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.

Background[link]

Late Registration is the second entry in Kanye West's planned tetralogy of education-themed studio albums. Dedicated towards overcoming the sophomore slump 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.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.^[3] 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 rhythms of hip-hop and used the polymerization for the foundation of his rapping.^[3]

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.^[4][5] 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.^[6] 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."^[4]

Recording[link]

Producer and composer Jon Brion worked with West and co-produced tracks.

Kanye took over a year and devoted approximately two million dollars towards the construction of Late Registration.^[7] The majority of the recording sessions for the album took place at Sony Music Studios in New York City and at The Record Plant in Hollywood, California.^[8] 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.^[9] By November 2004, West had completed nearly seventy-five percent of the album.^[10] 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.^[4][11] 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.^[2] 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."^[11]

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.^[12] Adam Levine, lead vocalist of the Californian 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.^[13] 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.^[13] 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.^[4] Adam Levine later described his collaboration with West as "a really cool, organic process" and commented that "Kanye's lyrics were beautiful."^[14]

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.^[15] 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.^[15] 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.^[15] 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.^[15] Once the track was in place, it was layered with additional instruments provided by Brion and individually selected by West.^[15] By the end of their very first studio session together, the pair had completed the basic tracks for final version of "Gold Digger."^[4]

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.^[16] West had originally wanted Sri Lankan rapper M.I.A. to appear on the track, but she opted out of the appearance due to a busy schedule.^[17][18] 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.^[19]

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.^[20] 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.^[4] Incidentally, Gondry had directed Eternal Sunshine and would later go on to direct the first version of the music video for "Heard 'Em Say."^[13] According to Jay-Z, West mixed "Diamonds" about fourteen times before he felt comfortable to release it as the album's lead single.^[21] 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.^[22] 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.^[23] 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.^[24] 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.^[4] 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."^[4] 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.^[10][25] 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.^[19]

Composition[link]

Music and style[link]

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 hop 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.^[1] 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.^[4] 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.^[26] 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.^[27] 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."^[1] 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."^[27]

Production[link]

Kanye West and Jamie Foxx performing the song "Gold Digger".

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.^[28] 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.^[26] "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.^[29] "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.^[30] 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.^[14]

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.^[8] 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.^[14] The up-tempo arrangement of "Addiction" contains ambient, rhythmic guitar licks, congas, filtered hi-hats and a sampled line from "My Funny Valentine" as performed by Etta James.^[31] All the while, West's overdubbed vocals reverbs in and out of the track.^[32] 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.^[30]

Late Registration's 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.^[1][33] 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.^[34] Opening with an electronic twinkling sound, "Celebration" contains samples of "Heavenly Dream" by The KayGees.^[4] 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's 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 violins, four violas and four cellos 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.^[35]

Lyrical content[link]

According to Josh Tyrangiel of Time magazine, the album primarily serves as an exhibition of "the stealthy power of West's storytelling."^[36] 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.^[37] "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.^[26] 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.^[12] 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.^[1] 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 a part of the Roc-A-Fella family, from touring with Jay-Z on his Blueprint Lounge Tour to the label's subsequent fall out and revival.^[21] However, West uses the remix to "Diamonds from Sierra Leone" to directly address the issue of "blood diamonds" that people unknowingly wear every day are used to fund horrific civil wars in West Africa.^[20] Lyrically, the extensive, uplifting "We Major" is a spiritual exhultation of generational and personal success.^[37]

"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.^[12] 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."^[12]

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."^[38]

Release and promotion[link]

West presented music audiences with the first taste of Late Registration on April 20, 2005 while appearing on New York radio station Hot 97, where he played his lead single "Diamonds from Sierra Leone."^[19] The album was originally set to be released on July 12, 2005, but was shifted to August 16 by Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam.^[39] 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.^[40] On iTunes Store, the album become one of the most pre-ordered titles in the online digital media store's history.^[41]

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.^[42] 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.^[43] That same day, Late Registration was released in its entirety for online streaming on AOL Music.^[44]

Artwork[link]

The art direction and music packaging for Late Registration was done by Brooklyn graphic design studio Morning Breath, Inc.^[8][45] 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.^[8][46] The liner notes also contain a banner that reads Tardus Subcriptio, which is Latin for Late Registration.^[8] The album artwork centers around "Dropout Bear", West's anthropomorphic teddy bear mascot, who is dressed in a collegian outfit.^[47] Entering the university on the front cover, Dropout wanders its hallways, sits in empty lecture halls, and reads multiple library books before departing from the institution the same way he came in on the back cover.^[8]

Reception[link]

Commercial performance[link]

Late Registration debuted at number one on the US Billboard 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.^[48] The album also debuted at number one on the charts in Canada.^[49] In the United Kingdom, Late Registration debuted and peaked at number two on the charts for the issue date of September 5.^[50] 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.^[51] Selling 165,000 copies, the album dropped to number two the following week with the debut of Paul Wall's The People's Champ.^[52] 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.^[53] 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.^[54] 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.^[55] However, on October 19, the album climbed up one space and re-entered the top five, selling 83,000 units.^[56] 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.^[57] The album rebounded once again on November 2 when it sold 56,000 units rise two places to reach the eighth position.^[58]

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.^[59]

Critical response[link]

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[60]
Robert Christgau	A+[61]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[62]
The Guardian	[63]
The New York Times	mixed[32]
Pitchfork Media	9.5/10[34]
Rolling Stone	[1]
Slant Magazine	[33]
Spin	7/10[29]
The Village Voice	favorable[26]

Late Registration received general acclaim from music critics.^[64] 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".^[64] 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".^[1] 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."^[36] 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."^[63] 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."^[30] Vibe commended West's "grandiose vision" and "expert ear", finding the album more thematically focused than its predecessor.^[27]

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."^[65] 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".^[66] 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."^[34] 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".^[26] As part of his consumer guide reviews, Christgau later assigned it an A+ rating,^[61] 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".^[67]

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".^[68] Spin's Jon Caramanica noted the augmented versatility and eccentricity of West's flow, but felt it "pales in comparison to his sonic ambition."^[29] 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".^[32] 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".^[17] 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."^[62] Jonah Weiner of Blender complimented the album's ambivalence, writing, "He’s unafraid to make a big, fat mess."^[69] 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".^[60]

Accolades[link]

Late Registration topped numerous music critic polls and was revered as the best album of the year by numerous publications, including USA Today, Spin, and Time.^[36][70] 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."^[71] 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.^[72] 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."^[73] 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." ^[74] 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.^[75]

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."^[76] 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.^[77] 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.^[78][79] 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.^[80] Additionally, Rolling Stone named the album number 118 on its revised 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list in 2012.^[81]

Track listing[link]

All lyrics written by Kanye West. 

(*) designates co-producer

Vinyl LP[link]

Personnel[link]

Information taken from Late Registration liner notes.^[8]

Charts, sales and procession[link]

Chart procession and succession[link]

Accolades[link]

The information regarding accolades attributed to Late Registration is adapted from AcclaimedMusic.net.^[99]

(*) designates unordered lists.

Release history[link]

See also[link]

Kanye West portal

• Kanye West discography
• Kanye West production discography
• Late Orchestration

Notes[link]