I agree that Yeezus is overlooked, it's far and away my favorite Kanye album, but claiming that Bound 2 is its best song implies a rejection stylistic choices made on nearly every other track. On an album full of dark industrial and experimental electronica backing tracks and gritty dissonant production, Bound 2 is a slick hip hop ballad that sounds like it's off another record.

sick, not siqq.

omg -- perhaps Mueller'll pull a James Comey 'October Surprise!'
in exchange for Kavanaughtiest Maximus's catbird seat....

DO the Dems have it in 'em?
CAN they play ball with McMitch?
(WILL they ever find Bottom?!)

Sorry to nitpick on style, but some of the very talented writers at the Stranger (like Lester and Nathalie) have taken to incorrectly connecting two sentences with a comma (see the second sentence-plus in this post). Note that the more senior writers (Charles, Dan) never do this. They either end the sentence with a period and start a new one, or they use a semicolon to connect independent clauses. This bit of professional polish can’t make you a great writer, but it certainly doesn’t hurt. Thanks for listening.

@1 Thank you for the comment, and I actually agree with you wave_collapse. It is incorrect to describe Bound 2 as the best song off of Yeezus. How can you say Bound 2 is "better" than "On Sight" or "New Slaves" or "Hold My Liquor" or "Blood On The Leaves"? You can't. I've updated the post accordingly.

However, I will argue that Bound 2 does sound like a Yeezus song and is in fact the natural culmination of Ye's artistic pursuit on the album. Like you said, it lacks the gritty strangness that you find earlier in the album and is instead nonstop harmonious hooks. It does sound like a club banger. But it is still full of the bi-polar cutting that is a core motif of Yeezus. Listen to how he switches back and forth between samples with no regard for transitions. He does that throughout the album, only on Bound 2 instead of cutting between harmony and cacophony he's going back and forth between club banging choruses. It's still manic, it's just a manic positivity. After 45 minutes of ups and downs it's now pure, unnatural elation. It is also full of the deadpan brilliance that he puts in lyrics throughout the album. "How you gunna be mad on vacation?"

While I'm here, @4 I think you're probably right.

There is a rather long list of talented artists who are ahead on Kanye in the line for Greatest Hip-Hop artist. Hell, we have several of them in Seattle.

@5 Great points. I would agree that Bound 2's construction and lyrics follow the ethos of the album despite its being stylistically very distinct. As you pointed out, the stark contrast created by ending in such a dramatically more harmonious and upbeat way further emphasizes the album's erratic unpredictable nature. To me at least, however, these elements of Bound 2 only standout in the context of Yeezus, and taken alone I don't feel it is an fitting representation of the work as a whole. This is why I took issue with its being presented as "the best song", but glad to see we are probably largely in agreement. Thanks for the response.