Songoftheday 8/6/24 -I drink a Boost for breakfast an Ensure for dessert, somebody ordered pancakes I just sip the sizzurp...

 

 

"Through The Wire" - Kanye West

from the album The College Dropout (2004)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #15 (five weeks)

Weeks in the Top-40: 15

 

Ed. Note: It's so disheartening to be objective for the promising start of a career that's become a joke at this point, but it is what it is. 

 

Today's song comes from Kanye West, who was born in Atlanta but grew up in Chicago with his divorced mother Donda, who was a professsor. Leaving college to pursue a music career (which would inspire his debut album's title), West first was creating tracks for other acts as his own rap career stuttered at first. Coming under the wing of producer Ernest "No I.D." Wilson, West would first get recognized by helping to produce rap icon Jay-Z's seminal The Blueprint album in 2001, then with the sequel The Blueprint 2, which included Jay's duet with future wife Beyonce Knowles on "Bonnie & Clyde '03", which Kanye produced. He also produced Alicia Keys' "You Don't Know My Name", which went top ten on Billboard's Hot 100 and cemented Keys' standing off her debut success. With this new clout, Kanye was properly signed to Jay-Z's label Roc-A-Fella Records on Def Jam as a solo artist.

During the recording of his debut album The College Dropout in 2002, West was involved in an auto accident that messed up his mouth, requiring his jaw to be wired to realign and heal. It was then that West was moved to write, produce, and record what would be his debut single "Through The Wire". The track used a "chipmunked" sample of Chaka Khan's quiet storm soul nugget "Through The Fire", which reached the top 20 on both the R&B and Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") charts in Billboard magazine, but stalled down at #60 on the all-genre Hot 100 in 1985 (it deserved much better). In the process, Kanye forfeited all writing royalties not to Chaka, but to the song's writers David Foster, Tom Keane, and Cynthia Weil. The lyrics lay out the story behind West's injury, as well as his strive for success, under the ebullient Khan sample which serves to elevate the heavy material. There is flashes of wit, especially in lines like "They thought I was burnt up like Pepsi did Michael" and "Story on MTV and I ain't trying to make a band". But there's also a confession on how hard it was to get clout in the rap world without being "gangster", with the verse

What if somebody from the Chi that was ill
Got a deal on the hottest rap label around?
But he wasn't talking 'bout coke and birds it was more like spoken word
Except he's really putting it down

 

There's no "true" chorus, but rather the repetitive sample, but that doesn't detract as the plot is enthralling as it is. The music video was just a "scrapbook" of his story to try to introduce himself to the mainstream. The single was released in September of 2003, with follow-up "Slow Jamz", which really  was a track from fast-paced rapper Twista which was placed on both albums, coming out that November. But while "Slow Jamz" rapidly climbed the charts, reaching the top-40 on Billboard's Hot 100 first, "Through The Wire" slowly but surely gained fans, with both songs ending up peaking at the same time, but not cannibalizing each other's success... 

"Through The Wire" became West second big hit, and first as a lead artist, in February of 2004, while climbing to #8 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart and #4 on the Rap Singles list. On the radio, the song peaked at #32 on the Mainstream Top-40 chart, #4 on the Mainstream R&B airplay list, and #10 on the dance/R&B-oriented Rhythmic format. Internationally, the single went to #9 in the United Kingdom, and reached the top-40 in Denmark (#11), new Zealand (#16), the Netherlands (#23), Ireland (#24), and Sweden (#27). The College Dropout album, released in February as the both singles were cresting, topped the R&B Albums chart for three weeks and spent three weeks at #2 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, going on to sell over four million copies. At the Grammy Awards in 2005, "Through The Wire" was nominated for Best Rap Solo Performance, losing to Jay-Z for "99 Problems". The College Dropout album won for Best Rap Album, and was nominated for Album Of The Year, which went to Ray Charles' posthumous ringer for Genius Loves Company. West was also up for Best New Artist, which pop band Maroon 5 took home. 

Kanye and the College Dropout album will be back to the series.

(9/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

West brought on a violin and future star John Legend for his appearance on the Carson Daly Tonight show...

And lastly, in concert...

Up tomorrow: Country neo-traditional legend has some nostalgia.