{"id":21301,"date":"2018-08-30T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-08-30T15:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=21301"},"modified":"2018-08-28T13:40:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-28T18:40:22","slug":"henrys-time-capsule-late-registration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2018\/08\/30\/henrys-time-capsule-late-registration\/","title":{"rendered":"Henry’s Time Capsule: Late Registration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Anyone who\u2019s been reading my articles for a while, probably knows I am a fan of Kanye West. I love his music and am always intrigued by his carefree and unfiltered (that some would call abrasive) attitude. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0So let\u2019s go back to August 30, 2005 when his sophomore album \u201cLate Registration\u201d was released. It continues the college theme found in his debut \u201cThe College Dropout\u201d and contains similar production elements and lyrical themes to the album.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0However, this sequel improves on the previous album in every way. The soul samples are more obscure, the production is tighter and includes more layered and complex instrumentation, featuring orchestral arrangement at times. The lyrics are stronger on this one as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Kanye talks about a variety of topics, including poverty, drug trafficking, racism, healthcare, rap culture and the blood diamond trade.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Also different was West\u2019s choice of producer for the record. He hired acclaimed film score writer Jon Brion after hearing his work on \u201cEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.\u201d Despite Brion having no experience working in hip-hop, he and West clicked instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Brion describes the sound of the album and responds to people wondering if his presence made the album less hip hop:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThere are colors and ideas that make [the album] different from average hip-hop, but Kanye is already different from the average hip-hop guy,\u201d Brion said. \u201cHe’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 \u2013 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 it’s a weird record by any means.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Someone let Kanye get into the Red Bull again… From the “Heard ‘Em Say” video.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0West\u2019s most famous production element was taking samples of older soul music and speeding them up and using it as beats, sometimes called \u201cchipmunking.\u201d After his first album released, the technique was copied and used by several other musicians. This made West decide to distance himself from the practice. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0To accomplish this, he implemented an idea he had for \u201cThe College Dropout\u201d that he couldn\u2019t afford: a live orchestra accompaniment. With the success of \u201cDropout\u201d he hired a 20 person group that played instruments hand selected by West. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cLate Registration\u201d includes a very diverse group of collaborators. Opening track \u201cHeard \u2018Em Say\u201d features Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine singing the hook. Levine and West bonded on a flight from the MTV Europe Music Awards. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0After seeing him perform in \u201cRay\u201d West had Jamie Foxx sing the hook of \u201cGold Digger\u201d as an interpolation of a Ray Charles’ song “I Got a Woman.” <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The album also includes contributions from Consequence, Brandy, Paul Wall, Common and Lupe Fiasco.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0West also featured Jay Z and Nas on the album, contributing guest verses on \u201cDiamonds From Sierra Leone\u201d and \u201cWe Major,\u201d respectively. He didn\u2019t tell either man the other was collaborating with him, as Jay and Nas were embroiled in a feud at the time. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0West later revealed he did this in an effort to end the beef between the two, and they ultimately did later in 2005. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0Lyrically the album goes deeper than \u201cCollege Dropout.\u201d West desired for the lyrics to be relatable to everyone, while still staying true to himself and his struggles. He says in Time magazine:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0“[I wanted to have] raps that were just as ill as Jadakiss and just as understandable as Will Smith.” <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This is seen in tracks such as \u201cRoses,\u201d where West raps about his family and him visiting his ill grandmother in the hospital, and the effect being there has on her. Another example is \u201cHey Mama,\u201d West\u2019s ode to his mom Donda, who supported him throughout his life. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Then songs like \u201cDiamonds From Sierra Leone\u201d talk about darker topics, like the conflict diamonds mined during war and used to fund armies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cLate Registration\u201d was a critical and commercial success. It received an 85 out of 100 on review aggregator site Metacritic, and took home several honors from various award shows such as the 2006 Grammy Awards and the NAACP Image Awards.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and sold 860,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week of release, which was double the first week sales of \u201cThe College Dropout.\u201d In total, it sold 3.1 million copies in the U.S. as of 2013.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cLate Registration\u201d is one of my favorite Kanye West albums, and probably features the best collection of singles out of them all. It showed that he was more than a one trick pony, with his use of a live orchestra adding a unique sound to the album. This was no sophomore slump, and it stands out as one of West\u2019s most consistent projects. <\/span><\/p>\n

Henry Wolski<\/strong>
\nExecutive Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0Anyone who\u2019s been reading my articles for a while, probably knows I am a fan of Kanye West. I love his music and am always intrigued by his carefree and unfiltered (that some would call abrasive) attitude. \u00a0 \u00a0So let\u2019s go back to August 30, 2005 when his sophomore album \u201cLate Registration\u201d was released. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":21302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2104,2144,2109,3],"tags":[1386,2000,2653,73,2141,1384,74],"class_list":["post-21301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-music-entertainment","category-opinion","category-tartan-news","tag-entertainment","tag-henry-wolski","tag-henrys-time-capsule","tag-music","tag-online-exclusive","tag-opinion","tag-reviews"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Screen-Shot-2018-08-28-at-2.33.13-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5xz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21307,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21301\/revisions\/21307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}