Best Album I Ever Heard

There is no bigger lie on Graduation than when Kanye West claims he doesn’t “try hard,” as he does on the single “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” West tries extremely hard at everything he does. And unlike his hip-hop and rock peers most of whom want Grammys and good reviews as much as he does he’s unafraid to tell you.

On Graduation, West tries hard to address the problems on his first two albums, and succeeds: The new disc is tighter than Late Registration (fifty-one minutes long), with no skits (thank heavens) and less ornate production. None of the beats clobber you as immediately as “Jesus Walks” or “Gold Digger,” but most of them improve on every listen: This is an album that you first like, then love. “Good Morning” elevates from a gentle hook to a perfectly chosen Jay-Z sample; “Barry Bonds” is a mix-tape song with a moaning groove that you could listen to for weeks; and on “Flashing Lights” and “Stronger,” West single-handedly takes hip-hop back to its pre-Run-DMC disco days.

As a lyricist, West will never possess the pure cool or formal mastery of his mentor Jay-Z, but he’s grown as a writer. (See the off-kilter, dreamlike “I Wonder.”) And given the lousy year hip-hop has had, the music needs his spazzed-out, neurotic creativity more than ever. As for the rest of you rappers: Try harder.
Following the MTV stint, West was nominated in 8 Grammy Award categories for the 50th annual Grammy Awards. He won four of them, including Best Rap Album for Graduation and Best Rap Solo Performance for “Stronger” from Graduation. During the four-hour televised Grammy Awards ceremony, West also performed two songs: “Stronger” (with Daft Punk) and “Hey Mama” (in honor of his recently deceased mother).

Graduation is the third studio album by rapper Kanye West, released on September 11, 2007. The title of the album follows the college theme of Kanye West’s previous two studio albums, The College Dropout and Late Registration. The album artwork was designed by Takashi Murakami. Graduation, which was nominated for Grammy Album of the Year, has received three Grammy Awards, including Best Rap Album, thereby making West the only artist other than Eminem to win three Best Rap Album Grammys.

Graduation topped the Canadian, UK, and US album charts; however Curtis debuted at number one on the Irish and Swiss album charts, claiming the top spot on the Billboard European Top 100 Albums chart.
Graduation’s first week sales of 957,000 and Curtis’s first week sales of 691,000 marked only the second time ever (since Nielsen SoundScan began collecting data in 1991) that two albums sold more than 600,000 in a week in the United States. The first occurrence of such an event was in 1991 when Guns N’ Roses released Use Your Illusion I, which sold 685,000 copies, and Use Your Illusion II, which sold 770,000 copies. The first week sales totals of Graduation and Curtis have outsold the first week sales totals of Guns N’ Roses’ two albums.

Graduation sold approximately 900,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release, becoming the highest sales week for an album in 2007 (topping Linkin Park’s Minutes to Midnight, which sold 726,000) as well as West’s highest sales week to date, topping his 860,000 opening week of his previous album Late Registration. In addition, it became the 15th highest sales week for an album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991, and the highest sales week at the time of its release for an album since 50 Cent’s The Massacre opened with 1.4 million in March 2005. With this, it became the tenth best-selling album of 2007, selling 1,891,918 in the United States.

Graduation was certified 2× Platinum by the RIAA and has sold 2,913,926 copies in the U.S. up to October 2008.

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