Late Registration
Encyclopedia
Late Registration is the second studio album by American hip hop
artist Kanye West
, released August 30, 2005, on Roc-A-Fella Records
. Recording sessions for the album took place over the course of a year at various recording studios located in New York City and Hollywood. West collaborated with American record producer and composer Jon Brion
to produce Late Registration, and the album features guest contributions from artists including Jay-Z
, Lupe Fiasco
, Jamie Foxx
, Nas
, Brandy
, and Adam Levine
of Maroon 5
.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200
chart, selling 860,000 copies in its first week. It ultimately sold three million copies in the United States and spawned five singles that attained chart success. Upon its release, Late Registration received general acclaim from most music critics and earned West several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
at the 48th Grammy Awards. It appeared at the top of several publications year-end lists of top albums. Initially naming it the best album of 2005, Rolling Stone
ranked the album number 40 on its list of the best albums of the 2000s decade.
which commonly afflicts rap artists that many expected him to experience following the critical and commercial success of The College Dropout
, the album sees a progression in West's lyrical dexterity in addition to an expansion of his musical palette. At the time, the focal point of West's production style was its usage of sped-up vocal samples from soul
records. However, due in part to the widespread recognition of The College Dropout, the technique had come to be emulated by a myriad of producers. It had reached the point where West felt that not only had the music landscape become oversaturated with his signature style, but it had also become a crutch to him and it was time to seek out a new sound.
A longtime fan of the English trip hop
group Portishead, Kanye had been significantly influenced by Roseland NYC Live
, the band's 1998 live album with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Early in his career, the live album had inspired him to incorporate string arrangements into his hip hop production
. Though West had not been able to afford live instruments beyond violin
riffs provided by Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari
around the time of his debut album, its subsequent commercial success enabled him to hire his very own string orchestra
. For his second album, West juxtaposed the lush, intricate melodies of string section
with the hard, pounding drum rhythm
s of hip-hop and used the polymerization for the foundation of his rapping
.
In order to facilitate this sonic transition, Kanye collaborated with American film score
composer Jon Brion
, who served as the album's co-executive producer for several tracks. West had been exposed to Brion's craftsmanship while watching the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
, for which Brion had composed music. West was also listening to songs Brion had produced for When the Pawn..., the second studio album of alternative singer-songwriter Fiona Apple
, another one of West's favorite musicians and sources of musical inspiration for the album. Although Brion had absolutely no prior experience whatsoever in creating hip-hop records, he and West quickly found that they had potent musical chemistry after their very first afternoon in the studio together where they discovered that neither confined his musical knowledge and vision to one specific genre. When questioned if his presence made Late Registration any less hip-hop, Brion replied, "There are colors and ideas that make [the album] different from average hip-hop, but Kanye is already different from the average hip-hop guy. He's got this sense of pop record-making which is really solid, and he likes tracks with a lot of things going on in them — which is not necessarily common for hip-hop. He was already barking up that tree. This is definitely not just a hip-hop album. But it is also by no means overtly arty, or non-hip-hop. I don't think its a weird record by any means."
in New York City
and at The Record Plant in Hollywood, California. He began working in the studio on his second effort immediately after he finished touring with Usher
on the R&B singer's The Truth Tour. By November 2004, West had completed nearly seventy-five percent of the album. However he felt unsatisfied with its outcome and in March of the following year, he brought in Jon Brion, which drastically altered the project's direction.
The album's recording sessions between West and Brion were largely experimental and exploratory, with the two experimenting with a broad spectrum of sounds. West would construct a song's basic structure, bringing in basic samples, drum beat programming and occasionally unfinished rap verses. After brainstorming over the myriad of musical avenues it could be taken, he would then select from a variety of unique instruments that Brion provided (and played) and attempt to incorporate their distinctive sonancy into the song's texture. West elaborated that while configuring Late Registration, he envisioned the creation of a film; visualizing the songs as scenes, outlining each in such a way that they efficiently convey their respective social or introspective context, and ensuring that all synchronized perfectly within the fabric of the complete set. This sentiment was shared by Jon Brion who went further to explain, "He thinks in frequency ranges. I can recognize when someone sees music architecturally, which is how I work. I see it as a spatial thing: left to right, front to back, up and down. It's animated and it's moving in real time. Kanye has that. He tries things out until it fits, until it sits where it is supposed to sit and everything has the correct emotional function. He has real instincts like any great record-maker."
Aside from Brion co-helming the overall project, Late Registration also expresses a diverse assembly of collaborations for its individual tracks. Kanye chose his guest artists based on the effect each of their voices had on him when he heard them, citing the serene vocals of Adam Levine
, the trademark sound of Brandy
, and the superb lyricism of Lupe Fiasco
and Paul Wall
as primary examples. Adam Levine, lead vocalist of the California
n pop rock
band Maroon 5
is featured on the album's opening track, "Heard 'Em Say
." The two had previously collaborated when Maroon 5 commissioned Kanye to produce a remix
for "This Love" and later developed a friendship while sitting together on a flight to Rome
for the 2004 MTV Europe Music Awards
. While playing songs from his second album on his iPod
for him during the flight, West came across the demo
for "Heard 'Em Say" to which Levine added a R&B hook
he had recently written and thought was perfect for it. The track was recorded quickly right after the 47th Grammy Awards ceremony, as Levine only had a couple of free hours available for time in the studio, and Brion was able to translate the two compositions in a matter of hours. Adam Levine later described his collaboration with West as "a really cool, organic process" and commented that "Kanye's lyrics were beautiful."
Though many surmised that West conceived "Gold Digger
" after watching Jamie Foxx
's Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles
in the biographical film Ray
, he had actually recorded the song long before the movie was even developed. West originally produced and recorded the song in Ludacris
's home in Atlanta, Georgia
for Shawnna
's 2004 debut album Worth Tha Weight
and had written the chorus
from a female first-person viewpoint. However, for reasons unknown, Shawnna passed on the beat. Not wanting to let it go to waste, West decided to write the two verses for the song himself, this time from a male's point-of-view. About a year later, right before "Gold Digger" was set to be released, West decided to add a third verse and in a week the new song was recorded and mastered at Sony Music Studios
in New York
. The idea of employing Jamie Foxx specifically to sing an interpolation
of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman
" in place of its initial sample did in fact arise from West seeing Ray with his friend John Mayer
. Foxx's vocals were recorded over many takes; one version, he sang from start to finish, but the track was retracted as his performance didn't coincide well with the song's instrumentation. After recording another version, Jamie decided to re-record it once more as he felt it contained too many explicit lyrics. Once the track was in place, it was layered with additional instruments provided by Brion and individually selected by West. By the end of their very first studio session together, the pair had completed the basic tracks for final version of "Gold Digger."
Houston
-based rapper Paul Wall appears alongside West and his G.O.O.D. Music label-mate GLC
on "Drive Slow
." The two had met while posing at for a photo shoot in an August issue of King
magazine in a special spread titled "Coming Kings". West visited Houston two weeks late and the pair soon built up a friendship. Eventually, West offered Wall an open spot on his album which he immediately accepted and the track was recorded in Los Angeles
. West had originally wanted Sri Lanka
n rapper M.I.A.
to appear on the track, but she opted out of the appearance due to a busy schedule. The accompanying music video
for "Drive Slow" used a remix which contains an additional guest verse by Atlanta rap artist T.I.
Its remix version was included on the bonus DVD for T.I.'s fourth studio album, King
while the original version appeared on Paul Wall's debut album, The People's Champ. The following proto-rap interlude "My Way Home" is the only song on the album not to feature West's vocals at all. It is instead performed by his close friend and G.O.O.D. Music associate Common, whose sixth studio album Be was being produced and recorded by West simultaneously with Late Registration. Certain tracks Kanye originally crafted for Be that Common passed on subsequently ended up on his second album.
While the original version of "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
" featured West as the sole performer, he decided to record a remix
to the song which included guest verse provided by Jay-Z—who had come out of retirement from rapping—after learning of the horrific civil war in Sierra Leone
financed by conflict diamonds. Both the original and remix versions of "Diamond from Sierra Leone" appear on the album, with the former included as a bonus track
. The song contains live drums played by French
film director Michel Gondry
who had happened to visit the studio on a day Brion set up a drum kit
. Incidentally, Gondry had directed Eternal Sunshine and would later go on to direct the first version of the music video for "Heard 'Em Say." According to Jay-Z, West mixed "Diamonds" about fourteen times before he felt comfortable to release it as the album's lead single
. The recording also experienced delay when West and Brion were required to wait two weeks to rent the harpsichord
that they used for percussion on the song. The music exhibited on "Crack Music" was the result of West feeling that he needed tracks with more conventional hip-hop production for Late Registration following the release of the orchestral "Diamonds from Sierra Leone." He later described the situation as him "reaching too high for the cookie jar." The Game
is featured on "Crack Music", but he merely reiterates the rapped refrain
in tandem with West. The song's original version contained a verse delivered by Game but it was extracted and transferred to his Ghost Unit mixtape.
West managed to record a verse provided by Queensbridge rap artist Nas
—one of his idol rappers—for the track "We Major" without alerting Jay-Z, who at the time was locked in a feud with Nas
. G.O.O.D, music labelmate Really Doe
also appears on the track, delivering its elongated chorus. Kanye later admitted that part of the main reason he engendered the song was as an attempt to dismantle the feud between the MCs, which the two did later that very same year. Although the tribute song "Hey Mama
", dedicated to his mother Donda West, appears on the 2005 album, Kanye had recorded the tribute song long before he had found fame, as early as 2000. Brion ran into some obstruction while conducting a twenty-piece orchestra for "Celebration", as its musicians found themselves giggling at Kanye's humorous lyrics which hampered their playing. It was also on the track that West and Brion had some minor discord; Brion initially layered it with keyboard arrangements, only for West to remove his keys along with the beat and completely reconfigure the entire song in such a way that its verses are built around the rhythm formed by his vocals and Brion's arrangements arrive during the choruses. Brion later lightheartedly compared the indecision surrounding the construction of the track to that of Prince
's famous last-minute removal of the bass line from "When Doves Cry
." After seeing 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
. Though "Bittersweet" was one of the first tracks crafted for the Late Registration, West subsequently decided to withhold the recording from the album and later released it as a bonus track for his third studio album, Graduation
.
band Portishead and collaborating with film score composer Jon Brion, the second opus blends West's primary soulful hip-hop
production with Brion's elaborate chamber pop orchestration and experimentally delves into a wide array of different genres, including alto jazz
, blues
, rock
, R&B, spoken word
, funk
, turntablism
, western classical
, and psychedelic soul
. With the presence of Brion, who conducts a twenty-piece orchestra
and plays instruments individually selected by West, the album is largely orchestral in nature, brandishing a euphony of string arrangements
, piano chords, brass flecks, and horn riffs among many other symphonic instrumentation. The two also incorporated a myriad of foreign and vintage instruments not typical utilized in popular music, let alone hip hop, such as a celesta
, harpsichord
, Chamberlin
, CS-80
analog synthesizer
, Chinese bells and berimbau
, vibraphones, and marimba
. The end result is a more diverse, ornate, polished production that retains a multi-layered, cinematic texture with a particularly heightened emphasis on instrumental passages and extended codas
. Music writers have also noted the genre-defying styles and sudden musical shifts present within the song structures as reminiscent of The Beatles
during their experimental era. Rolling Stone
described Late Registration as West claiming "the whole world of music as hip-hop turf" chronicling the album as "his mad quest to explode every cliché about hip-hop identity." Vibe concurred with this sentiment, stating, "West ambitiously attempts to depart from the street sensibilities of Dropout by giving Late Registration a shiny, quasi-alt-pop
finish."
The album's opening track "Heard 'Em Say
" expresses a cascading piano melody provided by excerpts of "Someone That I Used To Love" as performed by Natalie Cole
embellished over tumbling beats and warped bass as well as acoustic guitar. The song's intricately composed outro, which adopts new sonic elements such as synthesizer and foreign bells, exemplifies the musical complexity of the album as a whole. "Touch the Sky
" stands as the sole song on the entire album not to feature production by West. The song was produced by fellow Roc-a-Fella producer Just Blaze
, who uses a slowed-down sample of Curtis Mayfield
's "Move on Up
" filled with jubilant Latin horn blares and dynamic drum patterns.Caramanica, Jon (2005-08-30). Kanye West, 'Late Registration' (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)". Spin
(Spin Media, LLC). Retrieved 2008-04-26. "Gold Digger
" contains an interpolation
of "I Got a Woman
" by Ray Charles
and a bouncy beat formed from handclaps as well as scratches by West's touring DJ A-Trak
. Towards the end, the song employs vintage 1970s synthesizers which emit a honking sound in cadence
to Kanye's voice. West's production approach comes full circle within "Drive Slow
", a song that samples Hank Crawford
's "Wildflower" and distinctively retains a sluggish but smooth alto jazz
-infused drum loop
, antithetical to his once essential sped-up soul style. The song emphasizes this trait within its coda, which sonically alludes to chopped-and-screwed
, the tempo
manipulation technique of Houston-based hip hop music that causes the track to creep slower and slower before coming to a complete halt.
The interlude "My Way Home" contains a sample of "Home is Where the Hatred Is" by Gil Scott-Heron
. This facet is accentuated by Common's performance, which pays homage to the poet by the delivering its single verse in a distinctive proto-rap manner reminiscent of Scott-Heron's influential vocal style. "Crack Music" is sparsely built on incessant snare drum
hits and clipped horn blares. The track sees an ephemeral return of West's old production attributes, as it possesses a syncopated martial beat, gospel choir symphony, and a spoken word
passage within its coda. The poetic "Roses" is partially a cappella
in structure, displaying verses rapped over sparse keyboards and a slowed rhythm with the music arriving at the chorus, which features additional vocals, trumpet riffs, electric guitar phrasings, and finally a line sampled from Bill Withers
' "Rosie". "Bring Me Down" carries a bombast dramatic air, as it holds more orchestration than any other track on Late Registration. Additionally, it features an overdubbing
of Brandy
's vocals to create a chorus effect
, a recording technique in which her lone voice produces the illusion of a choir
singing harmonies
during the choruses. The up-tempo arrangement of "Addiction" contains ambient, rhythmic guitar licks
, congas, filtered hi-hat
s and a sampled line from "My Funny Valentine" as performed by Etta James
. All the while, West's overdubbed vocals reverbs in and out of the track. For "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
", West used a looped vocal sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond
film, Diamonds Are Forever
as performed by Shirley Bassey
and layered it with live drums, piano keys, horn stabs, harpsichord arpeggios, and string arrangements that all build in intensity with his voice.
Late Registrations longest track, the seven minute-long "We Major", implements exuberant, amplified backing vocals and a "splashy disco
groove" embellished by horn blares, droning
bassline, and electric piano glissandos. The melody of "Hey Mama
" is laced with a folksy
looped "La-la-la" vocal sample from "Today Won't Come Again" by Donal Leace while its beat is produced by a tin drum. Additionally, it contains vocoder
-processed background vocals, a xylophone
solo and a cascading synth
outro. Opening with an electronic twinkling sound, "Celebration" contains samples of "Heavenly Dream" by The KayGees. A columnist for The Guardian
described it as evoking "the lavish 1970s psychedelic soul
of Rotary Connection
." Some of the most elaborate orchestral arrangement expressed on the entire album is contained within its closing track "Gone." The composition begins with a vocal sample of "It Too Late" by Otis Redding
and a two-chord piano ostinato, followed by a simplistic funk beat. As the song progresses, its structure gradually morphs and develops more and more musicality. Overtime, the composition assumes ten violin
s, four viola
s and four cello
s in the midst of verses, all of which initially come in brief staccato bursts that simply punctuate the rhythm but eventually expand and consolidate into a fully formed string section
by the arrival of the harmonic choruses. After its third verse, the song enters an instrumental passage before returning with a fourth verse from West, where the rise and fall of his voice is intricately emulated by the fluctuation of the string orchestra.
of Time
magazine, the album primarily serves as an exhibition of "the stealthy power of West's storytelling." The opening track "Heard 'Em Say
" is a "mournfully contemplative" song that "talks about being honest with yourself in a world that is not." The song is written from the perspective of an afflicted, impoverished American quietly lamenting the fallacies of society and questioning the ways of the world around him. "Touch the Sky
" is a song of triumph and celebration where West revels in his ambition and accomplishment. In it, he reminisces over his path to becoming an artist, detailing various shortcomings and obstacles that he had to overcome as well as multiple naysayers he subsequently disproved.
West delivers a tongue-in-cheek lyrical narrative within "Gold Digger
" in which he critically depicts the disastrous life of a man married to a woman who manipulates him for financial gain. However, another story arises within the third verse, which illustrates a once destitute black male who earns a fortune and decides to leave a loyal, unselfish girlfriend for a white girl. In "Drive Slow
", West nostalgically reminisces over taking aimless rides through his hometown of Chicago
with a childhood friend after he got his very first car at the age of sixteen. "Crack Music" continues the avenue of socio-political commentary initiated within "Heard 'Em Say." However, two songs express polar opposite tones; where "Heard 'Em Say" was self-effacing and passive-aggressive, "Crack Music" is audacious and straightforward. In the song, West dually discusses the spread and devastating impact of crack cocaine
in black communities and champions the sovereignty of music pioneered by black musicians, metaphorically equating their contrarily addictive power and influence on American society. On the sentimental "Roses", Kanye gives a firsthand account of the hospitalization of his ailing grandmother within a melancholic poem to produce a critique of the healthcare system. West uses one single verse within "Bring Me Down" to denounce detractors he gained over the course of his rise to fame whom he believes would love nothing more than to see his hopes and dreams be extinguished.
The original version of "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
" is largely free-associative and is filled with a litany of lyrical punchlines which serve to loosely chronicle his past experiences being apart of the Roc-A-Fella movement, from touring with Jay-Z
on his Blueprint Lounge Tour to the label's subsequent fall out and revival. However, West uses the remix
to "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" to directly address the issue of "blood diamonds" that people unknowingly wear everyday are used to fund horrific civil wars in West Africa
. Lyrically, the extensive, uplifting "We Major" is a spiritual exhultation of generational and personal success.
"Hey Mama
" is Kanye's dedication to his mother, Donda West. In the ballad, West recounts past hardships he and his mother suffered through together and expresses his love and devotion for her and appreciation for her tireless support, even when he was going directly against her expectations for him. West later stated that his objective was to touch on topics that people from all walks of life could relate to while remaining true to himself, saying he wanted to have, "raps that were just as ill as Jadakiss
and just as understandable as Will Smith
."
In addition, the album includes a series of humorous skits
that involve West joining a fictional black fraternity
, "Broke Phi Broke," whose members pride themselves in living a life without money or worldly possessions, despite the glaring disadvantages such a lifestyle brings. His character is eventually expelled from the fraternity after their leader discovers that not only has West been making beats for cash on the side but has also been breaking some of its rules, such as eating meals everyday, buying new clothes, and taking showers. According to music writer Mickey Hess, the skits serve to encapsulate, "a contradiction at the core of contemporary American life: the need to belong, to fit in, with your fellow humans versus the Darwinistic mad grab at material things, success in the latter being the very definition of success in our culture."
radio station Hot 97, where he played his lead single "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
." The album was originally set to be released on July 12, 2005, but was shifted to August 16 by Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam. It was pushed back once more to August 30 by West himself as he needed more time to complete the album. Late Registration was anticipated to become the biggest-selling record of the year and over 1.6 million copies were distributed to stores in preparation of its first week of release. On iTunes Store
, the album become one of the most pre-ordered titles in the online digital media
store's history. A television advertisement for Late Registration was directed and animated by Maggie Rogers, Abby Johnson and Paul Tuersley of Mr & Mrs Smith Design Ltd. It featured a gigantic version of West's teddy bear mascot Dropout Bear roaming through the streets of London. The advert received an award from British music magazine Music Week
for Best Music TV Commercial. On the day of the album's release, Kanye made an in-store appearance at New York's Lincoln Center Tower Records
to autograph copies for fans. That same day, Late Registration was released in its entirety for online streaming on AOL Music.
graphic design studio Morning Breath, Inc. Similar to its predecessor, the album artwork of the second album carries an educational motif. Where The College Dropout was designed in a manner reminiscent of a high school yearbook, the images contained within the liner notes
of Late Registration were taken in a university. The scenes were photographed by Sarah A. Friedman and Kris Yiengst while the styling was done by Charlene Roxborough and groomed by Ibn Jasper of Partos. West's vision for the style of the pictures was inspired by the works of American satirical painter
John Currin
, one of West's favorite artist. The liner notes also contain a banner that reads Tardus Subcriptio, which is Latin for Late Registration. The album artwork centers around "Dropout Bear", West's anthropomorphic teddy bear
mascot, who is dressed in a collegian outfit. Entering the university on the front cover, Dropout wanders its hallways, sits in empty lecture hall
s, and reads multiple library books before departing from the institution the same way he came in on the back cover.
200
chart, grossing 860,000 copies in the United States
in its first week alone, nearly double that of The College Dropout first week sales. The album also debuted at number one on the charts in Canada
. In the United Kingdom
, Late Registration debuted and peaked at number two on the charts for the issue date of September 5. The second effort maintained its chart-topping position on the Billboard 200 for two consecutive weeks, and by its second week, had already gone platinum, selling an additional 283,000 units to reach a cumulative total of 1.14 million. Selling 165,000 copies, the album dropped to number two the following week with the debut of Paul Wall
's The People's Champ. The very next week, it yielded another slot to the position of three, selling 124,000 units, bringing its cumulative total to 1.4 million. The album managed to remain in the top five the following week, despite the multiple new releases from various other recording artists. It sold over 110,000 copies and slid down two places to the fifth slot on the charts. Late Registration finally fell out of the top five in its sixth week on the chart, where it sold 94,000 copies and fell one spot to number six. However, on October 19, the album climbed up one space and re-entered the top five, selling 83,000 units. On the issue date of October 26, the album fell five places to number ten, selling 78,000 copies for its eighth week on the charts. The album rebounded once again on November 2 when it sold 56,000 units rise two places to reach the eighth position. Grossing over 2.4 million units sold in the United States alone by year's end, Late Registration was the ninth best-selling album of the year and considered by industry observers as the sole majorly successful album release of the fall of 2005, a season that was plagued by steadily declining CD sales.
s. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 85, based on 31 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Rolling Stone
writer Rob Sheffield deemed the album as "an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft", while calling West "a real MC, earning the right to boast about opening a store for aspiring Kanye wanna-be's". Josh Tyrangiel
of Time
praised West's storytelling ability and appreciated his musicality, stating "one listen to 'Gone', built around an Otis Redding
sample and some ecstatic string arrangements, and you might be persuaded that West is as good as he thinks he is." Giving it a 5 out of 5 star rating, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian
commended West's topicality and subversive studio production, stating "Late Registration suggests an artist effortlessly outstripping his peers: more ideas, better lyrics, bigger hooks, greater depth." Upon its debut, The Observer
christened Late Registration as the "Pop CD of the Week", referring to West as "the Brian Wilson
of hip-hop" and writing "As with his debut, West plays up the struggle between conscience and covetousness, the pop mainstream and what can be achieved within the notional boundaries of hip hop ... [T]his album is another high benchmark for hip hop; West has every right to sing his own praises." Vibe commended West's "grandiose vision" and "expert ear", finding the album more thematically focused than its predecessor.
Los Angeles Times
writer Robert Hilburn
compared Kanye's dignified execution of pop crossover to that of The Beatles, Johnny Cash
, and Bob Marley
, while stating, "West packs each track in this joyful collection with elements that make you spend your first time through the album marveling at the sonic features alone." Steve Jones of USA Today
found the album "deeper and richer" than his debut album and stated "With co-producer Jon Brion, West expands his sonic offerings beyond his usual speeded-up R&B samples with a broader array of instrumentation to serve as a backdrop for his improving lyricism". Sean Fennessey of Pitchfork Media
called it "sprawling... the year's most accomplished rap album" and wrote that "in turn, he's done something that his heroes—the Pharcyde
and Nas, and father figure Jay-Z—couldn't do: deliver on a promise the second time around. With the help of co-producer Jon Brion, West has taken his jumbled personae, buoyant enthusiasm, and vision for the grandiose, and transformed his chattering, seemingly unrealistic ideas into an expansive, imperfect masterpiece." In a rave review of the album, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice
wrote that West is "as good as he thinks he is—a backpacker at heart who, like many brilliant nerds before him, has accrued precious metal by following his dream. He wants everybody to buy this record. So do I". As part of his consumer guide reviews, Christgau later assigned it an A+ rating, indicating "a record of sustained beauty, power, insight, groove, and/or googlefritz that has invited and repaid repeated listenings in the daily life of someone with 500 other CDs to get to".
Jozen Cummings of PopMatters
praised West's "complex creativity" and called it "the most musically ambitious hip-hop album since Outkast's Aquemini
", but viewed that "lyrically, Kanye is still a few credits short of graduating to the next level". Spin
s Jon Caramanica noted the augmented versatility and eccentricity of West's flow, but felt it "pales in comparison to his sonic ambition." Jon Pareles of The New York Times
surmised that his elevated status undermined the underdog quality that accentuated his debut album, stating "His producer's ear is still skillful ... But for much of Late Registration, the striver has turned into a hip-hop V.I.P., and a cool arrogance has crept into the songs". NME
viewed that it lacks the "rubbish lyrics" and clumsy charm of his debut, but commended West for "freshening up his style without entirely abandoning it" and wrote, "what makes this album so brilliant is the absurdly ace drums; this is pure cranium-crushing boom bap at its best ... West presents an epic soundtrack of swelling soul, grungy horn sections and borderline autistic aurals". Entertainment Weekly
s David Browne stated "it rarely fails to engross at nearly every step... [it] taps into the same fusion of street life, quiet-storm R&B, and agile pop on which Quincy Jones
made his name." Jonah Weiner of Blender
complimented the album's ambivalence, writing, "He’s unafraid to make a big, fat mess." Despite finding that West "remains limited" as a rapper, Allmusic editor Andy Kellman complimented the album's production, adding that "[Jon] Brion string arrangements and brass flecks add a new dimension to West's beats without overshadowing them, and the results are neither too adventurous nor too conservative".
, Spin
, and Time
. Rolling Stone
awarded the second effort the highest position on their end of the year record list and hailed it as a "sweepingly generous, absurdly virtuosic hip-hop classic." In the 2005 Village Voice Pazz & Jop
poll of 795 pop critics, Late Registration finished at number one by a wide margin over any of the other album nominees. This was the second year in a row that West topped the nationwide critic poll, a feat that had occurred only one other time over twenty years ago by The Clash
. Pitchfork Media
cited Late Registration as the second best album of 2005, saying, "Co-producer Jon Brion lent West an expansively ecstatic lift that West had never had before, and West lent Brion a genially self-important strut that Brion had never had. Together, they crafted a cathedral of sonic details — a gorgeous, tangled, heartfelt strings-and-samples masterpiece." PopMatters
listed Late Registration as the eighteenth best album of the year, writing, "His rhyming style is unique for how intuitive it seems. It might not be technically perfect, but it jibes perfectly with the lyrical diversity of his songs, the way he goes from boasting and joking to crying and reminiscing in a heartbeat. It's an album that dares to be stupid and smart, angry and silly, painful and joyous. The rhymes are further elevated by a layered, carefully crafted sound of melodic, atmospheric soul. Guest vocalists sing with yearning; strings and horns blend with samples of old soul and blues songs; MCs from disparate backgrounds make show-stopping appearances and disappear. Boundaries smoothly slide into each other, and everyday music is built." Late Registration stands as West's second consecutive studio release to be rated XXL by XXL, the magazine's highest rank, which has been awarded to only sixteen other hip-hop albums.
At the 48th Grammy Awards, Late Registration received a nomination for Album of the Year
and won Best Rap Album
. West's hit single "Gold Digger
" was nominated for Record of the Year
and received the award for Best Rap Solo Performance
. He also won Best Rap Song
for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
." At the 37th NAACP Image Awards
, the second album received a nomination for Outstanding Album
. Late Registration was nominated for Album of the Year at the third annual Vibe Awards, but lost to Mariah Carey
's The Emancipation of Mimi
. West received the awards for Top Rap Album for Late Registration as well as Hot Rap Track for "Gold Digger" at the 2006 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Awards, where he also received nominations for Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Song. Late Registration was nominated for best International Album at the 2006 BRIT Awards
. At the end of the 2000s decade, Rolling Stone ranked the album number 40 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of the Decade.
(*) designates co-producer
(*) designates unordered lists.
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
artist Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
, released August 30, 2005, on Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Today it operates as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and is distributed by Island Def Jam Motown Music Group.-Formation and Early Years:...
. Recording sessions for the album took place over the course of a year at various recording studios located in New York City and Hollywood. West collaborated with American record producer and composer Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
to produce Late Registration, and the album features guest contributions from artists including Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
, Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco
Wasalu Muhammad Jaco , better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco , is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, Lupe is the CEO of 1st and 15th Entertainment. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his critically acclaimed debut album, Lupe Fiasco's Food...
, Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
, Nas
Nas
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...
, Brandy
Brandy (entertainer)
Brandy Rayana Norwood , known professionally as Brandy, is an American singer-songwriter, producer, actress, and dancer. In 2009, she introduced her rap alter-ego Bran'Nu....
, and Adam Levine
Adam Levine
Adam Noah Levine is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the front man and guitarist for the pop rock band Maroon 5. He is also a coach on the American talent show The Voice.-Early life:...
of Maroon 5
Maroon 5
Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. While they were in high school, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Adam Levine, keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, bass guitarist Mickey Madden, and drummer Ryan Dusick formed a garage band called Kara's Flowers and released one album...
.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 860,000 copies in its first week. It ultimately sold three million copies in the United States and spawned five singles that attained chart success. Upon its release, Late Registration received general acclaim from most music critics and earned West several accolades, including a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
at the 48th Grammy Awards. It appeared at the top of several publications year-end lists of top albums. Initially naming it the best album of 2005, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
ranked the album number 40 on its list of the best albums of the 2000s decade.
Background
Late Registration is the second entry in Kanye West's planned tetralogy of education-themed studio albums. Dedicated towards overcoming the sophomore slumpSophomore slump
A sophomore slump or sophomore jinx refers to an instance in which a second, or sophomore, effort fails to live up to the standards of the first effort...
which commonly afflicts rap artists that many expected him to experience following the critical and commercial success of The College Dropout
The College Dropout
The College Dropout is the debut album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released February 10, 2004, on Roc-A-Fella Records. It was recorded over a period of four years, beginning in 1999. Prior to the album's release, West had worked on rapper Jay-Z's The Blueprint , which showcased his...
, the album sees a progression in West's lyrical dexterity in addition to an expansion of his musical palette. At the time, the focal point of West's production style was its usage of sped-up vocal samples from soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
records. However, due in part to the widespread recognition of The College Dropout, the technique had come to be emulated by a myriad of producers. It had reached the point where West felt that not only had the music landscape become oversaturated with his signature style, but it had also become a crutch to him and it was time to seek out a new sound.
A longtime fan of the English trip hop
Trip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
group Portishead, Kanye had been significantly influenced by Roseland NYC Live
Roseland NYC Live
Roseland NYC Live is a live album by Portishead with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, mixed with Rik Simpson. It was released in 1998 by Go! Discs/London. A PAL format VHS video was released the same year, with a DVD version following four years later...
, the band's 1998 live album with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Early in his career, the live album had inspired him to incorporate string arrangements into his hip hop production
Hip hop production
Hip hop production is the creation of hip hop music. Though the term encompasses all aspects of hip hop music, it's most commonly used to refer to the instrumental, non-lyrical aspects of hip hop. This means that hip hop producers are the instrumentalists involved in a work...
. Though West had not been able to afford live instruments beyond violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
riffs provided by Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari
Miri Ben-Ari is an Israeli violinist, who currently resides in the United States.Ben-Ari grew up playing classical music; she started training at age 5 and at age 12, she was presented with a violin by Isaac Stern. During her mandatory Israeli military service, she was chosen to play for the...
around the time of his debut album, its subsequent commercial success enabled him to hire his very own string orchestra
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...
. For his second album, West juxtaposed the lush, intricate melodies of string section
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
with the hard, pounding drum rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s of hip-hop and used the polymerization for the foundation of his rapping
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
.
In order to facilitate this sonic transition, Kanye collaborated with American film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
composer Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
, who served as the album's co-executive producer for several tracks. West had been exposed to Brion's craftsmanship while watching the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a 2004 American romantic science fiction film about an estranged couple who have each other erased from their memories, scripted by Charlie Kaufman and directed by the French director, Michel Gondry. The film uses elements of science fiction, psychological...
, for which Brion had composed music. West was also listening to songs Brion had produced for When the Pawn..., the second studio album of alternative singer-songwriter Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple McAfee Maggart is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple met international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success...
, another one of West's favorite musicians and sources of musical inspiration for the album. Although Brion had absolutely no prior experience whatsoever in creating hip-hop records, he and West quickly found that they had potent musical chemistry after their very first afternoon in the studio together where they discovered that neither confined his musical knowledge and vision to one specific genre. When questioned if his presence made Late Registration any less hip-hop, Brion replied, "There are colors and ideas that make [the album] different from average hip-hop, but Kanye is already different from the average hip-hop guy. He's got this sense of pop record-making which is really solid, and he likes tracks with a lot of things going on in them — which is not necessarily common for hip-hop. He was already barking up that tree. This is definitely not just a hip-hop album. But it is also by no means overtly arty, or non-hip-hop. I don't think its a weird record by any means."
Recording
Kanye took over a year and devoted approximately two million dollars towards the construction of Late Registration. The majority of the recording sessions for the album took place at Sony Music StudiosSony Music Studios
Sony Music Studios was a well-known former music recording and mastering facility in New York City. The music and broadcasting complex was located at 460 W. 54th St., at 10th Avenue, in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and at The Record Plant in Hollywood, California. He began working in the studio on his second effort immediately after he finished touring with Usher
Usher (entertainer)
Usher Terry Raymond IV , who performs under the mononym Usher, is an American singer-songwriter, and actor. He is considered around the world to be the reigning King of R&B. Usher rose to fame in the late 1990s with the release of his second album My Way, which spawned his first Billboard Hot 100...
on the R&B singer's The Truth Tour. By November 2004, West had completed nearly seventy-five percent of the album. However he felt unsatisfied with its outcome and in March of the following year, he brought in Jon Brion, which drastically altered the project's direction.
The album's recording sessions between West and Brion were largely experimental and exploratory, with the two experimenting with a broad spectrum of sounds. West would construct a song's basic structure, bringing in basic samples, drum beat programming and occasionally unfinished rap verses. After brainstorming over the myriad of musical avenues it could be taken, he would then select from a variety of unique instruments that Brion provided (and played) and attempt to incorporate their distinctive sonancy into the song's texture. West elaborated that while configuring Late Registration, he envisioned the creation of a film; visualizing the songs as scenes, outlining each in such a way that they efficiently convey their respective social or introspective context, and ensuring that all synchronized perfectly within the fabric of the complete set. This sentiment was shared by Jon Brion who went further to explain, "He thinks in frequency ranges. I can recognize when someone sees music architecturally, which is how I work. I see it as a spatial thing: left to right, front to back, up and down. It's animated and it's moving in real time. Kanye has that. He tries things out until it fits, until it sits where it is supposed to sit and everything has the correct emotional function. He has real instincts like any great record-maker."
Aside from Brion co-helming the overall project, Late Registration also expresses a diverse assembly of collaborations for its individual tracks. Kanye chose his guest artists based on the effect each of their voices had on him when he heard them, citing the serene vocals of Adam Levine
Adam Levine
Adam Noah Levine is an American singer-songwriter and musician, best known as the front man and guitarist for the pop rock band Maroon 5. He is also a coach on the American talent show The Voice.-Early life:...
, the trademark sound of Brandy
Brandy Norwood
Brandy Rayana Norwood , known professionally as Brandy, is an American singer-songwriter, producer, actress, and dancer. In 2009, she introduced her rap alter-ego Bran'Nu....
, and the superb lyricism of Lupe Fiasco
Lupe Fiasco
Wasalu Muhammad Jaco , better known by his stage name Lupe Fiasco , is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, Lupe is the CEO of 1st and 15th Entertainment. He rose to fame in 2006 following the success of his critically acclaimed debut album, Lupe Fiasco's Food...
and Paul Wall
Paul Wall
Paul Michael Slayton , better known by his stage name Paul Wall, is an American rapper. He is currently affiliated with Swishahouse Records, having released several albums under the label as well as...
as primary examples. Adam Levine, lead vocalist of the California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
n pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band Maroon 5
Maroon 5
Maroon 5 is an American pop rock band from Los Angeles, California. While they were in high school, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Adam Levine, keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, bass guitarist Mickey Madden, and drummer Ryan Dusick formed a garage band called Kara's Flowers and released one album...
is featured on the album's opening track, "Heard 'Em Say
Heard 'Em Say
"Heard 'Em Say" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released on November 8, 2005 as the third single for his second studio album, Late Registration. The song features Maroon 5 lead vocalist Adam Levine, who sings its chorus and bridge. Co-produced by Jon Brion, the song contains...
." The two had previously collaborated when Maroon 5 commissioned Kanye to produce a remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
for "This Love" and later developed a friendship while sitting together on a flight to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
for the 2004 MTV Europe Music Awards
MTV Europe Music Awards
The MTV Europe Music Awards were established in 1994 by MTV Networks Europe to celebrate the most popular music videos in Europe. Originally beginning as an alternative to the American MTV Video Music Awards, the MTV Europe Music Awards is today a popular celebration of what MTV viewers consider...
. While playing songs from his second album on his iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
for him during the flight, West came across the demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
for "Heard 'Em Say" to which Levine added a R&B hook
Hook (music)
A hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener". The term generally applies to popular music, especially rock music, hip hop, dance music, and pop. In these genres, the hook is often...
he had recently written and thought was perfect for it. The track was recorded quickly right after the 47th Grammy Awards ceremony, as Levine only had a couple of free hours available for time in the studio, and Brion was able to translate the two compositions in a matter of hours. Adam Levine later described his collaboration with West as "a really cool, organic process" and commented that "Kanye's lyrics were beautiful."
Though many surmised that West conceived "Gold Digger
Gold Digger
"Gold Digger" is a song recorded by American rapper Kanye West featuring guest vocals by Jamie Foxx. Released as the second single from West's second album, Late Registration, "Gold Digger" peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on September 6, 2005, becoming West's and Foxx's second...
" after watching Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx
Eric Marlon Bishop , professionally known as Jamie Foxx, is an American actor, singer-songwriter, stand-up comedian, and talk radio host. As an actor, his work in the film Ray earned him the Academy Award and BAFTA Award for Best Actor as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a...
's Oscar-winning portrayal of Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
in the biographical film Ray
Ray (film)
Ray is a 2004 biographical film focusing on 30 years of the life of rhythm and blues musician Ray Charles. The independently produced film was directed by Taylor Hackford and starred Jamie Foxx in the title role; Foxx received an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance.Charles was set to...
, he had actually recorded the song long before the movie was even developed. West originally produced and recorded the song in Ludacris
Ludacris
Christopher Brian Bridges , better known by his stage name Ludacris, is an American rapper and actor. Along with his manager, Chaka Zulu, Ludacris is the co-founder of Disturbing tha Peace, an imprint distributed by Def Jam Recordings...
's home in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
for Shawnna
Shawnna
Rashawnna Guy , better known by her stage name Shawnna is an American rapper. She was the first female artist signed to Def Jam through Ludacris' Disturbing tha Peace Records...
's 2004 debut album Worth Tha Weight
Worth tha Weight
Worth tha Weight is the debut album by female rapper Shawnna. It was originally scheduled to be released in 2002, but was delayed until 2004. "Let's Go" was featured on the video game Def Jam: Fight for NY...
and had written the chorus
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
from a female first-person viewpoint. However, for reasons unknown, Shawnna passed on the beat. Not wanting to let it go to waste, West decided to write the two verses for the song himself, this time from a male's point-of-view. About a year later, right before "Gold Digger" was set to be released, West decided to add a third verse and in a week the new song was recorded and mastered at Sony Music Studios
Sony Music Studios
Sony Music Studios was a well-known former music recording and mastering facility in New York City. The music and broadcasting complex was located at 460 W. 54th St., at 10th Avenue, in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. The idea of employing Jamie Foxx specifically to sing an interpolation
Interpolation
In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points....
of Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman
I Got a Woman
"I Got a Woman" is a song co-written and recorded by American R&B/soul musician Ray Charles and released as a single in December 1954 on the Atlantic label as Atlantic 45-1050 b/w "Come Back Baby." Both sides later appeared on his 1957 album Ray Charles .-Origin:The song builds on...
" in place of its initial sample did in fact arise from West seeing Ray with his friend John Mayer
John Mayer
John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...
. Foxx's vocals were recorded over many takes; one version, he sang from start to finish, but the track was retracted as his performance didn't coincide well with the song's instrumentation. After recording another version, Jamie decided to re-record it once more as he felt it contained too many explicit lyrics. Once the track was in place, it was layered with additional instruments provided by Brion and individually selected by West. By the end of their very first studio session together, the pair had completed the basic tracks for final version of "Gold Digger."
Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
-based rapper Paul Wall appears alongside West and his G.O.O.D. Music label-mate GLC
GLC (rapper)
Leonard D. Harris is an American rapper from Chicago.-Early life:Leonard D. Harris found poetry and hip-hop at an early age and used both to cope with the passing of his parents. “As long as you’re talking about the negativity, you’re only attracting more negativity into your life. Stay positive. I...
on "Drive Slow
Drive Slow
"Drive Slow" is a song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on June 6, 2006 as the fifth and final single of West's second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of Hank Crawford's "Wildflower" and features Paul Wall and GLC, with back-up vocals provided by singer...
." The two had met while posing at for a photo shoot in an August issue of King
King (magazine)
King is a monthly men's magazine geared toward African American and urban audiences. It features articles about hip-Hop and R&B, as well as articles covering sports and fashion. The magazine is published by Harris Publications, and was a spinoff from XXL. It ceased publication on March 31, 2009,...
magazine in a special spread titled "Coming Kings". West visited Houston two weeks late and the pair soon built up a friendship. Eventually, West offered Wall an open spot on his album which he immediately accepted and the track was recorded in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. West had originally wanted Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
n rapper M.I.A.
M.I.A. (artist)
Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam , better known by her stage name M.I.A. , is an English singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, painter and director of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her compositions combine elements of hip hop, electronica, dance, alternative and world music. M.I.A...
to appear on the track, but she opted out of the appearance due to a busy schedule. The accompanying music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for "Drive Slow" used a remix which contains an additional guest verse by Atlanta rap artist T.I.
T.I.
Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. , better known by his stage name T.I., is an American rap artist, film and music producer, actor and author. He is also the founder and co-chief executive officer of Grand Hustle Records....
Its remix version was included on the bonus DVD for T.I.'s fourth studio album, King
King (T.I. album)
King is the fourth studio album by American rapper T.I., released on March 28, 2006 through Grand Hustle Records and Atlantic Records. Recording sessions for the album only took a year in a half to record towards late-2005, T.I. stated in an interview with MTV News...
while the original version appeared on Paul Wall's debut album, The People's Champ. The following proto-rap interlude "My Way Home" is the only song on the album not to feature West's vocals at all. It is instead performed by his close friend and G.O.O.D. Music associate Common, whose sixth studio album Be was being produced and recorded by West simultaneously with Late Registration. Certain tracks Kanye originally crafted for Be that Common passed on subsequently ended up on his second album.
While the original version of "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" is a Grammy-winning song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on July 4, 2005 as the lead single of his second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever as performed by...
" featured West as the sole performer, he decided to record a remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
to the song which included guest verse provided by Jay-Z—who had come out of retirement from rapping—after learning of the horrific civil war in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone , officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north and east, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west and southwest. Sierra Leone covers a total area of and has an estimated population between 5.4 and 6.4...
financed by conflict diamonds. Both the original and remix versions of "Diamond from Sierra Leone" appear on the album, with the former included as a bonus track
Bonus track
In terms of recorded music, a bonus track is a piece of music which has been included on specific releases or reissues of an album. This is most often done as a promotional device, either as an incentive to customers to purchase albums they might otherwise not, or to repurchase albums they already...
. The song contains live drums played by French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
film director Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, whose works include being a commercial director, music video director, and a screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène. - Life and career :...
who had happened to visit the studio on a day Brion set up a drum kit
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
. Incidentally, Gondry had directed Eternal Sunshine and would later go on to direct the first version of the music video for "Heard 'Em Say." According to Jay-Z, West mixed "Diamonds" about fourteen times before he felt comfortable to release it as the album's lead single
Lead single
A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...
. The recording also experienced delay when West and Brion were required to wait two weeks to rent the harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
that they used for percussion on the song. The music exhibited on "Crack Music" was the result of West feeling that he needed tracks with more conventional hip-hop production for Late Registration following the release of the orchestral "Diamonds from Sierra Leone." He later described the situation as him "reaching too high for the cookie jar." The Game
The Game (rapper)
Jayceon Terrell Taylor , better known by his stage name Game, formerly The Game, is an American rapper and actor. As a member of G-Unit, he rose to fame in 2005 with the success of his debut album, The Documentary, which earned him two Grammy Award nominations...
is featured on "Crack Music", but he merely reiterates the rapped refrain
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
in tandem with West. The song's original version contained a verse delivered by Game but it was extracted and transferred to his Ghost Unit mixtape.
West managed to record a verse provided by Queensbridge rap artist Nas
Nas
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...
—one of his idol rappers—for the track "We Major" without alerting Jay-Z, who at the time was locked in a feud with Nas
Jay-Z vs. Nas feud
The Jay-Z–Nas feud was a hip hop rivalry during the early-2000s and one of the most high-profile feuds in the history of hip hop music. It was characterized by comments between Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter and Nasir "Nas" Jones from 2001 until resolved in 2005...
. G.O.O.D, music labelmate Really Doe
Really Doe
Warren Trotter , better known as Really Doe, is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois.- Career:Really Doe signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label in 2005...
also appears on the track, delivering its elongated chorus. Kanye later admitted that part of the main reason he engendered the song was as an attempt to dismantle the feud between the MCs, which the two did later that very same year. Although the tribute song "Hey Mama
Hey Mama (Kanye West song)
"Hey Mama" is a song written by American rap artist Kanye West. It appears on his 2005 second album, Late Registration. Co-produced with Jon Brion, the song contains a sample of "Today Won't Come Again" by Donal Leace...
", dedicated to his mother Donda West, appears on the 2005 album, Kanye had recorded the tribute song long before he had found fame, as early as 2000. Brion ran into some obstruction while conducting a twenty-piece orchestra for "Celebration", as its musicians found themselves giggling at Kanye's humorous lyrics which hampered their playing. It was also on the track that West and Brion had some minor discord; Brion initially layered it with keyboard arrangements, only for West to remove his keys along with the beat and completely reconfigure the entire song in such a way that its verses are built around the rhythm formed by his vocals and Brion's arrangements arrive during the choruses. Brion later lightheartedly compared the indecision surrounding the construction of the track to that of Prince
Prince (musician)
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
's famous last-minute removal of the bass line from "When Doves Cry
When Doves Cry
A hit cover version by R&B singer Ginuwine was produced by Timbaland in 1996 for Ginuwine's The Bachelor album, Ginuwine's cover uses actual dove sound effects as texture for its jungle music-inspired instrumental track.-Charts:-Other cover versions:...
." After seeing 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
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Though "Bittersweet" was one of the first tracks crafted for the Late Registration, West subsequently decided to withhold the recording from the album and later released it as a bonus track for his third studio album, Graduation
Graduation (album)
Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released September 11, 2007 on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios and Sony Music Studios in New York City and at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant...
.
Music and style
On Late Registration, West abstained from his characteristic sped-up soul style and instead took a far more eclectic approach to production. Drawing inspiration from English trip hopTrip hop
Trip hop is a music genre consisting of downtempo electronic music which originated in the early 1990s in England, especially Bristol. Deriving from "post"-acid house, the term was first used by the British music media and press as a way to describe the more experimental variant of breakbeat which...
band Portishead and collaborating with film score composer Jon Brion, the second opus blends West's primary soulful hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
production with Brion's elaborate chamber pop orchestration and experimentally delves into a wide array of different genres, including alto jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, R&B, spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
, funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, turntablism
Turntablism
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer.The word 'turntablist' was coined in 1995 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer...
, western classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, and psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul, sometimes called black rock, is a sub-genre of soul music, which mixes the characteristics of soul with psychedelic rock...
. With the presence of Brion, who conducts a twenty-piece orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
and plays instruments individually selected by West, the album is largely orchestral in nature, brandishing a euphony of string arrangements
Strings (music)
A string is the vibrating element that produces sound in string instruments, such as the guitar, harp, piano, and members of the violin family. Strings are lengths of a flexible material kept under tension so that they may vibrate freely, but controllably. Strings may be "plain"...
, piano chords, brass flecks, and horn riffs among many other symphonic instrumentation. The two also incorporated a myriad of foreign and vintage instruments not typical utilized in popular music, let alone hip hop, such as a celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
, Chamberlin
Chamberlin
The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument that was a precursor to the Mellotron. It was developed and patented by Iowa, Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. Various models and versions of these Chamberlin music instruments...
, CS-80
Yamaha CS-80
The Yamaha CS-80 was a polyphonic analog synthesizer released in 1977. It supports true 8-voice polyphony as well as a primitive settings memory based on a bank of micropotentiometers , and exceptionally complete performer expression features, such...
analog synthesizer
Analog synthesizer
An analog or analogue synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog computer techniques to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s such as the Trautonium were built with a variety of vacuum-tube and electro-mechanical technologies...
, Chinese bells and berimbau
Berimbau
The berimbau is a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil. The berimbau's origins are not entirely clear, but there is not much doubt about its African origin, as no Indigenous Brazilian or European people use musical bows, and very similar instruments are played in the...
, vibraphones, and marimba
Marimba
The marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
. The end result is a more diverse, ornate, polished production that retains a multi-layered, cinematic texture with a particularly heightened emphasis on instrumental passages and extended codas
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
. Music writers have also noted the genre-defying styles and sudden musical shifts present within the song structures as reminiscent of The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
during their experimental era. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
described Late Registration as West claiming "the whole world of music as hip-hop turf" chronicling the album as "his mad quest to explode every cliché about hip-hop identity." Vibe concurred with this sentiment, stating, "West ambitiously attempts to depart from the street sensibilities of Dropout by giving Late Registration a shiny, quasi-alt-pop
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
finish."
Production
Heard 'Em Say
"Heard 'Em Say" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released on November 8, 2005 as the third single for his second studio album, Late Registration. The song features Maroon 5 lead vocalist Adam Levine, who sings its chorus and bridge. Co-produced by Jon Brion, the song contains...
" expresses a cascading piano melody provided by excerpts of "Someone That I Used To Love" as performed by Natalie Cole
Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
embellished over tumbling beats and warped bass as well as acoustic guitar. The song's intricately composed outro, which adopts new sonic elements such as synthesizer and foreign bells, exemplifies the musical complexity of the album as a whole. "Touch the Sky
Touch the Sky
"Touch the Sky" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released in early 2006 as the fourth single from his second album, Late Registration. The song features Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco on his radio debut and was produced by Just Blaze, standing as the only song on the entire album...
" stands as the sole song on the entire album not to feature production by West. The song was produced by fellow Roc-a-Fella producer Just Blaze
Just Blaze
Justin Smith, better known as Just Blaze, is an American hip hop music producer from Paterson, New Jersey. Blaze is also the CEO of Fort Knocks Entertainment. He is most well known for producing Jay-Z songs on the albums The Blueprint, The Blueprint 2, and The Black Album. He is also known for...
, who uses a slowed-down sample of Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...
's "Move on Up
Move On Up
"Move on Up" is a song by Curtis Mayfield from his 1970 debut album Curtis. In 1971, the song spent ten weeks in the top 50 of the UK Singles Chart, but it did not chart in the United States. In 2001 Bran Van 3000 recorded "Astounded", which featured Curtis Mayfield singing the lyrics of "Move on Up"...
" filled with jubilant Latin horn blares and dynamic drum patterns.Caramanica, Jon (2005-08-30). Kanye West, 'Late Registration' (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)". Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
(Spin Media, LLC). Retrieved 2008-04-26. "Gold Digger
Gold Digger
"Gold Digger" is a song recorded by American rapper Kanye West featuring guest vocals by Jamie Foxx. Released as the second single from West's second album, Late Registration, "Gold Digger" peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on September 6, 2005, becoming West's and Foxx's second...
" contains an interpolation
Interpolation
In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points....
of "I Got a Woman
I Got a Woman
"I Got a Woman" is a song co-written and recorded by American R&B/soul musician Ray Charles and released as a single in December 1954 on the Atlantic label as Atlantic 45-1050 b/w "Come Back Baby." Both sides later appeared on his 1957 album Ray Charles .-Origin:The song builds on...
" by Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
and a bouncy beat formed from handclaps as well as scratches by West's touring DJ A-Trak
A-Trak
A-Trak is a Montreal-born DJ, turntablist, and owner of the record label Fool's Gold.- Career :...
. Towards the end, the song employs vintage 1970s synthesizers which emit a honking sound in cadence
Cadence
Cadence may refer to:Music:*Cadence , a melodic configuration the end of a phrase, section, or piece of music*Cadence Magazine, a monthly review of jazz, blues and improvised music...
to Kanye's voice. West's production approach comes full circle within "Drive Slow
Drive Slow
"Drive Slow" is a song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on June 6, 2006 as the fifth and final single of West's second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of Hank Crawford's "Wildflower" and features Paul Wall and GLC, with back-up vocals provided by singer...
", a song that samples Hank Crawford
Hank Crawford
Bennie Ross "Hank" Crawford, Jr. was an American R&B, hard bop, jazz-funk, soul jazz alto saxophonist, arranger and songwriter...
's "Wildflower" and distinctively retains a sluggish but smooth alto jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
-infused drum loop
Music loop
In electroacoustic music, a loop is a repeating section of sound material. Short sections of material can be repeated to create ostinato patterns...
, antithetical to his once essential sped-up soul style. The song emphasizes this trait within its coda, which sonically alludes to chopped-and-screwed
Chopped and screwed
Chopped and screwed refers to a technique of remixing hip hop music which developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the 1990s...
, the tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
manipulation technique of Houston-based hip hop music that causes the track to creep slower and slower before coming to a complete halt.
The interlude "My Way Home" contains a sample of "Home is Where the Hatred Is" by Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s...
. This facet is accentuated by Common's performance, which pays homage to the poet by the delivering its single verse in a distinctive proto-rap manner reminiscent of Scott-Heron's influential vocal style. "Crack Music" is sparsely built on incessant snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
hits and clipped horn blares. The track sees an ephemeral return of West's old production attributes, as it possesses a syncopated martial beat, gospel choir symphony, and a spoken word
Spoken word
Spoken word is a form of poetry that often uses alliterated prose or verse and occasionally uses metered verse to express social commentary. Traditionally it is in the first person, is from the poet’s point of view and is themed in current events....
passage within its coda. The poetic "Roses" is partially a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
in structure, displaying verses rapped over sparse keyboards and a slowed rhythm with the music arriving at the chorus, which features additional vocals, trumpet riffs, electric guitar phrasings, and finally a line sampled from Bill Withers
Bill Withers
William Harrison "Bill" Withers, Jr. is an American singer-songwriter and musician who performed and recorded from 1970 until 1985. Some of his best-known songs are "Lean on Me", "Ain't No Sunshine", "Use Me", "Just the Two of Us", "Lovely Day", and "Grandma's Hands"...
' "Rosie". "Bring Me Down" carries a bombast dramatic air, as it holds more orchestration than any other track on Late Registration. Additionally, it features an overdubbing
Overdubbing
Overdubbing is a technique used by recording studios to add a supplementary recorded sound to a previously recorded performance....
of Brandy
Brandy Norwood
Brandy Rayana Norwood , known professionally as Brandy, is an American singer-songwriter, producer, actress, and dancer. In 2009, she introduced her rap alter-ego Bran'Nu....
's vocals to create a chorus effect
Chorus effect
In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...
, a recording technique in which her lone voice produces the illusion of a choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
singing harmonies
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
during the choruses. The up-tempo arrangement of "Addiction" contains ambient, rhythmic guitar licks
Lick (music)
In popular music genres such as rock or jazz music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes that is used in solos and melodic lines...
, congas, filtered hi-hat
Hi-hat
A hi-hat, or hihat, is a type of cymbal and stand used as a typical part of a drum kit by percussionists in R&B, hip-hop, disco, jazz, rock and roll, house, reggae and other forms of contemporary popular music.- Operation :...
s and a sampled line from "My Funny Valentine" as performed by Etta James
Etta James
Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...
. All the while, West's overdubbed vocals reverbs in and out of the track. For "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" is a Grammy-winning song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on July 4, 2005 as the lead single of his second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever as performed by...
", West used a looped vocal sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film, Diamonds Are Forever
Diamonds Are Forever (film)
Diamonds Are Forever is the seventh spy film in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the sixth and final Eon Productions film to star Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. The film is based on Ian Fleming's 1956 novel of the same name, and is the second of four James Bond films...
as performed by Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
and layered it with live drums, piano keys, horn stabs, harpsichord arpeggios, and string arrangements that all build in intensity with his voice.
Late Registrations longest track, the seven minute-long "We Major", implements exuberant, amplified backing vocals and a "splashy disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
groove" embellished by horn blares, droning
Drone (music)
In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
bassline, and electric piano glissandos. The melody of "Hey Mama
Hey Mama (Kanye West song)
"Hey Mama" is a song written by American rap artist Kanye West. It appears on his 2005 second album, Late Registration. Co-produced with Jon Brion, the song contains a sample of "Today Won't Come Again" by Donal Leace...
" is laced with a folksy
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
looped "La-la-la" vocal sample from "Today Won't Come Again" by Donal Leace while its beat is produced by a tin drum. Additionally, it contains vocoder
Vocoder
A vocoder is an analysis/synthesis system, mostly used for speech. In the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, each band is passed through an envelope follower, and the control signals from the envelope followers are communicated to the decoder...
-processed background vocals, a xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
solo and a cascading synth
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
outro. Opening with an electronic twinkling sound, "Celebration" contains samples of "Heavenly Dream" by The KayGees. A columnist for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
described it as evoking "the lavish 1970s psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul
Psychedelic soul, sometimes called black rock, is a sub-genre of soul music, which mixes the characteristics of soul with psychedelic rock...
of Rotary Connection
Rotary Connection
Rotary Connection was an American psychedelic soul band, formed in Chicago in 1966. The highly experimental band was the idea of Marshall Chess, son of Chess Records founder Leonard Chess. Marshall was the director behind a start-up label, Cadet Concept Records, and wanted to focus on music outside...
." Some of the most elaborate orchestral arrangement expressed on the entire album is contained within its closing track "Gone." The composition begins with a vocal sample of "It Too Late" by Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
and a two-chord piano ostinato, followed by a simplistic funk beat. As the song progresses, its structure gradually morphs and develops more and more musicality. Overtime, the composition assumes ten violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, four viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s and four cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
s in the midst of verses, all of which initially come in brief staccato bursts that simply punctuate the rhythm but eventually expand and consolidate into a fully formed string section
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
by the arrival of the harmonic choruses. After its third verse, the song enters an instrumental passage before returning with a fourth verse from West, where the rise and fall of his voice is intricately emulated by the fluctuation of the string orchestra.
Lyrical content
According to Josh TyrangielJosh Tyrangiel
Josh Tyrangiel is a journalist, and editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. He joined the magazine following its acquisition by Bloomberg L.P. in December 2009. Prior to joining Bloomberg Businessweek, Tyrangiel was deputy managing editor of TIME magazine and managing editor of TIME.com...
of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, the album primarily serves as an exhibition of "the stealthy power of West's storytelling." The opening track "Heard 'Em Say
Heard 'Em Say
"Heard 'Em Say" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released on November 8, 2005 as the third single for his second studio album, Late Registration. The song features Maroon 5 lead vocalist Adam Levine, who sings its chorus and bridge. Co-produced by Jon Brion, the song contains...
" is a "mournfully contemplative" song that "talks about being honest with yourself in a world that is not." The song is written from the perspective of an afflicted, impoverished American quietly lamenting the fallacies of society and questioning the ways of the world around him. "Touch the Sky
Touch the Sky
"Touch the Sky" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West. It was released in early 2006 as the fourth single from his second album, Late Registration. The song features Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco on his radio debut and was produced by Just Blaze, standing as the only song on the entire album...
" is a song of triumph and celebration where West revels in his ambition and accomplishment. In it, he reminisces over his path to becoming an artist, detailing various shortcomings and obstacles that he had to overcome as well as multiple naysayers he subsequently disproved.
West delivers a tongue-in-cheek lyrical narrative within "Gold Digger
Gold Digger
"Gold Digger" is a song recorded by American rapper Kanye West featuring guest vocals by Jamie Foxx. Released as the second single from West's second album, Late Registration, "Gold Digger" peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on September 6, 2005, becoming West's and Foxx's second...
" in which he critically depicts the disastrous life of a man married to a woman who manipulates him for financial gain. However, another story arises within the third verse, which illustrates a once destitute black male who earns a fortune and decides to leave a loyal, unselfish girlfriend for a white girl. In "Drive Slow
Drive Slow
"Drive Slow" is a song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on June 6, 2006 as the fifth and final single of West's second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of Hank Crawford's "Wildflower" and features Paul Wall and GLC, with back-up vocals provided by singer...
", West nostalgically reminisces over taking aimless rides through his hometown of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
with a childhood friend after he got his very first car at the age of sixteen. "Crack Music" continues the avenue of socio-political commentary initiated within "Heard 'Em Say." However, two songs express polar opposite tones; where "Heard 'Em Say" was self-effacing and passive-aggressive, "Crack Music" is audacious and straightforward. In the song, West dually discusses the spread and devastating impact of crack cocaine
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
in black communities and champions the sovereignty of music pioneered by black musicians, metaphorically equating their contrarily addictive power and influence on American society. On the sentimental "Roses", Kanye gives a firsthand account of the hospitalization of his ailing grandmother within a melancholic poem to produce a critique of the healthcare system. West uses one single verse within "Bring Me Down" to denounce detractors he gained over the course of his rise to fame whom he believes would love nothing more than to see his hopes and dreams be extinguished.
The original version of "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" is a Grammy-winning song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on July 4, 2005 as the lead single of his second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever as performed by...
" is largely free-associative and is filled with a litany of lyrical punchlines which serve to loosely chronicle his past experiences being apart of the Roc-A-Fella movement, from touring with Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
on his Blueprint Lounge Tour to the label's subsequent fall out and revival. However, West uses the remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
to "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" to directly address the issue of "blood diamonds" that people unknowingly wear everyday are used to fund horrific civil wars in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. Lyrically, the extensive, uplifting "We Major" is a spiritual exhultation of generational and personal success.
"Hey Mama
Hey Mama (Kanye West song)
"Hey Mama" is a song written by American rap artist Kanye West. It appears on his 2005 second album, Late Registration. Co-produced with Jon Brion, the song contains a sample of "Today Won't Come Again" by Donal Leace...
" is Kanye's dedication to his mother, Donda West. In the ballad, West recounts past hardships he and his mother suffered through together and expresses his love and devotion for her and appreciation for her tireless support, even when he was going directly against her expectations for him. West later stated that his objective was to touch on topics that people from all walks of life could relate to while remaining true to himself, saying he wanted to have, "raps that were just as ill as Jadakiss
Jadakiss
Jason Phillips , better known as Jadakiss, is an American rapper. He is a member of the group The LOX. Jadakiss is one of the three owners of the imprint known as D-Block. In early 2007, Jadakiss signed to Roc-a-Fella Records / Def Jam Records.-Early life:By the age of 16, Jadakiss was a freestyle...
and just as understandable as Will Smith
Will Smith
Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. , also known by his stage name The Fresh Prince, is an American actor, producer, and rapper. He has enjoyed success in television, film and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor in Hollywood...
."
In addition, the album includes a series of humorous skits
Hip hop skit
A hip hop skit is a form of sketch comedy that appears on a hip hop album or mixtape, and is usually written and performed by the artists themselves. Skits can appear on albums or mixtapes as individual tracks, or at the beginning or end of a song. Some skits are part of concept albums and...
that involve West joining a fictional black fraternity
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
, "Broke Phi Broke," whose members pride themselves in living a life without money or worldly possessions, despite the glaring disadvantages such a lifestyle brings. His character is eventually expelled from the fraternity after their leader discovers that not only has West been making beats for cash on the side but has also been breaking some of its rules, such as eating meals everyday, buying new clothes, and taking showers. According to music writer Mickey Hess, the skits serve to encapsulate, "a contradiction at the core of contemporary American life: the need to belong, to fit in, with your fellow humans versus the Darwinistic mad grab at material things, success in the latter being the very definition of success in our culture."
Release and promotion
West presented music audiences with the first taste of Late Registration on April 20, 2005 while appearing on New YorkNew York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
radio station Hot 97, where he played his lead single "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" is a Grammy-winning song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on July 4, 2005 as the lead single of his second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever as performed by...
." The album was originally set to be released on July 12, 2005, but was shifted to August 16 by Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam. It was pushed back once more to August 30 by West himself as he needed more time to complete the album. Late Registration was anticipated to become the biggest-selling record of the year and over 1.6 million copies were distributed to stores in preparation of its first week of release. On iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
, the album become one of the most pre-ordered titles in the online digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
store's history. A television advertisement for Late Registration was directed and animated by Maggie Rogers, Abby Johnson and Paul Tuersley of Mr & Mrs Smith Design Ltd. It featured a gigantic version of West's teddy bear mascot Dropout Bear roaming through the streets of London. The advert received an award from British music magazine Music Week
Music Week
Music Week is a trade paper for the UK record industry.Founded in 1959 as Record Retailer, it was relaunched on 18 March 1972 as Music Week . On 17 January 1981 the title was again changed, owing to the increasing importance of sell-through videos, to Music & Video Week...
for Best Music TV Commercial. On the day of the album's release, Kanye made an in-store appearance at New York's Lincoln Center Tower Records
Tower Records
Tower Records was a retail music chain that was based in Sacramento, California. It currently exists as an international franchise and an online music store....
to autograph copies for fans. That same day, Late Registration was released in its entirety for online streaming on AOL Music.
Artwork
The art direction and music packaging for Late Registration was done by BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
graphic design studio Morning Breath, Inc. Similar to its predecessor, the album artwork of the second album carries an educational motif. Where The College Dropout was designed in a manner reminiscent of a high school yearbook, the images contained within the liner notes
Liner notes
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes.-Origin:...
of Late Registration were taken in a university. The scenes were photographed by Sarah A. Friedman and Kris Yiengst while the styling was done by Charlene Roxborough and groomed by Ibn Jasper of Partos. West's vision for the style of the pictures was inspired by the works of American satirical painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
John Currin
John Currin
John Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
, one of West's favorite artist. The liner notes also contain a banner that reads Tardus Subcriptio, which is Latin for Late Registration. The album artwork centers around "Dropout Bear", West's anthropomorphic teddy bear
Teddy bear
The teddy bear is a stuffed toy bear. They are usually stuffed with soft, white cotton and have smooth and soft fur. It is an enduring form of a stuffed animal in many countries, often serving the purpose of entertaining children. In recent times, some teddy bears have become collector's items...
mascot, who is dressed in a collegian outfit. Entering the university on the front cover, Dropout wanders its hallways, sits in empty lecture hall
Lecture hall
A lecture hall is a large room used for instruction, typically at a college or university. Unlike a traditional classroom with a capacity from one to four dozen, the capacity of lecture halls is typically measured in the hundreds...
s, and reads multiple library books before departing from the institution the same way he came in on the back cover.
Commercial performance
Late Registration debuted at number one on the US BillboardBillboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, grossing 860,000 copies in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in its first week alone, nearly double that of The College Dropout first week sales. The album also debuted at number one on the charts in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Late Registration debuted and peaked at number two on the charts for the issue date of September 5. The second effort maintained its chart-topping position on the Billboard 200 for two consecutive weeks, and by its second week, had already gone platinum, selling an additional 283,000 units to reach a cumulative total of 1.14 million. Selling 165,000 copies, the album dropped to number two the following week with the debut of Paul Wall
Paul Wall
Paul Michael Slayton , better known by his stage name Paul Wall, is an American rapper. He is currently affiliated with Swishahouse Records, having released several albums under the label as well as...
's The People's Champ. The very next week, it yielded another slot to the position of three, selling 124,000 units, bringing its cumulative total to 1.4 million. The album managed to remain in the top five the following week, despite the multiple new releases from various other recording artists. It sold over 110,000 copies and slid down two places to the fifth slot on the charts. Late Registration finally fell out of the top five in its sixth week on the chart, where it sold 94,000 copies and fell one spot to number six. However, on October 19, the album climbed up one space and re-entered the top five, selling 83,000 units. On the issue date of October 26, the album fell five places to number ten, selling 78,000 copies for its eighth week on the charts. The album rebounded once again on November 2 when it sold 56,000 units rise two places to reach the eighth position. Grossing over 2.4 million units sold in the United States alone by year's end, Late Registration was the ninth best-selling album of the year and considered by industry observers as the sole majorly successful album release of the fall of 2005, a season that was plagued by steadily declining CD sales.
Critical response
Late Registration received general acclaim from music criticMusic criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 85, based on 31 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
writer Rob Sheffield deemed the album as "an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft", while calling West "a real MC, earning the right to boast about opening a store for aspiring Kanye wanna-be's". Josh Tyrangiel
Josh Tyrangiel
Josh Tyrangiel is a journalist, and editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. He joined the magazine following its acquisition by Bloomberg L.P. in December 2009. Prior to joining Bloomberg Businessweek, Tyrangiel was deputy managing editor of TIME magazine and managing editor of TIME.com...
of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
praised West's storytelling ability and appreciated his musicality, stating "one listen to 'Gone', built around an Otis Redding
Otis Redding
Otis Ray Redding, Jr. was an American soul singer-songwriter, record producer, arranger and talent scout. He is considered one of the major figures in soul and R&B...
sample and some ecstatic string arrangements, and you might be persuaded that West is as good as he thinks he is." Giving it a 5 out of 5 star rating, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
commended West's topicality and subversive studio production, stating "Late Registration suggests an artist effortlessly outstripping his peers: more ideas, better lyrics, bigger hooks, greater depth." Upon its debut, The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
christened Late Registration as the "Pop CD of the Week", referring to West as "the Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson is an American musician, best known as the leader and chief songwriter of the group The Beach Boys. Within the band, Wilson played bass and keyboards, also providing part-time lead vocals and, more often, backing vocals, harmonizing in falsetto with the group...
of hip-hop" and writing "As with his debut, West plays up the struggle between conscience and covetousness, the pop mainstream and what can be achieved within the notional boundaries of hip hop ... [T]his album is another high benchmark for hip hop; West has every right to sing his own praises." Vibe commended West's "grandiose vision" and "expert ear", finding the album more thematically focused than its predecessor.
Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn
Robert Hilburn is a pop music critic and author. As critic and music editor of the Los Angeles Times from 1970 to 2005, his reviews, essays and profiles have appeared in hundreds of publications around the world...
compared Kanye's dignified execution of pop crossover to that of The Beatles, Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, and Bob Marley
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley, OM was a Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician. He was the rhythm guitarist and lead singer for the ska, rocksteady and reggae band Bob Marley & The Wailers...
, while stating, "West packs each track in this joyful collection with elements that make you spend your first time through the album marveling at the sonic features alone." Steve Jones of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
found the album "deeper and richer" than his debut album and stated "With co-producer Jon Brion, West expands his sonic offerings beyond his usual speeded-up R&B samples with a broader array of instrumentation to serve as a backdrop for his improving lyricism". Sean Fennessey of Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
called it "sprawling... the year's most accomplished rap album" and wrote that "in turn, he's done something that his heroes—the Pharcyde
The Pharcyde
The Pharcyde are an alternative hip hop group based in South Central Los Angeles. The original four members of the group are Imani , Slimkid3 , Bootie Brown and Fatlip . DJ Mark Luv was the group's first DJ, followed by producer J-Swift and then J Dilla...
and Nas, and father figure Jay-Z—couldn't do: deliver on a promise the second time around. With the help of co-producer Jon Brion, West has taken his jumbled personae, buoyant enthusiasm, and vision for the grandiose, and transformed his chattering, seemingly unrealistic ideas into an expansive, imperfect masterpiece." In a rave review of the album, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
wrote that West is "as good as he thinks he is—a backpacker at heart who, like many brilliant nerds before him, has accrued precious metal by following his dream. He wants everybody to buy this record. So do I". As part of his consumer guide reviews, Christgau later assigned it an A+ rating, indicating "a record of sustained beauty, power, insight, groove, and/or googlefritz that has invited and repaid repeated listenings in the daily life of someone with 500 other CDs to get to".
Jozen Cummings of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
praised West's "complex creativity" and called it "the most musically ambitious hip-hop album since Outkast's Aquemini
Aquemini
Aquemini is the third studio album by hip hop duo OutKast, released September 29, 1998 on LaFace Records. The title is a portmanteau of the two performers' Zodiac signs: Aquarius and Gemini...
", but viewed that "lyrically, Kanye is still a few credits short of graduating to the next level". Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
s Jon Caramanica noted the augmented versatility and eccentricity of West's flow, but felt it "pales in comparison to his sonic ambition." Jon Pareles of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
surmised that his elevated status undermined the underdog quality that accentuated his debut album, stating "His producer's ear is still skillful ... But for much of Late Registration, the striver has turned into a hip-hop V.I.P., and a cool arrogance has crept into the songs". NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
viewed that it lacks the "rubbish lyrics" and clumsy charm of his debut, but commended West for "freshening up his style without entirely abandoning it" and wrote, "what makes this album so brilliant is the absurdly ace drums; this is pure cranium-crushing boom bap at its best ... West presents an epic soundtrack of swelling soul, grungy horn sections and borderline autistic aurals". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s David Browne stated "it rarely fails to engross at nearly every step... [it] taps into the same fusion of street life, quiet-storm R&B, and agile pop on which Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
made his name." Jonah Weiner of Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
complimented the album's ambivalence, writing, "He’s unafraid to make a big, fat mess." Despite finding that West "remains limited" as a rapper, Allmusic editor Andy Kellman complimented the album's production, adding that "[Jon] Brion string arrangements and brass flecks add a new dimension to West's beats without overshadowing them, and the results are neither too adventurous nor too conservative".
Accolades
Late Registration topped numerous music critic polls and was revered as the best album of the year by numerous publications, including USA TodayUSA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
awarded the second effort the highest position on their end of the year record list and hailed it as a "sweepingly generous, absurdly virtuosic hip-hop classic." In the 2005 Village Voice Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
poll of 795 pop critics, Late Registration finished at number one by a wide margin over any of the other album nominees. This was the second year in a row that West topped the nationwide critic poll, a feat that had occurred only one other time over twenty years ago by The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
. Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
cited Late Registration as the second best album of 2005, saying, "Co-producer Jon Brion lent West an expansively ecstatic lift that West had never had before, and West lent Brion a genially self-important strut that Brion had never had. Together, they crafted a cathedral of sonic details — a gorgeous, tangled, heartfelt strings-and-samples masterpiece." PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
listed Late Registration as the eighteenth best album of the year, writing, "His rhyming style is unique for how intuitive it seems. It might not be technically perfect, but it jibes perfectly with the lyrical diversity of his songs, the way he goes from boasting and joking to crying and reminiscing in a heartbeat. It's an album that dares to be stupid and smart, angry and silly, painful and joyous. The rhymes are further elevated by a layered, carefully crafted sound of melodic, atmospheric soul. Guest vocalists sing with yearning; strings and horns blend with samples of old soul and blues songs; MCs from disparate backgrounds make show-stopping appearances and disappear. Boundaries smoothly slide into each other, and everyday music is built." Late Registration stands as West's second consecutive studio release to be rated XXL by XXL, the magazine's highest rank, which has been awarded to only sixteen other hip-hop albums.
At the 48th Grammy Awards, Late Registration received a nomination for Album of the Year
Grammy Award for Album of the Year
The Grammy Award for Album of the Year is the most prestigious award category at the Grammys. It has been awarded since 1959 and though it was originally presented to the artist alone, the award is now presented to the artist, the producer, the engineer and/or mixer and the mastering engineer...
and won Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
. West's hit single "Gold Digger
Gold Digger
"Gold Digger" is a song recorded by American rapper Kanye West featuring guest vocals by Jamie Foxx. Released as the second single from West's second album, Late Registration, "Gold Digger" peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on September 6, 2005, becoming West's and Foxx's second...
" was nominated for Record of the Year
Grammy Award for Record of the Year
The Record of the Year is one of the four most prestigious Grammy Awards presented annually. It has been awarded since 1959.-History:The honorees through its history have been:*1959-1965: Artist only.*1966-1998: Artist and producer....
and received the award for Best Rap Solo Performance
Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance was awarded from 1991 to 2011, alongside the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Previously a single award was presented for Best Rap Performance....
. He also won Best Rap Song
Grammy Award for Best Rap Song
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song was first awarded in 2004. It is a songwriting award given to all who wrote the lyrics and music of the song. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were presented, for works released in the previous year...
for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
"Diamonds from Sierra Leone" is a Grammy-winning song by American rap artist Kanye West. It was released on July 4, 2005 as the lead single of his second studio album, Late Registration. The song contains a sample of the theme song for the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever as performed by...
." At the 37th NAACP Image Awards
37th NAACP Image Awards
The 37th Image Awards, given by NAACP on February 26, 2006, honored the best in film, television and music for 2005.The following is a listing of nominees, with winners in bold:-Film:Outstanding Motion Picture*Coach Carter* Crash ...
, the second album received a nomination for Outstanding Album
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Album
The NAACP Image Award winners for Outstanding Album:...
. Late Registration was nominated for Album of the Year at the third annual Vibe Awards, but lost to Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey
Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...
's The Emancipation of Mimi
The Emancipation of Mimi
The Emancipation of Mimi is the tenth studio album by American recording artist Mariah Carey, released in the United States on April 12, 2005, by Island Records. Following the relatively poor critical and commercial responses to her albums, Glitter and Charmbracelet , The Emancipation of Mimi...
. West received the awards for Top Rap Album for Late Registration as well as Hot Rap Track for "Gold Digger" at the 2006 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Awards, where he also received nominations for Top R&B/Hip-Hop Album and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Song. Late Registration was nominated for best International Album at the 2006 BRIT Awards
2006 Brit Awards
The 2006 BRIT Awards were the 26th edition of the biggest annual pop music awards in the United Kingdom. They are run by the British Phonographic Industry and took place on 15 February 2006 in Earls Court Exhibition Centre im London. It attracted 4.70 million viewers, one of the lowest viewed...
. At the end of the 2000s decade, Rolling Stone ranked the album number 40 on its list of the 100 Best Albums of the Decade.
Track listing
- All lyrics were written by Kanye West.
(*) designates co-producer
Vinyl LP
Personnel
Information taken from Late Registration liner notes.| # | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Wake Up Mr. West" |
|
| 2 | "Heard 'Em Say" |
|
| 3 | "Touch the Sky" |
|
| 4 | "Gold Digger" |
|
| 5 | "Skit #1" | |
| 6 | "Drive Slow" |
|
| 7 | "My Way Home" |
|
| 8 | "Crack Music" |
|
| 9 | "Roses" |
|
| 10 | "Bring Me Down" |
|
| 11 | "Addiction" |
|
| 12 | "Skit #2" | |
| 13 | "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" (Remix) |
|
| 14 | "We Major" |
|
| 15 | "Skit #3" | |
| 16 | "Hey Mama" |
|
| 17 | "Celebration" |
|
| 18 | "Skit #4 | |
| 19 | "Gone" |
|
| 20 | "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" |
|
| 21 | "Late" |
|
Chart positions
| Chart (2005) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
14 |
| Austrian Albums Chart | 53 |
| Belgian Albums Chart | 43 |
| Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
1 |
| Danish Albums Chart | 11 |
| Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
24 |
| European Top 100 Albums European Top 100 Albums The European Top 100 Albums chart is the European adaptation of the Billboard 200 albums chart. It was created in March 1984.The European Top 100 Albums, commonly referred to as Eurochart Top 100 Albums shows the sales of an act in 19 European countries based on IFPI data.The European Top 100... |
6 |
| Finnish Albums Chart | 18 |
| French Albums Chart | 36 |
| German Albums Chart Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie... |
14 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
2 |
| Italian Albums Chart | 65 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand... |
11 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
4 |
| Swedish Albums Chart | 11 |
| Swiss Albums Chart Swiss Music Charts The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75... |
9 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
2 |
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
1 |
| US Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums Top Pop Catalog Albums Top Pop Catalog Albums is a fifty-position weekly albums chart produced by Billboard magazine which ranks the best selling catalog titles, regardless of genre. Billboard defines a catalog title as one that is more than eighteen months old and that has fallen below position 100 on the Billboard 200... |
6 |
| US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
1 |
| US Billboard Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks Rap and hip-hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart began publication for the week of November 13, 2004.... |
1 |
Year-end charts
| Chart (2005) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums Chart | 83 |
| UK Albums Chart | 43 |
| US Billboard 200 | 21 |
| US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums | 11 |
| US Billboard Top Rap Albums | 3 |
| Worldwide Charts | 14 |
| Chart (2006) | Peak position |
| Australian Albums Chart | 89 |
| US Billboard 200 | 71 |
| US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums | 38 |
| US Billboard Top Rap Albums | 20 |
End of decade charts
| End of decade chart (2000–2009) | Position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200 | 156 |
Certifications
| Country | Provider | Certification |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | ARIA Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956... |
Platinum |
| Canada | CRIA Canadian Recording Industry Association Music Canada is a Toronto-based, non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, artists, manufacture, production, promotion and distribution of music in Canada... |
2x Platinum |
| Ireland | IRMA Irish Recorded Music Association Irish Recorded Music Association is the Irish record industry association. IRMA is a non-profit association set up to manage and control the music industry in the Republic of Ireland.-Goals and activities:... |
2x Platinum |
| Japan | RIAJ | Gold |
| New Zealand | RIANZ Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand... |
Gold |
| United Kingdom | BPI British Phonographic Industry The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies... |
2x Platinum |
| United States | RIAA Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... |
3x Platinum |
Accolades
The information regarding accolades attributed to Late Registration is adapted from AcclaimedMusic.net.| Publication | Country | Accolade | Year | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Allmusic | United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district... |
Top 50 Albums of 2005 | 2005 | * |
| Amazon.com Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and... |
United States | Top 100 Editors' Picks | 2005 | 12 |
| Associated Press Associated Press The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists... |
United States | Top 10 of 2005 | 2005 | 2 |
| B92 B92 B92 is a radio and television broadcaster with national coverage headquartered in Belgrade, Serbia. The network's key demographic is chiefly urban and young audience. Its programs, including the news cover topics with fairly liberal political painted attitudes... |
Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
25NA33 Radio B92 Lista Albuma | 2005 | 12 |
| Blender Blender (magazine) Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities.... |
United States | The 50 Greatest CDs of 2005 | 2005 | 3 |
| Dagbladet Dagbladet Dagbladet is Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper, and the third largest newspaper overall with a circulation of 105,255 copies in 2009, 18,128 papers less than in 2008. The editor in chief is Lars Helle.... |
Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
Top International Albums of the Year | 2005 | 6 |
| Dagsavisen Dagsavisen Dagsavisen is a daily newspaper published in Oslo, Norway. The former party organ of the Norwegian Labour Party, the ties loosened over time from 1975 to 1999, and it is now fully independent... |
Norway | Årets abum Les også | 2005 | 9 |
| Expressen Expressen Expressen is one of two nationwide evening tabloid newspapers in Sweden, the other being Aftonbladet. Expressen was founded in 1944; its symbol is a wasp and slogans "it stings" or "Expressen to your rescue", always on the reader's side.... |
Sweden Sweden Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund.... |
Årets 50 bästa skivor | 2005 | 19 |
| Go-Mag | Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula... |
Top Albums of 2005 | 2005 | 6 |
| H Magazine | Spain | End of 2005 List | 2005 | * |
| HARP HARP (magazine) Harp was a print and online magazine that provided in-depth information on current music, mainly the adult album alternative genre, which encompasses a large variety of music... |
United States | The 50 Greatest Albums of 2005 | 2005 | 24 |
| United States | The 50 Most Essential Albums Since 2001 | 2006 | 14 | |
| Iguana | Spain | Best Albums 2005 | 2005 | 13 |
| Monitor | Croatia Croatia Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ... |
Najbolji albumi 2005. godine | 2005 | 11 |
| Musikbyrån | Sweden | Albums of the Year | 2005 | 17 |
| OOR | Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... |
Jaarlijst Oor 2005 | 2005 | 6 |
| People People (magazine) In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received... |
United States | The Top 10 of 2005 | 2005 | * |
| Piccadilly Records | United Kingdom United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages... |
Albums of the Year | 2005 | 21 |
| Planet Sound Planet Sound Planet Sound was a Teletext music page on ITV and Channel 4 in the UK. It was broadcast on analogue Teletext from page 340, and on digital Teletext from page 820. From May 24, 2007, Planet Sound was also available to read online via the Teletext website... |
United Kingdom | Planet Sound Top 50 Albums And Singles | 2005 | 14 |
| Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock... |
United States | Top 200 Albums of the 2000's | 2009 | 18 |
| Pure Pop | Mexico Mexico The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of... |
Best of 2005 Albums, Singles and Tracks | 2005 | 9 |
| Q Q (magazine) Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology... |
United Kingdom | Q Magazine's Top Records of 2005 | 2005 | 12 |
| Rock de Lux | Spain | Best of 2005 | 2005 | 2 |
| Rolling Stone Rolling Stone Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J... |
United States | The Top 50 Records of 2005 | 2005 | 1 |
| Spex Spex (magazine) Spex is a prominent German rock and pop culture magazine located in Berlin, Germany. Besides music news, Spex also covers literature, cinema, fashion and contemporary social trends... |
Germany Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
2005 Kritiker Album des Jahres | 2006 | 7 |
| Spin Spin (magazine) Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard... |
United States | The Top 40 Albums of 2005 | 2005 | 1 |
| Stylus Stylus Magazine Stylus Magazine was an online music and film magazine launched in 2002. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, a number of different podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog.... |
United States | 50 Albums From 2005 That We Love | 2005 | 6 |
| Telegraph The Daily Telegraph The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B... |
United Kingdom | Pop CDs of the year 2005 | 2005 | 4 |
| The Observer The Observer The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,... |
United Kingdom | The Observer Music Monthly Top 100 Albums | 2005 | 7 |
| Village Voice | United States | Pazz & Jop Dean's List | 2006 | 1 |
| URB | United States | Albums of the Year | 2005 | * |
| USA Today USA Today USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003... |
United States | USA Today's Album of the Year | 2005 | 1 |
| Vibe | United States | Top 10 of 2005 | 2006 | * |
| Zundfunk | Germany | Albums of the Year | 2005 | 5 |
(*) designates unordered lists.
Release history
| Region | Date | Format | Label | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | August 29, 2005 | CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... , digital download Music download A music download is the transferral of music from an Internet-facing computer or website to a user's local computer. This term encompasses both legal downloads and downloads of copyright material without permission or payment... (Standard Edition) |
Island Def Jam | |
| Italy | ||||
| Spain | Universal Universal Music Group Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations... |
|||
| United Kingdom | CD, LP LP album The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry... , digital download (Bonus Tracks) |
Mercury Mercury Records Mercury Records is a record label operating as a standalone company in the UK and as part of the Island Def Jam Motown Music Group in the US; both are subsidiaries of Universal Music Group. There is also a Mercury Records in Australia, which is a local artist and repertoire division of Universal... |
||
| Australia | August 30, 2005 | CD, digital download (Standard Edition) | Island Def Jam | |
| March 20, 2006 | CD, digital download (Australian Tour Edition) | |||
| Canada | August 30, 2005 | CD, LP, digital download (Standard Edition) | Universal | |
| United States | Roc-A-Fella Roc-A-Fella Records Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Today it operates as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and is distributed by Island Def Jam Motown Music Group.-Formation and Early Years:... |
See also
- Kanye West discographyKanye West discographyThe following is a comprehensive listing of official releases by Kanye West, an American rapper, singer, and producer. He has released five studio albums, two DVDs, and twenty-nine singles on Roc-A-Fella Records . He has also sold over 11 million albums in the United States, over 15 million worldwide...
- Kanye West production discographyKanye West production discography- Grav - Down to Earth :* 03. World Domination 1* 05. Sick Thoughts* 06. City To City * 07. Thought It Was On* 08. Line For Line * 10. Keep Movin* 12. One Puff* 13. Down To Earth...
- Late OrchestrationLate OrchestrationLate Orchestration is a live album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released on April 24, 2006 on Mercury Records. The album features recordings of live renditions of songs derived from his first two studio albums. It was recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London, England before an...
External links
- Late Registration at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- Album Review — By Vibe