GOOD REGISTRATION MARKS

As soon as I heard that Kanye joined forces with Jon Brion I knew his next record was going to be quite different then the earlier leaked "Late Registration" that had a bunch of roughed out tracks and a few tracks that we may never see again. The new record is amazing but I wonder if Kanye will be a victim of his own design or over-designing for that matter. The record may sound too good, too wide of a spectrum? Too many instruments, real musicianship and more like actual "songs" and not enough Rocafella rap tracks with the sounds that a large part of his audience are familiar with. It's more along the lines of a tribe called quest meets Dan the Automator. The beats are lush, colorful, and contain a lot of instruments that are most likely considered "wack" in the hip hop studio du jour. Did you see the xylophone set up next to the MPC 3000? I didn't think so!

You can hear John Biron's influence easly on over half the tracks as he was brought in by Kanye to Co-Executive produce. Interesting instruments and Biron-esque chord progressions mix in seamlessly with Kanye's compositions. I'm a big fan of Brion for his work with Fiona Apple and the movie soundtracks I Heart Huckabees, Punch Drunk Love and Magnolia simply for his sonic vocabulary and ability to play some 20 or so instruments well enough to record. He's also a sort of perfectionist in that its been said he's written some newer music for his own solo project that I'm sure will never see the light of day for he's never completely satisfied.

Standouts for me are "Heard 'Em Say, "Touch the Sky", "Gold Digger" (for how the beat drops with the Jamie Foxx sample alone), "Drive Slow" (hey, Paul Wall ain't half bad!) and "Gone" which in hip hop terms is a epic track timing in at just over 6 minutes. There is less skits this time around and they are just as funny as last album. The guest spots are good and well placed, I would have liked to hear The Game spit a few bars on "Crack Music" The only song I'm not feeling is the Brandy infused "Bring Me Down". I've heard a previous mix of that with a less grand orchestra beat and minus the Brandy contribution.

I hope that the record does well and that its not too much of a variety for Ye's audience, well see what happens. And he's dropping the same day as that Tony Yayo fool.