| Product Summary | | UPC: 00602498824030 | | Release Date: 8/30/2005 | | Buy.com Sku: 63991883 | | Item#: M2FHPS | | Buy.com Sales Rank: 52091 | Format:  CD |
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(P) 2005 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC
(C) 2005 Roc-A-Fella Records, LLC
| How long does it take to download a song? |  | Broadband: under 1 minute | | 56 kbps modem: 15-20 minutes |
| | With Late Registration, Dr. West has indeed delivered the medicine. And once again, he did the only way he can: with honesty, humor and his conviction in continuing to prove himself by making great music. Enlisting composer/producer Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann) to lend his skills to the album's production, West's newest offering is a big album in every sense of the word. His trademark sample-based arrangements have expanded to include live instrumentation. West has always been an artist who challenges not only himself, but his audience and his fellow musicians with new ideas and new ways of expressing the joys and sorrows of life through music. Late Registration does just that as it takes down avenues and alleyways filled with sound and vision. Throughout, Late Registration's sheer depth of musicality is what's most impressive. Dark and eerie at times, uplifting in others - tracks like "Touch The Sky" and "Celebration" come to mind--the album finds Kanye at once madly in love with hip-hop music, and fighting with it like a lover scorned - trying to push it's boundaries, to see how far it will go. A daunting task, indeed. But it seems as though West--as stressed as he is--is more than up to the task.
"A dynamic piece of work. " E! Online
"[An] even more ambitious, superbly crafted follow-up." Los Angeles Times
"...an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft." Rolling Stone
| | Album Notes and Credits |
Notes & Personnel Info | | Personnel: Kanye West (vocals); Common, Consequence , GLC , Jamie Foxx, Jay-Z, Adam Levine, John Legend, Keyshia Cole, Nas, Paul Wall , The Game, Cam'Ron, Lupe Fiasco, Really Doe, Deray, Tony "Penafire" Williams, Plain Pat, Don C., Brandy, Charlie Wilson (vocals); Dave Tozer (guitars); Ervin "EP" Pope, Tom Craskey (keyboards); Keenan "Keynote" Holloway (bass guitar); Michele Gondry (drums); A-Trak (scratches). | | Recording information: Chalice Studios, Los Angeles, California; Record Plant, Hollywood, California; Grandmaster Recorders, Los Angeles, California; Sony Music Studios, New York, New York (2005). | | Rapper/producer Kanye West's second album, LATE REGISTRATION, incredibly lives up to expectations following his universally acclaimed debut, THE COLLEGE DROPOUT, which took the art of sampling to a new plateau. Here, for example, "Gold Digger" features a sample of the legendary Ray Charles alongside actor Jamie Foxx in Oscar-reprising character as Charles. "Addiction" pairs a frenetic African beat with a stuttering, singular use of a snippet of Etta James crooning "My Funny Valentine," while "Diamonds From the Sierra Leone" teams the majestic Bond glory of Shirley Bassey's "Diamonds Are Forever" with perfectly subtle Miami bass to explosive effect. All the while, West pulls lyrics out of his rhyme bag at a fever pitch, tackling hefty topics like civil war in Africa and the impact of drugs on leading Black minds. | | Throughout the album, West merely continues to perfect his craft, slowing tracks down and speeding them up into an awe-inspiring mosaic. While his MC style is often discounted as being of secondary importance, he shines when put up against the best in the game, as with Common on the bluesy "My Way Home" or Nas on the lush "We Major." And in the spirit of Bob Dylan, West knows how to make the most of a very original voice. LATE REGISTRATION is ample proof of West's staying power. |
Producer: Jon Brion; Kanye West; Warryn "Baby Dubb" Campbell; Devo Springsteen |
Musical Guests | | Jamie Foxx | | Adam Levine | | Maroon 5 | | Lupe Fiasco | | GLC | | Paul Wall | | Nas | | Really Doe | | Consequence | | Cam'Ron |
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| | Technical Info | | Release Date : 08/30/2005 | | Original Release Date : 2005 | | Catalog ID : 0004814 | | Label : Def Jam (USA) | | Number of Discs : 1 | | Studio/Live : Studio | | Mono/Stereo : Stereo | | SPAR Code : n/a | | UPC : 00602498824030 |
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| | Professional Reviews | | Rolling Stone (No. 982, p.110)
- 5 stars out of 5 - "...LATE REGISTRATION is an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft...."Spin (p.65)
- Ranked #1 in Spin's "40 Best Albums Of 2005" - "'Gold Digger' is the best kind of hip-hop hit: relentless, obnoxious, too smart and self-deprecating and laugh-out-loud funny..." Spin (pp.99-100)
- "West showcases a more versatile, eccentric flow than on DROPOUT..." - Grade: B Entertainment Weekly (p.140)
- Ranked #3 in Entertainment Weekly's 'Top Ten Records of the Year' -- West works on a commandingly large canvas. Hip-hop, not to mention pop, rarely sounds this surprising, panoramic, and irresistible." Entertainment Weekly (No. 837, p.77)
- "West thinks creatively, not just monetarily; he has an artist's head and heart...[LATE REGISTRATION] rarely fails to engross at every step." - Grade: B Uncut (p.88)
- 4 stars out of 5 - "Nobody deploys vocal samples better than West..." The Wire (p.41)
- Included in The Wire's "2005 Rewind: 50 Records Of The Year." Mojo (Publisher)
(p.60)
- Ranked #10 in Mojo's "Top Ten Urban Albums Of 2005." The Guardian 9 of 10
The music offers further evidence of how far outside rap's usual strictures West operates. OutKast aside, mainstream hip-hop doesn't really do ambiguity or irony, but just as West's arrogance occasionally appears to be a protracted joke, Late Registration finds him in thrillingly subversive form, working in the production booth to undercut tracks' messages and shifting their meanings.
Pitchfork 9 of 10
The sprawling Late Registration is the year's most accomplished rap album, and 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.
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