I actually really dug bound 2, like dj said it's a throwback but not in the conventional sense, more in the spirit of the album, which was minimal and gritty and kinda obnoxious and also pretty dumb. I like it also because it eases off of the many pretensions he set up throughout the album, which may be why it contradicts god like status or whatever. Besides if you're still looking for conceptual coherence in a Kanye album you're barking up the wrong tree.

I left out "in awhile".

"Devil in a New Dress" from MBDTF has a sorta quasi-soul sample, that's about it. Although, I've read somewhere that his next record will contain mostly soul samples, but keeping the gritty nihilism "Yeezus" is great for. I'm hoping it'll be a decent balance between early Kanye and post 808's.

Well its true. Kanye has not gotten over her death. It was really sad because him and his mother was close. I just think his music and personality went down after she passed.

I really really liked Bound 2 until I set it as my alarm in the morning, now I physically can't listen to it. Honestly believe I am a god is one of ye's worst songs ever.

Anyway I've been trying to rank his albums from best to worst for years, and have finally come up with an order that let's me sleep at night:
mbdtf > college dropout > graduation > yeezus > late registration > 808s
This isn't to say they aren't all essentially masterpieces.

also just throwing this out there - monster is garbage sans nicki and mbdtf would be a 10/10 without it.

damn straight. nicki's verse is the best on the whole album imo. by contrast jay-z's is probably the worst. just dreadful

Aye, but to my mind the purpose of Monster was to showcase the upcoming Minaj.
The same way Lil Wayne did it for Drake, or Dr Dre did for Eminem.

So it's not really a case of saying if that verse wasn't on the track, it'd be different because I believe the track exists for the purpose of displaying Minaj and exhibiting her to a larger audience than she knew at the time of recording.

i dont doubt that. still doesnt mean you have to have jay-z read a list of halloween costumes he wore as a kid to us tho

unless youre saying the rest was intentionally bad to bump up nicki?? which doesnt really fit kanye's persona and i mean why would anyone do that

Naa, that's not what I'm saying, but it's no surprise to me that Minaj stood out. It was a pretty standard verse from West and let's be honest, Jay hasn't blown anyone away with a verse in years. It's not surprising to me that people consider their contributions lackluster.

Where's the motivation for Jay to come on and try and blow the other contributors away? He doesn't need to. He can phone it in, and he's been doing so for years. He's still got enough name value that by merely having him on the track it gains credibility. When you sign Jay up to do a verse in this day and age you're signing up for Jay-Z, the rap icon, the big name, as opposed to paying for a quality verse.

As far as Kanye's verse on that track, I don't think it stands out as emphatically worse than any other of his verses on the album. Not his strongest offering by a long way but by no means his worst.

ahh fair enough and yeah i pretty much agree with what youre saying. Especially the Kanye verse. It's not bad really, but it's just kind of there.

one of my friends thinks nickis is the worst verse and im always like wtf dude youre insane. glad people actually agree with me haha. thats part of the reason im excited for her to come out with her "hip hop roots" album. Its got serious potential