all falls down/jësūs walks/thru thë wirë

gold digger

stronger

heartless

power/all of the lights

End of Transmission

Having the talent to retain your musical identity while simultaneously venturing into a new genre with different sounds

Few artist can do this. I think Frank also has this ability.

While he retained commercial viability overall, his early commercial viability was cut in half because of 808s. It hasn’t truly recovered since

Different time, people were still actively going out and buying discs. Not to mention, both of those albums were following up gargantuan releases in Graduation & Dark Fantasy.

It’s been about 6 months since his last hit

'notable hit' Not some charted high for one-week hit or was kinda sorta a known hit.

That’s not true. It sold as well as CD, MBDTF, Yeezus, and what TLOP would’ve sold. You hit a commercial peak and that was his LR and Grad era.

JIK also did fairly well. I think his fan base just trust his artistic expression more than most.

Eh Off the Grid/Hurricane or whatever got traction off Donda I wouldn’t consider “hits”

By having a single(s) that are still palatable to the mainstream

Only Yeezus is the only one that doesnt have a song that is mainstream single acceptable

Everything else including 808s, JIK & Ye do while the more "out there" songs are album cuts

Why not? People were screaming that s*** at Coachella and whatever festival Future was doing that Kanye showed up at

Yep

Lol it’s crazy that now people can’t imagine hits without trap beats and formulaic s***

But 808s and Heartbreaks worked because he had just come off of 3 albums with bonafide mid 2000’s music videos still come on television HITS lol. love lockdown was iffy but heartless was. Hit

Something different + a real budget and connections = you’re gonna win

Why do yall just get on here and say s*** that’s objectively false lol

Huh? If anything that’s where it exploded. Most people outside of immediate hip hop culture became a Ye fan somewhere in 808’s/MBDTF/WTT/Yeezus and then the super late niggas (unless you’re young) is TLOP and beyond

So commercial viabiltiy means how many times you get a top 10 hit?

Which you are right about him losing it a bit but the way you presented it is dumb

Also saying mainstream Ye is irrelevant is just grossly false

Y’all really just type away

he has 51 million monthly spotify listeners.

Praise god

He did lose commercial viability with 808s you could argue it damaged him the harshest of any controversy or album.

He went from almost a million first week to almost less then his debuts first week and after 808s he never recovered.

He's held strong tho since then

I’m not keen on including his debut in this to argue for his standard numbers. Especially when LR did so well because it was the first album after his first impression on the public

LR and Grad do huge numbers, then the controversial album that everyone shunned him for does half their numbers? 808s created a new norm, CD has nothing to do with that

Donda had a number 6 hit and Off the grid peaked at 11 just outside Hell even Follow God off his gospel al um hit the top 10

I love it was pretty big

If Ye wanted to make a hit song again, I think he could. Seems he’s just focused on other ventures right now