Graduation [PA] by Kanye West

"I need you to hurry up now / Cos I can't wait much longer!!"

So goes the call to Kanye West's hugely catchy single "Stronger", from his third album Graduation.

This is my first album of West's, so maybe I'm not qualified to make such a statement, but the breakout singles I heard from his debut The College Dropout ("Through the Wire", "Jesus Walks") used a healthy amount of the ever-reliable sample to increase their memorability while sounding pretty grim at the same time. That was a dark time in his career; he had survived a car crash, and was trying to make it big in rap's world. This year's "Stronger" takes Daft Punk's robotic albeit danceable "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" and makes it Kanye's bouncy, triumphant juggernaut pretty much about being on top of the world.

The more I hear the song, the more I realize - nothing has changed in Kanye's style throughout his career: he still shamelessly samples his favorite bits of other people's music to make his own hip-hop sound better. All that has happened is that he's picked up a slightly less grey outlook on life. Who can blame him? I've followed his story with a vague interest up to being a premiere rap artist in the current climate (and a critic's darling, let's not forget) with increasing disgust. The man has let his ego run away with him completely, first with Late Registration, featuring that inescapable number one "Gold Digger", with a sly reference to Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman", and now "Stronger", in which he as good as rips off another band's song (plus Nietzsche's best line, at that) and calls it his own. More disturbing: everyone has had no problem accepting that. The song hardly has a chorus – heck, it hardly even has a verse - and I can't find any other word for Kanye's flow than lazy. The reason the song is so damn good is because of the unfolding synth lines, the steady boom-boom of the bass, and background vocals supplied by Daft Punk. West is the least interesting part of the hit, and his poor rhyming is ironically best left as background noise:

"We gon' do everything that Kan' like
Heard they'd do anything for a Klondike
Well I'd do anything for a blond dyke
And she'll do anything for the limelight
And we'll do anything when the time's right."

Nearly every song on Graduation uses either a sample and/or a guest vocalist in one way or another. Personally, I can't see any appeal in this. He uses his samples as a trampoline to build his rhyming on, rather than thinking up a beat or backdrop of his own – am I alone in thinking that anyone could find a beloved song of theirs and write a new verse over the top of it? I can't deny that Kanye West is a good producer, a workaholic, and maybe even an innovator in rap, but I can not kid myself into saying that he has any musical talent whatsoever when so much of Graduation is swollen, bigoted and borrowed.

Take the intro "Good Morning", which unnecessarily tortures Elton John's "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" (Hasn't Tupac already beaten you to the Elton sample Kanye buddy?), so West can rhyme as many things as possible with his last name. "Champion" is an abomination of a song, and this time it's Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" that falls victim. Donald Fagen barely has time to sing the line "Did you realize / That you were a champion in their eyes?" on a synth-heavy, beat-skipping soup before the rapper sneers smugly, "Yes I did." Give me a break.

"I Wonder" and "Everything I Am" fall under more or less the same curse as "Stronger"; they're only bearable because their motif is jacked from someone else. It's Labi Siffre's dreamy "My Song" in the case of the former, while Kanye yells over the montage in a syllabic monotone, and "Everything I Am" is based on an updated piano score from Phillip Mitchell's "If We Can't Be Lovers". It's a gorgeous and touching choice of instrumental, and even the guy behind the wheel briefly seems to understand the mood. His line, "I never be picture-perfect Beyonce / Be light as Al B or black as Chauncey" is heartfelt, but then he just falls back on a list of beefs: "People talk so much sh*t about me at barbershops / They forget to get they haircuts". Uh, really?

For every time the sample works on Graduation, as on "Stronger" or "Everything I Am", it deadens another spin so that it never reaches any kind of climax feels like it has a mask over it (experience the stilted "Good Life", or "The Glory"). "Barry Bonds", set to a suave, swaggering backdrop of horns, and "Drunk & Hot Girls" at least don't have someone else's chorus, but comprise mostly of Kanye and co's street-hip whinging. To add to that, "Drunk & Hot Girls" has the worst hook on the CD.

"We go through too much sh*t to mess with these drunk and hot girls." (repeat times twenty)

As for you, Mr. Chris Martin, guest on a certain "Homecoming", you should work on getting Coldplay's new album out and stop hooking up with rappers. The vocal chemistry between him and West on this duet is awkward beyond belief, and Martin's faux-reggae enunciation doesn't suit him at all.

If I had the motivation to listen to 50 Cent's Curtis or Soulja Boy's debut, chances are I would probably dislike them even more than this, but at least they have the decency not to ruin other people's songs in the process of their second-rate music-making. After hearing Graduation, I can never listen to Coldplay, Elton John or Daft Punk the same again, and I blame Kanye West for inflicting this burden upon me. Of course it's up to you whether you can tolerate this rap circus, but until West proves his own merits independently, I will remain sceptical about each new supposed hip-hop milestone he reaches. Seeing as "Stronger" was the reason I bought this album, I might as well finish with a quote from it:

"I ask, cos I'm not sure / Does anybody make real sh*t anymore?"

My guess is that he's referring here to the state of today's rap music. In Graduation, it appears we have our answer.

The songs: (With every extravagant guest and sample included just so it's all on the table)
1. Good Morning (sampling "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John)
2. Champion (sampling "Kid Charlemagne" by Steely Dan)
3. Stronger (sampling "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk)
4. I Wonder (sampling "My Song" by Labi Siffre)
5. Good Life featuring T-Pain, with backing vocals by John Legend & Ne-Yo (sampling "Pretty Young Thing" by Michael Jackson)
6. Can't Tell Me Nothing featuring Connie Mitchell & Young Jeezy
7. Barry Bonds featuring Lil Wayne (sampling "Long Red" by Mountain)
8. Drunk & Hot Girls featuring Mos Def
9. Flashing Lights featuring Dwele and Connie Mitchell
10. Everything I Am (sampling "If We Can't Be Lovers" by Prince Phillip Mitchell and "Bring the Noise" by Public Enemy)
11. The Glory featuring John Legend & Mos Def (sampling "Long Red" by Mountain and "Save the Country" by Laura Nyro)
12. Homecoming featuring Chris Martin
13. Big Brother
14. Good Night featuring Mos Def