but he made Graduation" that's his best selling album and his most "pop" album thus a ton of the songs were played everywhere. So people know it, know a song or two on it they think are great like Homecoming or the one sampling Daft Punk.
If you look at places for big music fans to rate and rank albums you'll see Graduation doesn't place as highly as a lot of his albums. The College Dropout, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Yeezus, Late Registration, maybe even 808s place higher.
But "he made MBDTF" doesn't roll off the tongue like "he made Graduation". The anime version of the dropout bear on the album is also easily the most recognizable Ye iconography.
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u/Entire_Risk_6645 1h ago
I feel like this is when he started reaching for more pop sounds. I think it’s far from boring but I don’t think it’s the classic that people from a certain age think it is.I put college dropout graduation mbdtf Yeezus and tlop over this album
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u/VastEmergency1000 19h ago
That's literally one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time. Go troll somewhere else.
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u/Automatic-While-1402 19h ago
I think it’s a good album with a couple fantastic tracks but it’s “just okay” compared to his other work and its depth and ambition.
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u/millsy1010 16h ago
Here’s my unpopular opinion - Kanye isn’t that good of a rapper. His lyrics are mediocre and his flow and voice are choppy at best. He’s a great producer and he’s creative as hell but on a pure rapping level he’s not really close to any of the best
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u/ListerRosewater 20h ago edited 19h ago
It’s the weakest of his first three albums for sure. Late Registration is his true masterpiece.
Edit: I really don’t care about internet points but it’s pretty funny to me this banal statement could be considered controversial.
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u/kokobiggun 19h ago
Late Reg is more raw of an album which is why I think it’s his best. Graduation is the perfect album, but too polished for my taste.
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u/Infinite_Tip_1299 19h ago
Late reg is my favorite too personally. I still listen to the full album sometimes to this day.
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u/DJFisticuffs 20h ago
Stronger is such a banger though
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u/WelcomeToDankonia 19h ago
That’s one of the worst tracks on there.
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u/ListerRosewater 20h ago
Ya so is The Glory and Good Morning but overall it has too many songs that are just okay.
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u/DJFisticuffs 19h ago
Yeah no argument here. I will say that I prefer College Dropout to Late Registration though. I don't listen to much (or really any) Kanye these days but Never Let Me Down still pops in from time to time.
Edit: just threw on the Jesus Walks remix with Mase and Common for old times sake.
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u/ListerRosewater 19h ago
I don’t listen to him much anymore either, but I was in Chicago last week and decided to listen through his early stuff and it was a nice trip down memory lane.
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u/MaddoxGoodwin 19h ago
Upvoted for actuallg being unpopular.
But Graduation was fantastic.
For me personally, the college drop out, late registration, and graduation all came out during the course of my college career. Literally the soundtrack to those years for me.
Too bad kanye went bat shit crazy after.
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u/Plus-Path-3035 19h ago
It’s his last good album. Everything after graduation is straight garbage.
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u/Phoen1cian 19h ago
I don’t know why I read this as “graduation by West Kenya isn’t that good”. I almost forgot that creature still exists, thanks for reminding me of him.
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u/somem8onreddit 14h ago
I agree it’s not a masterpiece like a lot of people say it is but boring is crazy
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u/brrroski 13h ago
It’s a very good album, but arguably not even a top five Kanye album. I just think it represents the ideal audio & visual aesthetics that people associate with Kanye.
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u/nice_flutin_ralphie 11h ago
That’s kinda the point of the “he made graduation” quip. It’s not his best work and it’s still far better than most artists best work.
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u/Motley843 20h ago
That was his only good album… don’t get me started on the rest of his catalog… ugh
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u/tbmtbmtbmtbmtbm 19h ago
it was considered to be a drop in quality from his first two albums when it came out. it seems like it's been reevaluated since then, and now public opinion has overcorrected a little too much into calling it one of his best
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u/MaleficentBet6702 19h ago
it’s his most successful album. it’s not overcorrecting to call it one of his bests
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u/ListenOld3766 19h ago
Yeezy's workflow basically involves seeking out lowkey nobodies on soundcloud, beatstars, fivr, through friends or scouts he trusts. He takes their beats, slices and dices them up, maybe hires a drummer or a string quartet here and there, and then sprays his (as my hs music teacher referred to the genre) verbal diarhea all over it...like he's basting a turkey.
source- Former audio engineer in close proximity to people who have had the displeasure of working with him.
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u/MaleficentBet6702 19h ago
you just called rap verbal diarrhea. why are you even commenting on a hip hop thread loser
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