Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.

As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatle’s songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.

So with that, let’s get started.

Kanye Omari West was born on June 8, 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia. After his parents divorced when he was three years old, he moved with his mother to Chicago, Illinois. Kanye demonstrated an affinity for the arts at an early age; he began writing poetry when he was five years old. West started rapping in the third grade and began making musical compositions in the seventh grade, eventually selling them to other artists. After graduating from high school, West received a scholarship to attend Chicago’s American Academy of Art in 1997 and began taking painting classes. He soon realized that his busy class schedule was detrimental to his musical work, and at the age of 20 he dropped out of college to pursue his musical dreams. He started his career as a producer, mainly working with local Chicago artists before eventually getting noticed by Jay-Z in 2000. Kanye revitalized Jay-Z’s career with The Blueprint in 2001 and the critical and financial success of the album generated substantial interest in West as a producer. Despite his success as a producer, West’s true aspiration was to be a rapper. Though he had developed his rapping long before he began producing, it was often a challenge for West to be accepted as a rapper, and he struggled to attain a record deal because he did not portray the rouged image prominent in mainstream hip hop at the time. Desperate to keep West from defecting to another label, Jay-Z signed him to a record deal in June 2002. West spent nearly a year and a half working on his debut album, surviving a near fatal car accident which served as the foundation of the album. However, months before it was set to be released, it leaked onto the internet. Kanye decided to use the opportunity to review and tweak the album, which was then significantly remixed, remastered, and revised before being released in February 2004. A widespread critical and commercial success, it spawned a number one hit (Slow Jamz), top ten (All Falls Down), top eleven (Jesus Walks), and top fifteen (Through the Wire) hits. It would eventually be certified triple platinum in the US, and garnered 10 Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year, and Best Rap Album. At the time, the focal point of West’s production style was the use of sped-up vocal samples from soul records. However, partly because of the acclaim of his debut album, such sampling had been much copied by others and with that overuse, and also because West felt he had become too dependent on the technique, he decided to find a new sound. He began working on his follow-up album in the fall of 2004 and decided to experiment with live string instruments, hiring a famed composer to work collaborate on the album despite the composer never listening to hip-hop before. These live string orchestras served as a focal point on Kanye’s second album, Late Registration, which was released in August 2005. Much like it’s predecessor, the album was met with critical acclaim. It (surprisingly) only had one song chart in the top twenty but that one song did go number one (Gold Digger). The album won two Grammy’s for Best Rap Album and Album of the Year. After spending 2006 touring the world with U2, Kanye felt inspired to compose songs that could operate more efficiently in large arenas. To accomplish this, he incorporated the synthesizer into his production, and experimented with electronic music and influenced by music of the 1980s. The end result of this experiment was his third album Graduation, which was released in September 2007. This became his third album in as many tries to win a Grammy for Best Rap album, as well as get nominated for Album of the Year. Graduation spawned a number one hit (Stronger) and had another song go top ten (Good Life). Within a couple months of each other, Kanye’s mother passed away and his engagement fell apart and as such, he could not convey his emotions through rapping, so he decided to sing using Auto-Tune, which would become a central part of his next effort, 808’s & Heartbreak, which was released in November 2008. While it became the first Kanye album to not have a number one hit, it had songs go number 2 (Love Lockdown), and number 3 (Heartless). After his famous interaction with Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMA’s, Kanye West began arguably the great stretch of any hip hop artist ever. It all started when he retreated to a self-imposed exile in Hawaii towards the end of 2009 and began working non-stop on his fifth album, never sleeping more than 90 minutes at a time during the album’s creation. Kanye took an unprecedented and unheard of approach to promote this album- In the months leading up to the release, he would release free music every Friday from August until the album dropped. He called the promotion GOOD Friday’s. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, an album many consider to be one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time, was released in November 2010. It had three songs in the top 20 (Runaway, Monster, All of the Lights), and won Kanye another Grammy for Best Rap Album. Nine months after MBDTF was released, Kanye “No Days Off” West, released Watch the Throne, a joint album with Jay-Z. It had a song chart number five (Paris), and another go number 12 (Otis). This album was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2012 Grammys, losing to MBDTF. While on the subsequent tour with Jay-Z, Kanye began working on a complication album with his record label. Cruel Summer, which was released in September 2012. It spawned two top 15 hits (Mercy, Clique). He finally took some a couple months off from music before he began working on his sixth solo album in early 2013. During his five months off he managed to fall in love with Kim Kardashian and start a very successful clothing line with Adidas. He released Yeezus in June 2013. The album has been characterized as West’s most experimental and sonically abrasive work and managed to spawn a top fifteen hit (Bound 2). Before you ask, yes it was nominated for Best Rap Album at the Grammys. After this album, he took an actual break from music, spending 2014 and a bulk of 2015 working on his Adidas line and being a father, but that didn’t stop him from releasing a couple top twenty songs in 2015 (FourFiveSeconds, All Day). In late 2015, GOOD Friday’s made a return. The build up was for his seventh album, The Life of Pablo which was released in February 2016. It was nominated for five Grammys, including Best Rap Album. Because Kanye was a GOOD friend and wanted to support Jay-Z’s streaming service by only making the album available through Tidal, it resulted in not having a single song chart in the top 20. This is when Kanye started to fall off his rocker a little bit; he spent 2017 in Wyoming producing and recording Ye, only to scrap the entire thing and create an entirely new album two weeks before its release in June 2018. Kanye has done enough to earn the benefit of the doubt to change his sound on a dime and this album was probably the first time it didn’t work. It spawned a top ten (Yikes) and top eleven hit (All Mine). A couple months later, he released a collaborative album with Kid Cudi titled Kids See Ghosts. 2019 saw Kanye decide to dabble in Christian hip hop, and he would perform Sunday Service’s in the months leading up to his ninth album, Jesus is King in October 2019. I’ll be honest- I wasn’t a fan, it kinda stunk in my opinion. And that is where we are currently, I really hope Kanye moves on from this Christian thing soon, otherwise we’re going to see a headline that he was arrested for molesting children.

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I took a long time talking about Kanye’s career because despite of him being fucking crazy now; I don’t want people to lose sight of how good he was. Because of this, we are ranking the 10 best Kanye songs instead of the usual 5. I went back and forth on whether or not I should include Kanye’s Best Features, and then I figured if I have to think about it, I probably should just go ahead and do it.

5. Erase Me (with Kid Cudi)

4. Run This Town (with Jay-Z & Rihanna)

3. Knock You Down (with Ne-Yo & Keri Hilson)

2. American Boy (with Estelle)

1. Put On (with Jeezy)

Now onto the best Kanye songs

Toughest Omission: Kanye has too many hits to just put one song down for Toughest Omission. Artists like this are why I have the ‘It must hit at least number 20 on the Billboard chart to be eligible for the ranking’ rule- it would be IMPOSSIBLE to put this ranking together without it. We live in a society, there need to be rules in place, otherwise this ranking would drive me insane.

10. All of the Lights: The production on this song is unmatched. Sure the lyrics and the message are cliche but the instruments, the beat, and the interlude. My word. That transition from the interlude into the actual song touches my soul.

9. Good Life (ft. T-Pain): The PYT sample alone gets this song in the top 10. It is tremendous. When this song came out, I always pictured my 20s would be spent living the ‘Good Life’ Kanye and T-Pain spoke of, but boy was I was dumb to be that optimistic as a kid.

8. Heartless: I wish that this song was around when I was in first grade and my girlfriend broke up with me for the faster kid.

7. Paris (With Jay-Z): My employer is fully aware that I have this blog. Since I love my job, I am not writing the first half of this song’s title. If I had a time machine, seeing Jay-Z and Kanye perform this song live 10 times in a single concert would be at the top of the list, slightly above investing in Netflix in 2004 and slightly below, killing Baby Hitler.

6. Through the Wire: The fact that Kanye record an entire song with his jaw wired shut and made it a hit is why he’s an all-time great. I used to put my retainer in and sing over it to sound like him. And yes, before you ask- 12-year-old Vinnie was a fucking loser.

5. All Falls Down: Anyone that knows me knows I love puns. So this section of the blog will be used solely to recognize Kanye’s greatest rap lyric of all time. Couldn’t afford a car so she named her daughter Alexis. *Chef’s Kiss* Perfect.

4. Stronger: Is this a cliche pick to have this high on the list? Maybe. Is it the correct call? Yes. This song is a fucking banger, plain and simple. It can get me hype about anything. Like I could be on my way to get a root canal or something and this song would make me excited about it.

3. Gold Digger (ft. Jaime Foxx): Nothing takes me back to my youth like picturing 12-year-old Vinnie screaming ‘WE WANT PRE-NUP” even though I did not understand what a prenuptial agreement was. Also, this song proved to me that Kanye is a prophet- when he said, “But I’m looking for the one, have you seen her? My psychic told me she’ll have an ass like Serena, Trina, Jennifer Lopez. Four kids and I gotta take all they bad asses to ShowBiz? He legit predicted his life 10 years before it happened. Legend.

2. Jesus Walks: Was it hypocritical for me to wish that Kanye would move on from the Christian thing and then put this song number 2 on his list of best songs? No, because this song is a masterpiece. This song is genuine, Jesus is King seems like a gimmick.

1. Runaway (ft. Pusha T): Kanye may always find- always find something wrong, but he didn’t do anything wrong with this song. The moment he released this is the moment music peaked.

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This blog is long enough so I am going to end it with some words of wisdom from the man himself.

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Your Turn

If you had a blog and were to rank every Kanye West song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?

Title	Year	Peak chart positions	Album
Through the Wire	2003	15	The College Dropout
All Falls Down	2004	7	The College Dropout
Slow Jamz (ft. Twista & Jaime Foxx)	2004	1	The College Dropout
Jesus Walks	2004	11	The College Dropout
Gold Digger (ft. Jaime Foxx)	2005	1	Late Registration
Stronger	2007	1	Graduation
Good Life (ft. T-Pain)	2007	7	Graduation
Love Lockdown	2008	2	808’s & Heartbreaks
Heartless	2008	3	808’s & Heartbreaks
Runaway (ft. Pusha T)	2010	12	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Monster (ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, & Nicki Minaj)	2010	18	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
All of the Lights	2010	18	My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Otis (with Jay-Z)	2011	12	Watch the Throne
Paris (with Jay-Z)	2011	5	Watch the Throne
Mercy (ft. Pusha T, Big Sean, & 2 Chainz)	2012	13	Cruel Summer
Clique (ft. Jay-Z & Big Sean)	2012	12	Cruel Summer
Bound 2	2013	15	Yeezus
FourFiveSeconds (with Rihanna and Paul McCartney)	2015	4	N/A
All Day (featuring Theophilus London, Allan Kingdom and Paul McCartney)	2015	15	N/A
Yikes	2018	8	Ye
All Mine	2018	11	Ye
Follow God	2019	7	Jesus is King
Closed on Sunday	2019	17	Jesus is King