College Dropout is a great album* Kanye's stuff before that was good, too. Each successive album, though, he sinks deeper into his own glory and loses touch with what made the first album so good: accessability. Music can evolve, that's great and necessary, but Kanye fell off the deep end some time ago.
*The best debut hip-hop album of all time is Nas'
Illmatic - his debut. It came out in 1994 when lyricism and beat-making were at their pinnacle. The meeting of the two culminated in
Illmatic. Never before and never again will there be an album this good. Not even Nas, himself, has even come close. The current landscape of beat-making, culture, and art will not allow this to happen.
College Dropout is pretty close, but it's still not
Illmatic.
The World Is Yours (lead single produced by Pete Rock)
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The remix is also very good (produced by Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest):
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