When not busy geeking out to Pitchfork‘s coverage of all things indietronic, we’re likely debating whether it was Hood or the Notwist who first inspired Radiohead’s post-rock reinvention in 1999. Or maybe it’s something along the lines of whether or not Basic Channel‘s music deserves a genre classification of its own, or the merits of declaring Philip Jeck as the ultimate electro-acoustic composer, or pronouncing L.A.’s Stones Throw to be the most underrated hip-hop label in operation today.
In other words, it’s unlikely that we’d ever get behind a major-label record of any stripe. But here’s some major-label-styled hype for you: it’s only the second week of February, and already the leading contender for 2004’s album of the year has been released. Available today on the racks of all sorts of record stores across the country, in outlets as diverse as Kim’s and Amoeba to FYE and Sam Goody (and likely to sell just as well in each type of these aforementioned shops), Kanye West’s College Dropout has been released on Jay-Z’s Roc-A-Fella imprint, home to such musical all-stars as Beanie Sigel, Memphis Bleek, and, ummm, Samantha Ronson.
This would be considered “staying in the family”, since the 26-year-old West is heretofore best known as the producer of some of Jay-Z’s biggest hits off of 2001’s The Blueprint. Relatively invisible up to this point, he’s also spent the past two years becoming one of pop music’s most likely hit-makers, engineering the hooks and beats for a remix of Britney Spears’ collaboration with Madonna, Ludacris‘ “Stand Up” and Alicia Keys‘ “You Don’t Know My Name”, as well as the definitive summer anthem for 2003, Talib Kweli‘s “Get By”, which I most recently heard played out at a New Year’s Eve party thrown by members of Silverlake’s indie-guitar-and-electronics scenesters.
That means crossover appeal.
