Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Kanye West's "Celebration"

Celebration from Late Registration represents Kanye West at his absolute best.

The beat opens with squeaky synthesizers over a sturdy drum beat. Soon, a luscious string section comes in, followed by a boisterous low synth. When Kanye comes in with the brilliantly simple chorus, his voice is sheer joy: "Yea, you know what this is... It's a celebration bitches!"

As the song proceeds, Kanye introduces a sped-up background chorus as well as a trombone countermelody, and continues to take advantage of the beautiful string section at his disposal. He sings, he raps, he whoops, he laughs - all of it with a sense of wonder, excitement, and effervescence. At one point he hypothetically tells his future child about the origins of his conception - it's pretty messed up, to be honest - but does it a flippancy and casualness that are utterly disarming.

Celebration represents Kanye at a more innocent moment in his career. Before fame, before family, before everything that now falls into the meta-being that is "Kanye", there were songs like this - living, breathing embodiments of Kanye's joy in making music.

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