One of the most influential and controversial artists in music history, Ye has some projects in his discography that people could only dream of making. Since his debut in 2003, Kanye West (now Ye) has given us two decades and over 150 songs to live with, grow with, and experience. But with such a refined body of work, which album stands out above the rest?
We ranked the top 10 Ye albums of all time and gave our explanations below. Remember, we love everything on the list, and perspectives definitely differ. But we gave this impossible task a shot!
(Note: We previously said a different ranking was our most difficult yet. This one easily takes that spot, without question.)
10. ‘Ye’
From the 7-track, 23-minute runtime to the iconic “I hate being Bi-Polar, it’s awesome” cover art, Ye is the strangest solo project he’s ever dropped. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The album, a product of the infamous Wyoming sessions, is a condensed version of every Kanye sound up until that point in 2018—and also home to some incredible experimentation.
Rather than the acknowledgment of his bipolar diagnosis being limited to the cover, it reveals itself across all 7 songs. The stream of consciousness in “I Thought About Killing You” is on an entirely different type of time than the brash “All Mine,” or the deeply reflective “Violent Crimes.” And “Ghost Town,” an indie-rock expression of his inner voice, could be one of Ye’s best songs ever.
9. ‘Donda’
If this list were taking the overall experience into account, Donda would be incredibly hard to beat. For Ye fans, the listening parties are one of the most memorable moments of his career, and reawakened Ye at a level we hadn’t seen in years. The music lived up to the hype, but his other albums are just too difficult to top.
That said, Donda is a beast of a project. It essentially acts as a collaborative album across various generations of hip-hop—a sprawling tapestry with anyone from Jay-Z and The Lox, to Baby Keem and Roddy Ricch folded in, with a Lauryn Hill sample as an additional adornment. And the shit is incredible.
Once again, we see Ye experimenting and keeping up with the times. “Off The Grid” shows Ye’s capabilities in the drill world, and it meshed perfectly. And Fivio Foreign slid with a verse of the year candidate for 2021.
8. ‘Watch The Throne’ (with Jay-Z)
In what is possibly the greatest collab album of all time, the artist formerly known as Kanye West and Jay-Z showcased the best attributes of their respective arsenals for an hour straight. (We’re going with the Deluxe. Sue us.) The balance of bravado and introspection gives the project insane replay value to this day. But most notably, they were rapping their ass off.
Where legendary tracks like “N-ggas In Paris” and “Otis” display the upper echelon of sophisticated ignorance, “New Day” and “Murder To Excellence” reside in the realities both artists face, regardless of wealth or status. And once again, the bars are damn near non-stop, in whichever mood you’re revisiting Watch The Throne for.
I, personally, think Ye might have even outrapped Jay by just a bit. But that’s just me.
7. ‘Yeezus’
The most polarizing album in hip-hop, Yeezus completely shifted the playing field. If anyone thought Ye was wild or unfiltered before, this album took that to an entirely different level. I mean, “Put my fist in her like a civil rights sign?” Ridiculous. And even crazier, the swings and chances he took on the project aged amazingly.
Industrial and avant-garde are two excellent descriptors for the sound. But, in contrast, it’s also emotionally rich at various points. The scale? Grandiose as hell. Sparse, electronic bass hits flourish into full on orchestral backings (see: “New Slaves”). The outro to “Blood On The Leaves” is autotune at it’s final form. And who ever expected Chief Keef to deliver one of the most beautiful hooks in Ye’s career on a track with Bon Iver?
Yeezus stands alone in terms of experimentation from a mainstream rapper, and it set the bar for every album that dips into that lane since. People even compare “Mr. Morale,” the title track to Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 album, to Yeezus based on its production and intensity.
6. ‘808s & Heartbreak’
Now, choosing between 808s and Yeezus was one of the hardest parts of making this list. Both are deeply influential, emotionally charged, and sonically impressive. But, to every one of those points, 808s & Heartbreak has an ever-so slight edge. It’s THE emotional, autotuned album in hip-hop history.
808s, at certain points, is absolutely gut-wrenching. “Say You Will” sets the tone exceptionally well—the length of the song’s outro alone forces you to reflect on the subject at hand. And the album, even with its sonic twists and turns, keeps the same heartbroken motif. Romantic relationships aren’t the only thing plaguing Ye at this point. He lost his mom, Donda West, just a year earlier, and it’s glaringly obvious that things in his life were unraveling at the time.
With how well the album communicates its message, it’s pointless to go song by song. However, “Pinnochio Story” might be the most heartbreaking listening experience in Ye’s discography. Speaking in explicit detail about feeling like a caricature of the human experience, while people cheer and have the time of their lives watching, has to be hard as hell to go through.
Damn, we might cry just thinking about it.
5. ‘College Dropout’
The one that started it all. College Dropout is absolutely incredible, and this placement is purely from the perspective of growth. The albums we’ve ranked higher stand on the shoulders of this one and expand on everything he started with. But when you look up the word “classic” in the dictionary, the College Dropout cover art definitely pops up.
Dropping at the height of the street rap era, Ye came through on his backpack shit and hit the ground running, changing the landscape one track at a time. By making his name off his production, his signature sound was patently recognizable. His first single, “Through The Wire,” is an all-time great debut. Whenever that “through the test of tiiime” Chaka Khan sample hits, you know exactly what you’re about to get into. And this is all before he spat a single bar.
College Dropout does the concept album thing perfectly, each skit fulfilling its purpose, as well as being genuinely hilarious (whereas similar attempts have fallen flat). And not only that, the album spawned damn near 10 or so classic tracks—and we aren’t exaggerating. “All Falls Down,” “Spaceship,” “Jesus Walks,” “Never Let Me Down,” “Slow Jamz”…
Let’s just leave it there.
4. ‘The Life Of Pablo’
WAIT! Just hear us out. If there’s any project that showcases every sound in Ye’s bag, while simultaneously being home to amazing verses, production, shock value, and depth? It’s The Life Of Pablo. The album served as a return to the 20-song, sample-forward style of College Dropout, but Yeezy’s evolution led to more poignant emotional highs and lows. Sporadicity makes TLOP what it is, and it works in its favor.
How do you follow “Ultralight Beam,” a religion-heavy intro with Kirk Franklin, heavenly vocals from Kelly Price, and one of the hardest feature verses ever from Chance The Rapper? By immediately dropping a Metro Boomin-produced banger about bleached assholes. Context matters when listening to an album, and the tumultuous nature of Ye’s life makes what would be viewed as inconsistency significantly more digestible and intentional. (And considering he spent time mixing and polishing the album long after it dropped, it’s easy to tell the sequencing was an artistic choice.)
Don’t believe us about the intentional jarring pivots in sound and subject matter? The cover art says it all. The “WHICH/ONE” details refer to the three Pablos he’s emulating: Pablo Escobar, Saint Pablo, and Pablo Picasso. The art also depicts a wedding, then a picture of a girl by the pool, double-cheeked. Swings from tracks like “Waves” to “FML,” or “30 Hours” to “No More Parties In LA” are the theme, and the multiple approaches Kanye has taken in life to that junction.
And it’s some of the most beautiful chaos in Ye’s discography.
3. ‘Late Registration’
Late Registration feels like College Dropout if it trained for a year, hit the lottery, and went Super Saiyan. The two projects share the same number of songs and nearly identical runtimes, but the sophomore album’s sense of scale is absurd in comparison. That being said, rather than hit chasing with this new stardom, the deep cuts are even more emotionally vulnerable and explored. (The album is also home to one of Ye’s most important tracks regarding his eventual personality traits and perception.)
The intro and “Heard ‘Em Say” sound like they would fit in perfectly with College Dropout, but then the triumphant horns of “Touch The Sky” kick the door in. This happens over and over again with different instruments and sounds. From the drums in “Gold Digger” to the full backing of “We Major,” the step-up in production is notable.
But, as mentioned, there’s a palpable depth to the project as well. “Hey Mama” was already poignant, but continues to gain more meaning day by day. And “Addiction,” while initially coming across as a track with a general audience, became more revelatory as Ye’s life woes turned public. All things considered, Late Registration is everything a sophomore album should be.
2. ‘Graduation’
Now, this is the part where some of you will say, “They just picked the most popular albums, of course, Graduation is so high up!” And you’d be incorrect. Graduation sits so high in Ye’s discography because his expanded palate and ear for samples, coupled with his obsession with being the best rapper alive, resulted in the perfect blend of soulful backpack rap and more electronically driven instrumentation. Let’s explain a little deeper.
While College Dropout and Late Registration are the quintessential introspective albums, they weren’t necessarily pushing sounds as far as the genre in its entirety is concerned. They were a challenge to the street rap status quo, sure, but they were also a callback to a time when rap had more of that sound and approach. This, however, couldn’t be further from the truth on Graduation. That mf hit different.
Take “Stronger,” for example. We hear the exaggerated emphasis on synth-heavy progressions in the track before it—“Champion” — but who would have expected Ye to build around Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” from 2001? In his quest for perfection, he even tapped in with Timbaland, who was one of his fiercest competitors on the production side at the time. He really needed to get those kicks just right.
Nothing in the hip-hop space sounded like “Stronger” at the time. He was clearly onto something.
Still not enough? Let’s talk about “Flashing Lights” and “Can’t Tell Me Nothing.” The former is, essentially, a rap track and a dance track going back and forth for 4 minutes. The latter is Ye’s earliest foray into street rap on a solo project, while still being synth-crazy and having Jeezy pull up purely for ad-libs. The creativity was running rampant.
And all of this is before we even get to the bars. “Good Morning,” “I Wonder,” “Everything I Am,” and “Homecoming” are home to great stories and wit, the signature attributes of the first trilogy. All in all, it changed the game and capped off an era as only Ye can.
1. ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’
You knew it was gonna be this. A consensus Top 5 Hip-Hop album of all-time and in a lot of people’s Top 10 across any genre—My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is Ye’s magnum opus. He’s never been more grand or more refined, while still pushing boundaries in ways only he has. In addition, MBDTF’s concept is absolute cinema.
At the peak of his career, various situations (like the whole Taylor Swift thing) created a messy persona, but the media also ran with those aspects of his personality as if they were all he was as a human. After so much success and adoration, which obviously affected him, he felt his relationship with fame had become tumultuous and convoluted. Hence, the Dark Twisted Fantasy was born.
The album personifies fame and celebrity through the woman he’s deeply involved with. Every single track follows this notion: “All Of The Lights” references it as a custody battle, “Runaway” acknowledges his necessity for speaking out on what characteristics he dislikes, “Blame Game” sees her engaging with someone else, but that somebody is just taking in game that Yeezy taught. And it’s more than just the ideas; the execution is nearly flawless.
“POWER” reportedly required 5,000 collective hours of effort from everyone involved. “Devil In A Dress” is home to the best Rick Ross verse ever crafted, and the same goes for Nicki Minaj’s all-timer on “Monster.” “So Appalled” is one of the nastiest posse cuts of the era, and “Lost In The World” into “Who Will Survive In America” tackles fame, fortune, media portrayals of blackness, mental health, and a slew of other things that Ye had, willingly or unwillingly, become the poster child for.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the greatest albums ever made, and stands solid as the best Ye album of all time.
