The No. 1 spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 genuinely awful albums by brilliant artists goes to rapper and fashion designer Kanye West for his 2018 album Ye, which the publication’s writers claimed “marked the beginning of the most disastrous artistic and personal collapse in the history of popular music.”
“Clocking in at a mere 23 minutes, the chaotic, half-baked album was cut in Wyoming right around the time he told TMZ that slavery was a ‘choice’ and started wearing a MAGA hat in public,” Rolling Stone wrote.
Just before the album’s release, the controversy surrounding his remarks about slavery prompted him to frantically rewrite many of the ye lyrics, which explains screeds like “Just imagine if they caught me on a wild day/ Now I’m on 50 blogs gettin’ 50 calls/ My wife callin’, screamin’, say, “We ’bout to lose it all.'”
“The Kanye scandals of 2018 seem almost quaint in comparison to his recent difficulties, but he’s never made music less urgent than this,” the magazine said.
The Rolling Stones authors dubbed Lil Wayne’s rock-influenced 2010 album Rebirth, which debuted at No. 24, as the creation of a “vocally challenged talent stranded in limbo.” Crown Royal, a 2001 release by RUN DMC, debuted at No. 27, with RS referring to it as “a gigantic bomb.”
The Idelwild soundtrack by OutKast was likewise ranked No. 46; they described it as the work of a “creatively fatigued team” that was “desperate to go their separate ways.”
Ye was included on the list, however it was revealed in 2021 that the contentious rapper had still amassed more than a billion Spotify streams.
The inclusion of Kanye on the list also coincides with reports that a forthcoming BBC series with the working title We Need to Talk About Kanye will focus on the 49-year-most old’s recent string of antisemitic remarks.
The new movie debuts as Kanye prepares to run for president once more in 2024.
