Originally Posted by OneAndrewWest (Post 115620192)

/shrug. I knew after 2 with deja as well as TTTYG, and all other "classic" type records. I don't know, do you really need to listen to an album 20 times to know it's special?

Originally Posted by thesafeword (Post 115621332)

hurry up we're dreaming is basically a french dude yelling over some synths on a late night talk show late night with jimmy fallon every week night 12:35 am eastern on nbc follow him on twitter @jimmyfallon #newthanksgivingsongs

Originally Posted by Drew Beringer (Post 115616772)

this is a fantastic debate and I'm excited for it to play out. For the record, I think all 3 of those records are classics, all 3 are so different and show how versatile West is. College Dropout is more a pure hip hop classic based on the production, the album's flow, and the lyrical content. Late Registration had more of Kanye tapping into that pop sound (not in the sense of something like Justin Beiber or the like, but in the fact he worked with Jon Brion on some it and whatnot; a lot of strings a lot of baroque influence, etc.). MBDTF is more of the man going deep inside his psyche, matching production with the content - being grandiose as well as vulnerable. It's like a rock opera, it's his The Wall or Sgt Pepper's, etc.

I personally rank MBDTF as tops, but I can see and understand the arguments made for his first two albums.

Originally Posted by Adam Pfleider (Post 115613062)

I just got done reading a really great article by Pitchfork columnist Andrew Nosnitsky here. In Nosnitsky's column, he focuses his examples of "classic" albums around the genre of hip-hop and the critical acclaim of Kendrick Lamar's new album good kid, m.A.A.d city. He makes a a lot of valued points on how critics will deem an album a classic with only a few weeks to a month of listening behind it. Where's the time? Where's the album's retrospect in history? For that matter, he also points out the difference in an artist going into the studio to write an album with no real intentions versus the tunnel-vision of making an album for the purpose of having a legacy.

So what makes an album a "classic" or contain "legacy" in the modern age of a saturated musical market. I'm not speaking in terms of hip-hop or this "scene" or your "scene" or radio country or whatever. I'm speaking in terms of any album in any genre. What about some of your personal "classic" records makes them a classic in your eyes? What was the last record you heard in the last five years, two years or year that made you say to yourself, "This is going to have staying power," after a couple of listens? Did it end up holding up? What records are you blown away by ten, twenty, thirty years ago that didn't cement a long-term legacy? What albums are deemed classics that you don't understand their value or worth today?

Hit the replies. I think we can have a great late afternoon discussion.

Originally Posted by xHoodieWeather (Post 115622082)

I think a classic is an album that can affect people that discover it years later the same way it would someone on its release date. Deja is almost 10 and it still floors new generations on first listens and it tends to stick with plenty of generations. The fact that TAYF turned 10 and the shows drew young and older kids show that. If an album can reach across multiple "generations" of music listeners and carry on as they grow up it is a classic in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Dubui_209 (Post 115622242)

A lot of ppl will disagree, but a recent one that should be considered a classic is Radiosurgery by NFG. There's something about that album where I listen to it and think, this is how pop punk should sound.

Originally Posted by Holly HoX! (Post 115615342)

The Low End Theory

Originally Posted by ChaseTx (Post 115616622)

In regards to Kanye, his classics are the first 2. MBDTF doesn't come close.