Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released on September 11, 2007 on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place over the course of a two years at various studios located in New York City and Los Angeles. It was primarily produced by West and DJ Toomp, and features guest contributions from artists Mos Def, Dwele T-Pain, Lil Wayne, and Chris Martin of Coldplay. Graduation concludes the college theme of Kanye West's previous two studio albums, The College Dropout and Late Registration . The album's cover artwork was designed by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.
Inspired by Dublin rock band U2 to make more inspirational, anthemic rap music, West incorporated synthesizer into his production and dabbled with electronic music while sampling a wide spectrum of musical genres. Lyrically, Graduation is more introspective in comparison to its predecessors, as West dedicated a much of the album towards analyzing himself and conveying his ambivalent outlook on his newfound fame.
The album was met by widespread critical acclaim and commercial success. Selling nearly a million copies in its first week alone, Graduation , which was nominated for Grammy Album of the Year, has received three Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album, thereby making West the only artist other than Eminem to win three Best Rap Album Grammys. The continuously evolving and increasingly experimental, genre-bending sonancy of West's hip hop production was encapsulated by Rolling Stone , which awarded Graduation a near-perfect 4.5 stars rating and quipped, "We look forward to Kanye’s next phase, which we will hope will include homages to the Melvins and a drizzle of accordion." Graduation's first week sales, over 957,000, was the highest first week sales in Def Jam history.
Conception
Graduation is the third and final installment of Kanye West's planned tetralogy of education-themed studio albums, which was subsequently discontinued due to the events surrounding the conception of his fourth album, 808s & Heartbreak . The album demonstrates yet another distinctive evolution in West's musical style and approach to production. After spending the previous year touring the world with Dublin rock band U2 on their Vertigo Tour, Kanye felt inspired to compose anthemic rap songs that could operate more efficiently in large arenas. To accomplish this "stadium-status" endeavor, West incorporated synthesizer into his hip hop production, which also finds him utilizing slower tempos, experimenting with electronic music and influenced by music of the 1980s. In addition to U2, West drew musical inspiration from arena rock bands such as The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin in terms of melody and chord progression. Additionally, West further expanded his musical palette by abstaining himself from his customary R&B/soul samples and instead utilized a more eclectic variety of interpolations from music genres encompassing pop rock, Euro-disco, electronica, progressive rock, and dub. For much of the album, West adopted a dilatory, exuberant rap delivery in emulation of Bono's operatic Britpop vocal stylings.
Recording
West began working on Graduation immediately after the release of his second studio album Late Registration . By late September of 2005, he had already completed three songs for the album, which he intended to contain a total of twelve tracks. Around the time of the recording of the studio album, Kanye listened to songs by folk singer-songwriters Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in hopes of developing methods to augment his wordplay and storytelling ability. The former had been recommended to him by multiple friends, including English disc jockey Samantha Ronson, who all claimed that the way West dealt with the press reminded them of Dylan. Kanye also listened to his favorite alternative rock bands, including The Killers, Radiohead, Modest Mouse, and Keane for ideas on making his music more stadium-friendly. In comparison to previous albums, Graduation expresses fewer guest apperarances. T-Pain, Detroit R&B singer Dwele, and New York rapper Mos Def are featured within individual tracks to sing hooks and choruses. In January 2007 interview with Billboard , West revealed that he had collaborated with Coldplay lead vocalist Chris Martin on "Homecoming", and that the song was might possibly be released as lead single of Graduation . The collaboration came about the year before when the two met during an impromptu jam session at Abbey Road Studios. Though he originally intended Graduation to be completely devoid of guest rap verses, Kanye later invited New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne on the track "Barry Bonds." At the time, the two had been collaborating, with West working on the production of Tha Carter III . It was around the time of the filming of the music video for "Stronger" that the album started taking definite form, whereas prior West had been "aimlessly making songs". The sci-fi imagery of the Hype Williams-directed video inspired West to take his music in a more futuristic direction. After the filming of the video, which begun before West had even written the song's second verse, he went back to redo and re-record various portions of "Stronger", watching films like Total Recall for ideas. West cites "I Wonder" as one of his three favorite tracks from the album. He considered releasing it as a single but released "Flashing Lights" instead. The album sees the return of multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion, who had played a key role as co-execute producer on Late Registration , for the track "Drunk and Hot Girls." The beat of "The Glory" was originally conceived for West's G.O.O.D. Music associate, close friend, a fellow Chicagoan MC Common, whose seventh studio album Finding Forever was being produced and recorded by West simultaneously with Graduation . As was the case with their previous albums, certain tracks West originally crafted for Finding Forever that Common passed on subsequently ended up on his own album. "Everything I Am" was yet another song made for Common that he passed on, a fact which West addresses within the song's intro. Though "Bittersweet Poetry" appears as a bonus track on the album, the recording had actually been one of the very first tracks made for Late Registration . After seeing the 2004 biographical film Ray together, Kanye and John Mayer decided to collaborate on a recording and immediately went back to the studio to compose a song called "Bittersweet". The two had previously worked side-by-side while creating "Go!", the third single for Common's album, which had come about when Mayer went to visit West at The Record Plant in Los Angeles.
Music
Musical style
With Graduation , West departed from the warm soul samples of The College Dropout and the lush chamber pop orchestration of Late Registration and moved towards a more atmospheric rock-tinged, electronic soundscape. The musical evolution arose from him listening to muscial genres encompassing European Britpop and Euro-disco, American alternative/indie rock, and his native Chicago house. Towards this end, Kanye retracted the live instrumentation that characterized his previous album and had it replaced with heavy, gothic synths. West injected distorted synth-riffs, rave stabs, house beats, and an array of modulated electronic sound effects into his hip hop production. Despite the dominant synthetic attributes, the emphasis on organic string arrangements that accentuated Late Registration remained a significant factor on Graduation . Also, similar to its predecessor, the album didn't relegate itself to simplistic looping techniques typical of conventional hip hop and instead continued to implement sudden musical shifts within its multi-layered song structures and express intricately composed introductions, bridges, and codas. Under the belief that his previous album had been too indulgent and poorly arranged, West fashioned Graduation to contain less ornate production and made the album completely devoid of skits and sequenced it in such a way that it produced a more cohesive package.
Production
The album's opening track, "Good Morning" intiates the opus on a sparse note, retaining metallic percussion and a simplistic chorus in which West recites "Good Morning" backed by a melody laced with sythesizer and a nonverbal vocal sample of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John. The anthemic "Champion" contains slight jazz-pop influence, eschewing trumpets in favour of bright synthesizers and featuring breezy hooks provided by chopped up a vocal sample of "Kid Charlemagne" by Steely Dan. It also contains a reggae-flavored bridge delivered by Connie Mitchell of the Australian electronic group Sneaky Sound System.More than any other song on the entire album, "I Wonder" was most influenced by the music of Dublin rock band U2, as West elaborated that he had sought out to make a hip-hop equivalent to the band's "City of Blinding Lights" with the track. It begins with a piano-led introduction that contains a hook provided by a vocal sample of "My Song" by British jazz-folk poet Labi Siffre, before transforming into a convoluted synthesizer riff punctuated by a distorted beat amd ethereal electronic keyboards. During the song's bridge, the chord progression alternates, its organic piano keys return, and it adopts a string section which replicates the melody of its synths. The composition then enters a coda where its i
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