title: Black Mass (film)

text: Later in January 2014, Scott Cooper was attached to re-write and direct the film. On February 27, 2014, Warner Bros. picked up the film's worldwide distribution rights, eyeing an October 2015 release, and the studio co-financed the film with Cross Creek.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Johnny Depp's involvement with "Black Mass" dates back to February 2013, when he was attached to star in the film, while Barry Levinson was still slated to direct and principal photography was scheduled to begin in May 2013. Depp briefly exited the project shortly after its sale at the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival, because of a salary dispute with Cross Creek Pictures. He later rejoined at around the same time Scott Cooper was attached to replace Levinson as director, and his signing for the film was made official in February 2014. Jesse Plemons and Juno Temple joined the cast to play as Kevin Weeks (a cohort of Bulger) and Deborah Hussey, one of Bulger's victims, respectively, around April 2014. Plemons reportedly prepared for his role by hiring a dialect coach and studying video of the actual Kevin Weeks.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Benedict Cumberbatch replaced Guy Pearce as William "Billy" Bulger on May 22, 2014. On June 10, it was announced that Jeremy Strong would co-star in the film. On June 14, James Russo joined the cast of the film to play Scott Garriola, one of the FBI agents who took down Bulger. On June 26, Kevin Bacon was added to the cast to play Charles McGuire, the FBI Special Agent in charge of the Boston field office and John Connolly's boss. On July 1, David Harbour was added to the cast of the film to star as John Morris, a corrupt FBI agent along with Connolly.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: The roles of Connolly – who was Whitey Bulger's FBI handler – and his first wife Marianne, were filled by Joel Edgerton and Julianne Nicholson, respectively. Cooper chose Nicholson for the part after her performance as Sally in Sam Shepard's off-Broadway play "Heartless" (before Claire van der Boom succeeded her for the play's two-week extension). Edgerton developed his portrayal of Connolly by studying past footage of the FBI agent before his imprisonment, some of which include his appearances on talk shows and in courtrooms. In an interview with "The Wall Street Journal", Edgerton stated that he declined trying to meet with the actual Connolly, reasoning that Connolly "has one version of events and the film has a different version". Edgerton originally dropped out of the project when Depp agreed to return, and Tom Hardy was in early talks for the role. However, Edgerton returned in the role.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: In preparing for his role, Depp similarly studied surveillance and police audio footage involving Bulger. The actor was adamant in depicting the Boston gang leader's criminal and personal life as would be ultimately portrayed in the film. To achieve that, Depp attempted to meet with Bulger himself, but was declined a meeting and instead consulted Jay Carney, Bulger's attorney. Carney appeared on set a few times, to provide feedback on Depp's performance.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Principal photography commenced on May 19, 2014, in Boston; actors were seen filming scenes in Dorchester. On May 23, some shots were also filmed at Polish American Club (altered to recreate West Broadway's Triple O's Lounge, Whitey's infamous South Boston hangout), on Cambridge Street in Cambridge. On May 27, filming was taking place in East Boston, where Johnny Depp and Jesse Plemons were seen together on the set. Next day on May 28, Joel Edgerton was seen during filming of a scene on Silver Street in South Boston. On June 4, Depp was spotted in Lynn during a recreation of the 1982 murders of Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue by Bulger. On June 6–7, Depp was seen filming scenes at Copley Square in Boston.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On June 9, Depp's 51st birthday, he was filming scenes on location in Quincy, where actress Dakota Johnson was in Back Bay, playing Whitey Bulger's longtime former girlfriend, Lindsey Cyr. On June 11, shooting was underway in Lynn, where the crew was filming scenes in which Bulger and Stephen Flemmi pick up a prostitute named Deborah Hussey (played by Juno Temple) from the police station. Temple was seen on the set. On June 16, Depp and Plemons were spotted on the set of the film in South Boston.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On June 20, news posted some photos from the set of the film, which features classic cars from the film set in South Boston. On June 23, Cumberbatch and Depp were spotted during a re-creation of Saint Patrick's Day parade scenes in Lynn. On June 24, scenes were shot at the Harvard Club in Boston. On June 26, Cumberbatch was spotted with crew while filming around Ashmont Grill in Dorchester. On June 29, the pavement outside South Boston High School had graffiti readings of ""Stop Forced Busing"" and ""Press Print the Truth.""


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On July 2, Depp and Cumberbatch were together filming some scenes in Boston. On July 7–8, filming was set to take place on Gilson Road in Quincy. A four-story building on 6 Gilson Road was transformed to resemble the Princess Eugenia apartments in Santa Monica, California, where FBI agents arrested Bulger on June 22, 2011. Arrest scenes were filmed there on July 7 and 8, and Sienna Miller was spotted dressed as Catherine Greig. From July 8–10, scenes were filmed on Revere Beach, so that a portion of Revere Beach remained closed. Between July 11–12, Revere Beach Boulevard remained closed for shooting. Revere Beach was transformed into Miami Beach, Florida, as live palm trees had been planted in the sand and a pizza restaurant was transformed into a Cuban cafe on Revere Beach Boulevard across the street from Beach. Depp as Whitey Bulger and Miller as Catherine Greig were spotted on the "Black Mass" set on the Revere Beach on July 10, 2014.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On July 15, Cumberbatch wrapped filming for his part in Boston. On July 21, Depp filmed some scenes at the former Anthony's Hawthorne restaurant, located at Oxford Street and Central Avenue in Lynn, which wrapped up filming for his role.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: In July, director Cooper told "The Boston Globe" that filming had to take place for two more weeks in Boston, focusing on the FBI's role in the Bulger story. On July 25, Kevin Bacon was in Boston, filming some remaining scenes for the film. According to "The Boston Globe", filming for "Black Mass" wrapped up on August 1, 2014, in Boston.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Sienna Miller was cast and filmed scenes as Catherine Greig, Bulger's companion while a fugitive, but her scenes ended up getting cut from the film due to "narrative choices". Erica McDermott was cast as Mary Bulger, wife of Billy Bulger, but the majority of her scenes were cut out.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On June 30, 2014, Warner Bros. set the film for a September 18, 2015 worldwide release. It was selected to be shown in the "Fuori Concorso" section of the Venice Film Festival. It was also shown at the Telluride Film Festival the next day, and in the Special Presentation section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On April 23, 2015, the first trailer for the film was released, followed by a second trailer on May 22. A third trailer was released on July 30.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: "Black Mass" grossed $62.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $37.2 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $99.8 million, against a production budget of $53 million.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: In its opening weekend, the film was projected to earn around $26 million from 3,188 theaters. It grossed $8.8 million on its first day, including $1.4 million from its early Thursday showings. It ended up debuting to $22.6 million, finishing second at the box office behind fellow newcomer "" ($30.3 million). It dropped 51% in its second weekend, making $11 million and finishing 5th.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 73% based on 290 reviews and an average rating of 6.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Black Mass" spins a gripping yarn out of its fact-based story – and leaves audiences with one of Johnny Depp's most compelling performances in years." On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 68 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Depp's portrayal of Bulger received critical acclaim with many calling it a return to form. Critics from "The Hollywood Reporter", "Variety", and "TheWrap" called it one of his best performances to date. "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy, in addition to praising the film, called Depp's performance "fully convincing and frightening", saying it is "very welcome at this point in his career and one of his best."


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Similarly, "Indie Wire"s Eric Kohn praised the cast and highlighted Depp's performance and Cooper's directorial efforts to depict "the haunting legacy of Bulger's criminal deeds, and the lingering sense that no justice can erase their impact." Admiring "Black Mass" as an "elegantly understated crime drama", "Variety"s Scott Foundas positively compared Depp's performance in the film to his earlier roles with Tim Burton.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: "TheWrap"s Alonso Duralde praised Depp's performance, but was less positive towards the film's pacing and short onscreen appearances of some supporting characters. BBC Culture's Nicolas Barber found some of the subplots to be unnecessary (specifically mentioning Benedict Cumberbatch as Billy Bulger), and argued that "the film is never bad, but, given the gob-smacking true story, it's disappointing that it's not great". In a negative review, CraveOnline's Fred Topel labeled "Black Mass" as a "black mess". He criticized the screenwriting and argued that the film borrows too heavily from "Goodfellas", writing: "...it's clear that the filmmakers wanted to turn this into "Goodfellas" and tried to shoehorn this story into a similar kind of seductive, funny, shocking gangster tale. ...Several scenes seem to want to be like the 'how am I funny?' scene in "Goodfellas", but it's blatant".


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Whitey Bulger himself disapproved of the film and refused to see it; his associate Kevin Weeks, while admitting the killings took place, otherwise called the movie "pure fiction", comprehensively disputing most of the film's depiction of events. Most crucially he also disavowed the characterisations of the key figures:


title: Black Mass (film)

text: The only resemblance to Whitey's character was the hairline. [...] The mannerisms — the way that Whitey talked to us — he never swore at us. In all the years I was with that man, he never swore at me once. We never yelled at each other. [...] The language is all wrong [...] and Whitey never would've berated Stevie, either. Stevie was a psychopath. Stevie would've killed him. [...] Stevie wasn't all sympathetic, mourning, and sorrowful like he is in the movie. Stevie enjoyed murder.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Weeks also disagrees completely with his portrayal in the film, for instance, the suggestion the loss of his son had any impact on his behavior, or that Bulger ever once discussed business at home or with his brother.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: Lindsay Kimble of "People" believed Depp deserved an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Bulger and was surprised when his name was left off the list of nominees.


title: Black Mass (film)

text: The soundtrack, written and composed by Tom Holkenborg, was released on September 11, 2015, at WaterTower Music.


title: Ghost Doctor

text: Ghost Doctor ( is a 2022 South Korean television series directed by Boo Seong-cheol and starring Rain, Kim Bum, Uee, and Son Na-eun. The series revolves around two doctors from extreme backgrounds and skills merging into one person. It aired from January 3 to February 22, 2022, on tvN's Mondays and Tuesdays at 22:30 (KST) time slot for 16 episodes. It is available for streaming on TVING, iQiyi, and Netflix.


title: Ghost Doctor

text: The series revolves around two doctors from extreme backgrounds, who have complete opposite personalities and medical skills: Cha Young-min (Rain) is a genius doctor and a high-skilled cardiothoracic surgeon, but is arrogant and selfish. Go Seung-tak (Kim-Bum), who although possesses excellent medical knowledge, is hindered by his fear of blood. One day, Young Min gets involved in an unexpected case, and due to this, his spirit possesses Seung-tak's body.


title: Ghost Doctor

text: On March 17, 2021 it was reported that Rain will make a comeback with TV series "Ghost Doctor", directed by Bu Seong-cheol, written by Kim Seon-sun, and produced by Bone Factory. He last appeared in 2019 series "Welcome 2 Life". The cast lineup was confirmed on November 8, 2021. On November 2, Son Na-eun posted a photo from the filming site.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Graduation is the third studio album by American rapper and producer Kanye West, released on September 11, 2007, through Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions took place between 2005 and 2007 at several studios in New York and Los Angeles. It was primarily produced by West himself, with contributions from various other producers, including DJ Toomp. The album also features guest appearances from recording artists such as Dwele, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, Mos Def, DJ Premier, and Chris Martin. The cover art and its interior artwork were designed by Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Inspired by stadium tours, house-music and indie rock, "Graduation" marked a departure from the ornate, soul-based sound of West's previous releases as he musically progressed to more anthemic compositions. West incorporated layered synthesizers and dabbled with electronics while sampling from various music genres and altering his approach to rapping. He conveys an ambivalent outlook on his newfound fame and media scrutiny alongside providing inspirational messages of triumph directed at listeners. The album prematurely concludes the education theme of West's first two studio albums, "The College Dropout" (2004) and "Late Registration" (2005), as his aborted "Good Ass Job" album would have concluded the concept album's themes as a tetralogy instead of a trilogy as it ended up being.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200, selling over 957,000 copies in the first week of sales. It has since sold over 5 million copies in the United States and been certified quintuple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Five accompanying singles were released, including the international hits "Stronger", "Good Life" and "Homecoming", with the former of the three topping the US "Billboard" Hot 100. The album received widely positive reviews from music critics, with several of them praising the production, and earned West his third Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, as well as his third nomination for Album of the Year. It was named as one of the best albums of 2007 by multiple publications, including "Rolling Stone" and "USA Today", while also listed among numerous decade-end lists and later named to the lists of "Rolling Stone" 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and "NME" 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Due to a production error, an icon of the Rascal Flatts album Still Feels Good is contained on the first printing of CDs released. Accordingly, first editions can be recognized by the icon appearing if the disc is inserted into a computer.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The coinciding release dates between "Graduation" and fellow American rapper 50 Cent's "Curtis" generated much publicity over the idea of a sales competition, resulting in record-breaking sales performances by both albums. The success of the former and the outcome of its competition with the latter marked the end of the dominance of gangsta rap in mainstream hip-hop. This is credited with paving the way for other hip-hop artists who did not conform to gangster conventions to find commercial acceptance.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" is the third installment of West's planned tetralogy of education-themed studio albums, which West subsequently later deviated from due to the events surrounding the conception of his fourth studio album, "808s & Heartbreak" (2008). The album demonstrates yet another distinctive progression in West's musical style and approach to production. After spending the previous year touring the world with Irish rock band U2 on their Vertigo Tour, West became inspired by watching Bono open the stadium tours every night to incredible ovations and sought out to compose anthemic rap songs that could operate more efficiently in large stadiums and arenas. In West's attempt to accomplish this "stadium-status" endeavor, West incorporated layered electronic synthesizers into his hip-hop production, which also finds him utilizing slower tempos, being influenced by the music of the 1980s, and experimenting with electronic music. West was particularly influenced by house music, a subgenre of electronic dance music that first originated in his hometown of Chicago, Illinois in the early 1980s. West has stated that growing up, he would listen to hip-hop music at home or in his car, but when he felt like dancing, he would attend a house club. While he rarely listened to house at home, he still felt it was an important part of his culture and background.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West further broadened his musical palette on "Graduation" by not limiting himself to his customary use of samples and interpolation from classic soul records and instead drew influences from a far more eclectic range of music genres. Along with house music, "Graduation" contains samples and music elements of euro-disco, hard rock, electronica, lounge, progressive rock, synth-pop, electro, krautrock, dub, reggae, and dancehall. Also, for much of the third studio album, West modified his style of rapping and adopted a dilatory, exuberant flow in emulation of Bono's operatic singing. West altered his vocabulary, he utilised less percussive consonants for his vocal delivery in favor of smoother vowel harmonies. In addition to U2, West drew inspiration from other arena rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin for the melodies and chord progressions of his songs. In terms of lyricism, he simplifies some of his rhymes after touring with The Rolling Stones on their A Bigger Bang concert tour and discovering he could not captivate the audiences as well with his most complex lyrical themes.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West made a conscious decision to abstain from the widespread recording practice of excessive rap albums saturated with skits and filler and instead comprised "Graduation" with significantly fewer tracks. He also chose to scale back on the guest appearances, limiting himself to just one single guest rap verse on the entire studio album. West cites the rock bands The Killers, Keane, Modest Mouse, and indie-pop singer-songwriter Feist for being among his favorite musicians and having considerably profound influence on the sound of "Graduation". Due largely to these factors and the inclusion of layered electronic synthesizers, West believed that his record took hip-hop in a different direction. He also acknowledged that the differences did not in and of themselves make "Graduation" a good album; however, he felt it was an accurate representation of the music he was listening to and inspired by at that time.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West began working on "Graduation" immediately after releasing his second studio album "Late Registration". By late September 2005, West had already completed three songs for the album, which he intended to contain a total of twelve tracks. Around the time of the recording of the third studio album, West would often listen to songs written by folk and country singer-songwriters Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in hopes of developing methods to augment his word play and storytelling abilities. The former musician had been recommended to West by multiple of his friends, including English disc jockey Samantha Ronson, all of whom claimed his music and the way he dealt with the press reminded them of Dylan. West also listened to his most favorite alternative rock bands, including The Killers, Radiohead, Modest Mouse, and Keane, in order to gain new ideas on how to make his hip-hop production style more stadium-friendly. Additionally, West would often test his new songs on his iPod, in his office, in dance clubs and just about anywhere people might listen to his music. He would then make adjustments to the tracks based on feedback he received, repeating the process as many times as necessary.


title: Graduation (album)

text: In comparison to previous albums, "Graduation" features fewer guest appearances from other recording artists. West elaborated that it was a fully conscious decision to keep his guest vocalists at a minimum, saying that, "When I hear the records of my favorite bands – The Killers or Coldplay – you only hear one voice from start to finish". R&B singers T-Pain and Dwele, New York rappers Mos Def and ALBe. Back, and famed hip-hop record producer DJ Premier are featured in individual tracks primarily to deliver melodic hooks and refrains. However, though he originally intended for "Graduation" to be completely devoid of guest rap verses, West decided to invite New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne on the track "Barry Bonds". At the time, the two MCs had been working together, with West contributing to the production of Lil Wayne's sixth studio album "Tha Carter III". As for the absence of skits, West explained, "There's just serious songs, hooks, chords, and ideas. No special effects or antics ... and no fake Bernie Mac!" West instead decided to record two earthy musical interludes in place of the hip-hop skits. He incorporated African sounds and polyrhythmic percussion into both. However, for unknown reasons, the two musical interludes were omitted from the studio album.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Many songs on "Graduation" contain background vocals provided by Connie Mitchell of the Australian dance music group Sneaky Sound System. The collaboration came about when West met her bandmates Angus McDonald and Daimon Downey at a diner in Sydney while touring the country with U2 around November 2006. Seeking musical inspiration, West asked McDonald for ideas, who in turn suggested that he be introduced to Mitchell. Upon meeting Mitchell after she arrived at Studios 301 where he was recording music during the tour, West had her sing over a vocal track and quickly took a liking to her voice. U2 singer Bono and guitarist The Edge also complimented Mitchell's singing while visiting the studio. Some time later, Mitchell received a call from West who asked if she could travel to The Record Plant in Los Angeles to begin recording tracks for his third studio album. Mitchell later admitted that while she previously didn't know who West was and never really cared for hip-hop music, the collaboration has changed her views.


title: Graduation (album)

text: During an interview with "Billboard", West revealed that he had worked with Chris Martin, the lead singer of the British alternative rock band Coldplay, on a song entitled "Homecoming", and that it could possibly be released as the lead single for "Graduation". The collaboration occurred the year before when West and Martin met one another during an impromptu jam session at the Abbey Road Studios in London, England. West had just finished performing at a show that had been held at Abbey Road and the band just so happened to be recording their music in the recording studio at exactly the same time. The song in itself is actually a re-vamping for "Home (Windy)", a track that originated from a demo tape dating back to the year 2001. It was made available two years later under the new title "Home" on West's 2003 mixtape "Get Well Soon..." and also on the advance copy of West's debut studio album "The College Dropout", which due to a leak was never released. This original version possesses West's once trademark classic soul vocal sample production style, with singer John Legend on the chorus, which contains lyrics that are different than Martin's. This is due to the fact that Martin asked West to change the song's lyrical content.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Widely considered by music critics and listeners alike to be the most radio-friendly track on "Graduation", West defines the studio album's third single "Good Life" as the song with the most "blatant hit-recordness". The track features vocals from R&B singer T-Pain, who utilizes the voice audio processor technology of Auto-Tune. The song is sampled from Michael Jackson's song P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing). West had previously experimented with the technology on his debut album "The College Dropout" for the background vocals on the songs "Jesus Walks" and "Never Let Me Down". During his brief stay in Sweden, West sent through sixteen different mixes of "Good Life" over to their recording studio for the audio mastering process. West admitted that he actually did not really care for the single, but he was pressured into releasing it by his record label Def Jam Recordings. However, West has since clarified that he doesn't retain any lingering animosity whatsoever towards his record label in regards to this.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" started taking definite form around the time of the filming of the music video for its second single "Stronger", whereas prior West had been "aimlessly making songs". The music video was directed by famed music video director, film director, and screenwriter Hype Williams. The sci-fi imagery of music video inspired West to take his album in a more futuristic direction. After the filming of the music video, which began before West had even written the song's second verse, he returned to the studio to redo parts of "Stronger" and various other tracks he recorded for the album, watching films such as "Total Recall" for more ideas. West mixed the track seventy-five times, as he could not seem to get the kick drum to sound precisely the way that he wanted it to, amongst other issues. He worked on "Stronger" with eight different audio engineers and eleven different mix engineers around the globe and recorded over fifty versions of the track. Still feeling dissatisfied after hearing the number-one hit single inside a club compared alongside Timbaland's 2007 single "The Way I Are", which was his favorite hip-hop beat at the time, West enlisted the record producer to assist him in redoing the drum programming.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The third studio album also sees the return of composer and multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion – who had played an integral role as the co-executive producer on West's previous studio album "Late Registration" – for the track "Drunk and Hot Girls". West claimed that one day, while listening to "Sing Swan Song" by the German experimental-rock band Can, he heard the words "drunk and hot girls" rather than the actual "drunky hot bowls" lyrics. Rather than rap, West instead slowly sings along to the sinister song's dreary original melody with warbled vocals. West features vocal harmony during the chorus with guest artist Mos Def, who just after his voice experiences a four-second audio delay, also delivers the song's reverb-filled bridge.


title: Graduation (album)

text: More than any other song on the entire studio album, the epic stadium-rap power ballad "I Wonder" was the most influenced by U2. West cites it as one of this top three most favorite songs from "Graduation". West imparted that he had sought out to make the hip-hop variation of the rock band's "City of Blinding Lights". West reportedly heard the snare drum which was used for the track while shopping for furniture at Moss and spent many weeks working on it. West has also said that he wrote the song while thinking of performing it onstage in front of an audience of over 50,000 people. With this in mind, he placed a significant amount of concentration on speaking at high volumes with fewer wording and initially delivers his defiant lyrics in an intense staccato vocal style. West raps the song's three verses using single and double-time rhyme schemes. He stresses each syllable in each word in the minimalist first verse. West then transitions to a faster, more fluid flow for the more intricate second and third verses. West considered the release of "I Wonder" as the album's fourth single. But he instead chose "Flashing Lights", which he refers to as the "coolest" track from the studio album.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The hip-hop beat for "The Glory" was originally made for West's GOOD Music associate, close friend, and fellow Chicago hip-hop artist Common, whose seventh album, "Finding Forever", was being produced and recorded by West simultaneously with "Graduation". As was the case with both their previous albums, certain tracks that West originally crafted for "Finding Forever" that Common declined eventually ended up on his own studio album. "Everything I Am" was yet another song intended for Common but was passed on, a fact which West addresses within the opening lines. The record features turntable scratches contributed by famed hip-hop record producer DJ Premier. After West had played the demo for "Everything I Am" over the phone for DJ Premier and asked him what he thought of it, DJ Premier then replied that he enjoyed the lyrics and the innovative beat and offered to scratch over it. When working on the track, and while following the numerous instructions that were supplied by West, DJ Premier took seven different styles of scratches, including drum breaks, then cut all of them up into different rhythms, and scattered them all throughout the track, providing West with many different ideas to choose from.


title: Graduation (album)

text: While written by West, who envisioned its concept and chorus while riding an elevator, the soul-baring Jay-Z dedication "Big Brother" stands as the only song on "Graduation" that he didn't produce. The production of the track was instead handled solely by Atlanta record producer DJ Toomp. According to West's cousin, soul singer Tony Williams, Jay-Z became quite emotional after West played a part of "Big Brother" for him in the studio for the first time. During an interview with "Rolling Stone", West himself recalled that it was "a very serious moment". When asked for his opinion, Jay-Z replied that he considered "Big Brother" a fair portrayal from a little brother's perspective. Jay-Z went on to say that he also thought that the song was "brilliantly written" and voice the belief of it being West's best song since "Jesus Walks" as far as structure and emotion.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Although "Bittersweet Poetry" appears as a Japanese bonus track on "Graduation", it was actually one of the very first songs crafted for "Late Registration". After seeing the 2004 biographical film "Ray" together, West and blues-rock musician John Mayer decided to collaborate on a record and immediately went back to a recording studio to compose the song "Bittersweet" with the help of Keyshia Cole. This wasn't the first time West and Mayer collaborated with one another. The two previously worked together to make "Go!", the third single from Common's sixth studio album "Be", which came about when Mayer went to visit West at The Record Plant in Los Angeles. In the end, because West felt that their song did not coincide well into the overall soundscape of his second studio album, it was subsequently unincluded.


title: Graduation (album)

text: With "Graduation", West made a departure from the soul samples of "The College Dropout" and the heavy orchestration of "Late Registration". Motivated by stadium impulses, West ventured towards a more atmospheric soundscape, being imbued with arena rock elements while exploring electronic music. The musical progression arose from West touring the world in 2006 with U2 and the Rolling Stones. The change also came about from him listening to music that encompasses genres such as rock and house. According to Jayson Greene of "Stylus Magazine", West had developed a fascination with Euro-disco, a European form of electronic dance music. Going further, a columnist for "Slant Magazine" asserted that the album's hip-hop beats would be "European-club-worthy" were they stripped of the vocals. Most importantly, Greene perceived that West had developed an affinity with electronic synthesizers. "Chicago Tribune" music critic Greg Kot commented on the incorporation of synthesizer sounds, saying he viewed "Graduation" as "an album steeped in keyboard tones, in all their richness and variety". Mark Pytlik of "Pitchfork" surmised that the album demonstrated a new electronic production style, specifically noting its modulated electronic noises. By contrast, AllMusic's Andy Kellman wrote, "Though the synthesizer use marks a clear, conscious diversion from Kanye's past productions, highlights ... are deeply rooted in the Kanye of old, using nostalgia-inducing samples, elegant pianos and strings, and gospel choirs". "Graduation" has been regarded as a pop-rap album by music journalists Brad Callas, Joshua Botte of NPR, "AbsolutePunk", "Vice" magazine's Eric Sundermann, Jay Willis of "GQ", and "The Atlantic"s Spencer Korhaber.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West retracted much of the orchestral production that had characterized "Late Registration"; he replaced the production with heavy, layered electronic synthesizers that feature Gothic tendencies at loud volumes throughout "Graduation". West injected distorted synth-chords, house beats, electro-disco rhythms, and a wide array of audio-effects into his hip-hop production. All the while, West buried his signature kicks and snares deep beneath the decomposing layers of synths into the bottom of the mix. Though he continued to use vocal samples, West gleaned them before also pushing the samples underneath the synths, causing them to "sound like voices trapped in a huge machine, not like organic, subliminal connections to a mythical black-music past". As always is the case with his productions, West does not reply nor settle simply on samples alone. Instead, there lies a sense of multi-layered music evidently within each track. Even in new, unfamiliar musical surroundings, West retained both his self-confidence as well as his close attention to sonic detail. As a result of this, the album contains numerous random, semi-audible sounds that may seem challenging to notice during the first few listens. The sounds range from keyboard arpeggios to crowd cheers and hard rock guitars; they act as a supplement for the atypical samples and the layered electronic synths. Throughout "Graduation", West included enough subtle instrumental flourishes and studio embellishments to warrant a repeated, close, and careful listening experience. According to Ann Powers from the "Los Angeles Times", the album's subtly dark tone was a byproduct of the inevitable toll placed on West as an artist, "an innovator in a genre that he must at least partially destroy to renew", who was torn between his devotion to hip-hop tradition and his "restless artistic drive":


title: Graduation (album)

text: Despite the latter of the two's predominant synthetic attributes and the overall electronic sound, the emphasis placed on string arrangements that was prominent on "Late Registration" remained a significant factor on "Graduation". Similarly to its predecessor, the album was not restricted to the limits of conventional looping techniques that are typical of traditional hip-hop production. Instead, West continued to implement sudden musical shifts within the multi-layered song structures and express composed introductions, bridges, and codas, all of which showed attention to detail. For "Graduation", West produced songs that combine hip-hop beats with anthemic refrains and continued to employ his skill in layering keys, strings, and vocals to obtain the melodies of samples. Through acting as his own producer, West managed to maintain quality control over the album's music to ensure that "his productions build momentum even when they revolve around a handful of repeated samples [and] nearly every song on "Graduation" is memorable for both its hooks and its overall sound". As the album progresses, its textures become harder and denser with every track. Under the belief that "Late Registration" had been far too indulgent, poorly arranged, and oversaturated with unnecessary sonic accoutrements, West took measures to simplify "Graduation". West crafted the album to contain less ornate production, not have any hip-hop skits, and be sequenced to produce a tighter, more cohesive package.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" opens on a sparse note with "Good Morning", beginning with an echoed, metronomic cowbell beat and a thumping bassline melded with a simple, arpeggiating synthesizer drone. The drone is drowned by the music that arrives at the chorus, which is a conflation of ambient synths and an astral backing choir crafted from a non-verbal vocal sample of "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John. "Good Morning" eventually concludes with the voice of Jay-Z reiterating lyrics from "The Ruler's Back", the rapper's own opening track of his sixth studio album "The Blueprint". The production for "Champion" features intermittent drops and 808-handclaps and expresses a slight jazz-rock influence, eschewing guitars and trumpets in favor of breezy synths. During the verses, West raps over a constant loop of the words "their eyes" while the chopped-up hook is formed from the question, "Did you realize, that you were a champion?" Both phrases are recontextualized from "Kid Charlemagne" by Steely Dan. The song also sports a reggae-inspired bridge delivered by Connie Mitchell in a distinct toasting vocal style. The soul-fired track "I Wonder" starts off with its piano-based refrain, which contains samples of "My Song" by Labi Siffre. It then proceeds to morph into a myriad of interlaced synths that are impacted by distorted snare drum strokes (taken from "Ambitionz Az a Ridah" by 2Pac, which samples the drums from "Pee-Wee's Dance by Joeski Love) and ethereal electric keyboards. During the bridge, the chord progression changes and the song adopts a heavy string section that emulates the melody of its synths. The composition then enters an instrumental passage and finishes off with a sweeping string arrangement.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Good Life" utilizes multi-tracked, interlocking vocals that harmonize with guest singer T-Pain's Auto-Tuned voice. The song's melody is based on sampled keyboards from "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" by pop star Michael Jackson , with the tempo slightly decreased and the pitch raised to the point its sound resembles squealing shrieks. "Barry Bonds" (named after the baseball player) is built on a moaning bass line and Gothic organ, while punctuated by wailing sampled from "Long Red" by Mountain. "Drunk and Hot Girls" exhibits a sluggish waltz pitched with the rhythm of an Eastern European drinking song. It contains a mix of dark orchestration and detuned electronics with elements of "Sing Swan Song" by German progressive rock band Can. West claimed that while listening to their song, he heard the words "drunk and hot girls" rather than the actual "drunken hot ghost" lyrics. Rather than rap, West and guest artist Mos Def sing along to the song's melody. Opening with a gradual, rising crescendo of symphonic strings, "Flashing Lights" emits synth twinklings before transforming into a moderately-paced, synth-driven beat. After the introduction, in which Mitchell's processed vocals repeat the titular hook four times, West raps the two verses, each one followed by the chorus sung by Dwele coupled with the hook. Following a break, the song enters a passage where its heavily manipulated hook echoes in and out before the coda draws the composition to a close. "Stronger" is built around a sample of "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" by Daft Punk, while its echoing deep, hallow drums affect the electronic sound.


title: Graduation (album)

text: By being composed using nothing more than a Rhodes piano, a vocal sample, and turntable scratches, "Everything I Am" stands as the third studio album's most minimalistic production. West marries a down-tempo beat to gentle piano chords which are accentuated by soulful cooing sampled from "If We Can't Be Lovers" by Prince Phillip Mitchell. The low-key track has a scratched hook by DJ Premier formed with the vocal sample which says "Here we go again" taken from "Bring the Noise" by Public Enemy from their 1988 album "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back". With its thick, heavy bass-line pattern, "The Glory" is an up-tempo number which revisits the "chipmunk-soul" that once defined the early production style of West. It displays a sped-up and high-pitched vocal sample of "Save the Country" by Laura Nyro accompanied by uplifting strings, keys, and an all-male gospel choir with drums from "Long Red" by Mountain. Chris Martin sings the chorus and supplies a gospel-style piano motif while West raps over heavy yet buoyant drums on "Homecoming". The chatter of a noisy, cheering crowd can inexplicably be heard lurking in the background throughout the track. The Jay-Z ode "Big Brother" begins with West uttering the words, "Stadium status...", backed by a string orchestra, pounding drums, a distorted guitar riff and plinking piano keys. Around mid-verse, the track adopts synths that mimic the melodies of the string section. Before the second verse, additional instrumentation enters; including a heavy bass-line, metallic percussion, and 808-handclaps. The studio album's final track "Good Night" exhibits the production characteristics of West's next musical evolution. West juxtaposes the glitchy, mechanical sound of an 8-bit beat with the more elegant, traditional sound of a classical piano.


title: Graduation (album)

text: In comparison to previous albums, which were largely driven by observational commentary on matters pertaining to social welfare, "Graduation" is more introspective in nature and addresses personal themes. West stated that he wanted to make inspirational music and placed more focus on individual perspective and experience that listeners could connect with in an attempt to create "people's theme songs". Dismayed that the messages behind his complex lyricism were frequently lost on listeners and didn't carry well during live performances, West made an attempt to simplify his lyrics and use more skeletal rhyme schemes for more straightforward verses while concentrating on speaking volumes with sparser wording on "Graduation". Having committed a significant amount of time towards elevating his storytelling abilities by listening to folk musicians, West manages to form a lyrical narrative within nearly every song on the album. West dedicated a majority of the album towards conducting an analysis himself and conveying his ambivalent outlook on his newfound wealth and fame. As such, West's subversive songwriting fluctuates between playful self-aggrandizement and critical self-doubt. While confident, extroverted and celebratory at face value, many songs contained on "Graduation" were thematically distanced and retained melancholic subtext. Some music critics remarked that compounded with West's urgent, emotive rapping style, the record sounded as if he were experiencing an existential crisis.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The free-associative "Champion" is primarily composed of motivational lyrics, but West also briefly touches on the strained relationship he had with his father–who divorced from his mother when he was just three-years-old–eventually reaching the conclusion that even with their ups and downs, in the end, his father was a champion in his eyes. West described "Stronger" as an "emancipation", as he uses the song to vent his frustration over mistakes he has made in the past. He describes his tribulation's with music critics and media causing his return as a "Stronger" rapper, as the song title implies. "I Wonder" carries an introspective tone, retaining a chorus about finding one's dreams, while West uses the verses to describe the struggle a person experiences in determining the meaning behind their life and achieving those dreams. Inspired by watching Bono open stadium tours, West concentrated on speaking volumes without using too many words on the song and delivers his raps in an exuberant, staccato manner. Using the same vocal styling, "Flashing Lights" tells the operatic narrative of man contemplating the complexities of a tragic relationship. "Can't Tell Me Nothing" serves as West's reflection on his fame and is characterized by bitter remorse and defiant self-awareness. West begins the song by expounding his conflicted feelings regarding wealth and desire, describing a compulsion to spend that overwhelms any and all other objectives in life. He ties this into his perceived overall inability to keep himself together even as he grows into an increasingly prominent figure in the public eye.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West regains his lyrical dexterity on "Barry Bonds", a competitive, though friendly battle with Lil Wayne in which the two MC exchange braggadocios rhymes. The song uses Major League Baseball player Barry Bonds as a metaphor for West's ability to create music hits. "Drunk and Hot Girls" is a first-person narrative that illustrates a man courting an attractive intoxicated woman in a club but gets more than what he bargained for. "Everything I Am" is a song of self-examination, in which West attempts to confront his fallacies by surveying the consequences of his outspokenness ruminating over various ways people expect him to conduct himself. In the track, West addresses his indifference towards constructing a gangster persona, his refusal to dress and act like every other rapper, his inclination towards social commentary, and his lack of self-restraint. West comes to the conclusion that while he will never be able to live up to people's expectations and will always be disadvantageously flawed; it's all these imperfections and more that serve to make up who he is. When writing the song, West thought of a young girl in high school dealing with people coming down on her.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Homecoming" serves as a heartfelt tribute to West's hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Using an extended metaphor that personifies the city as a childhood sweetheart named 'Windy' (a reference to Chicago's nickname of the 'Windy City'), West rhymes about his love for Chicago and his guilt over leaving "her" to pursue his musical dream. The song's opening lines lyrically paraphrase "I Used to Love H.E.R.", a similarly metaphoric hip-hop song made by West's close friend and label mate Common, who later appeared in the single's music video. West dedicated "Big Brother" to Jay Z, whom he feels so close to that he sees him as a brother. Within the song, West dually details his love and admiration as well as his envy and antagonism towards Jay Z, metaphorically equating their relationship to that of a sibling rivalry. West also uses the song's chorus as a subsidiary dedication to his mentor No I.D., who first taught him how to produce music. Similar to its musicality, the songwriting characteristics of the album-closing track, "Good Night" alludes to West's next musical progression. The majority of song is composed of repetitive recitations of its choruses and bridges by Mos Def and Al Be Back. West melodically raps only one single verse in which he nostalgically reminisces over taking trips to the museum with his grandparents. As his verse draws to a close, West chastises that a person can't dwell on the past, and charges himself with living his life like he has no tomorrow. In retrospect, with the death of his mother Donda West less than two months after the album was released in addition to the dissolution of his engagement with fiancée Alexis Phifer, the trace amounts of melancholy found scattered throughout "Graduation" would all but envelop West's next studio album, "808s & Heartbreak".


title: Graduation (album)

text: West collaborated with Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami to oversee the art direction of "Graduation" as well as design the cover art for the album's accompanying singles. Often called "the Warhol of Japan", Murakami's surrealistic visual art is characterized by cartoonish creatures that appear friendly and cheerful at first glance, but possess dark, twisted undertones. The collaboration between the two came about when West visited Murakami's Kaikai Kiki studio during a brief trip to Asaka, Japan. The album's artwork expresses colorful, pastel imagery influenced by Murakami's affiliation with Superflat, a post-modern art movement influenced by manga and anime. Its production process took place over the course of several weeks, with West constantly visualizing new images and emailing the ideas to Murakami and his team. Bringing the educational theme expressed by West's previous albums to a close, the visual plotline of the images contained within the liner notes lead up to a graduation ceremony that takes places within a fictional college institution situated within a futuristic metropolis called Universe City. Murakami explained the metaphor behind the artwork saying:


title: Graduation (album)

text: The artwork's storyline centers around "Dropout Bear", West's anthropomorphic teddy bear mascot. The story begins on a rainy day with Dropout being awoken by his alarm clock and running out of his apartment to his car, modeled after a DeLorean. When the car's engine dies, he is forced to find an alternative means of transportation. Dropout attempts to hail a cab but it speeds right past him, soaking him with puddle water. He then tries to get onto a metro rail but just misses it as it pulls away. Left with no other options, Dropout is reduced to pursuing his goal on foot. As he races down sidewalks, populated by multi-eyed, living mushrooms, Dropout is pursued by a monstrous rain cloud that attempts to swallow him whole. Eventually, Dropout Bear arrives at the university and makes it to his ceremony just in time to stand before his colleagues, a wide variety of anthropomorphic creatures like himself. The visual story concludes with Dropout Bear being shot out of a cannon from the university into the sky into another stratosphere on the back cover.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The cover art for "Graduation" was cited as the fifth best album cover of the year by "Rolling Stone". Murakami later reproduced the artwork designs through the use of cel-shaded animation within a three-minute animated music video for the opening track "Good Morning". After collaborating with West on the artwork and video, Murakami later worked with him on the cover art for West and Kid Cudi's eponymous debut studio album, "Kids See Ghosts" (2018).


title: Graduation (album)

text: While hosting a listening session for his second studio album "Late Registration" on August 3, 2005, at Sony Music Studios, West revealed that he wanted to schedule the release of "Graduation" sometime around October 2006. Several months later, on March 28, 2007, West appeared on the Los Angeles radio station Power 106. He said that he was working on his third album and Common's seventh album "Finding Forever" and rapped a few lyrics from one of his songs in a cappella. On May 11, it was announced that the release date for "Graduation" was September 18. West debuted the album's lead single "Can't Tell Me Nothing" on the New York radio station Hot 97 on May 15. He then released a free mixtape under the same name onto the Internet on May 27. The mixtape features preview clips of songs that would appear on "Graduation" and showcases various artists signed onto West's record label GOOD Music as well as collaborations with other unaffiliated musicians. It also contains "Us Placers", the debut song of Child Rebel Soldier, a supergroup West formed with Lupe Fiasco and Pharrell.


title: Graduation (album)

text: At the end of May, Island Def Jam pushed forward the release date for "Graduation" up from September to an unspecified late August date, a decision that West first announced on the introductory track of his "Can't Tell Me Nothing" mixtape. On July 19, the album's release date was changed once more and moved to September 11, 2007, the same US release date as rapper 50 Cent's third studio album "Curtis". When first presented with the proposal of his label moving the release date of his album yet again as well as the idea of a sales competition between him and 50 Cent, West initially expressed his indifference towards the thought, saying, "When I heard that thing about the debate, I thought that was the stupidest thing. When my album drops and 50's album drops, everybody wins because you're gonna get a lot of good music at the same time". However, then Def Jam president and CEO Jay Z welcomed competition, feeling that it would be prosperous for hip-hop and the date became permanent.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The album's release generated much publicity over a sales competition with 50 Cent's "Curtis". Three months prior to the September 11 release date, West extended his gratitude towards 50 Cent for the enthusiasm and excitement the friendly competition had produced. Though confident that he would emerge victorious, West said that he would be perfectly fine with losing to 50 Cent, saying that he'd rather, "be #2 on that day rather than come out and be #1 on a day nobody cares about". In an interview for "USA Today", 50 Cent expressed his view on the idea of a sales competition, stating "It's great marketing – for Kanye West. But I sell way more records than Kanye West, and I generate way more interest than Kanye West. They think they can match us up, but they'll find out when that week goes by and the sales come back. This is no rivalry". "Mine will sell and his will still be on the shelf," 50 Cent told "Rolling Stone". On August 10, 50 Cent confirmed during an interview with SOHH that he would end his career as a solo recording artist if "Graduation" were to sell more copies than "Curtis" in the United States. However, 50 Cent later retracted his statement within an MTV interview due to his contract agreements with Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. But most retailers and radio programmers interviewed picked West, whose single, "Stronger", was Number Six on Billboard's Hot 100 -while none of 50's four singles climbed higher than the thirty-second spot.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West spent a significant amount of time promoting "Graduation" during his trip to the United Kingdom. On August 17, West guest starred on the British comedy-variety show "The Friday Night Project". He played preview versions of the songs "Big Brother" and "Champion" from his forthcoming third album while making an appearance on DJ Tim Westwood's radio show on August 18. Later that day, West performed at V Festival in Chelmsford, England before an audience of over 50,000 people and again played new material from "Graduation" as well as a tribute cover of Amy Winehouse's hit single "Rehab". He then held a secret concert with Barbadian singer Rihanna for an audience of over five hundred fans and invited guests at Westminster Central Hall in London, England on August 20. The guests were greeted by staff members wearing graduation robes and mortarboard caps in reference to the title of West's third studio album "Graduation". At the end of the concert, a shower of silver confetti and ticker tape reading "Touch the Sky" fell from the ceiling onto the audience while the actual "Touch the Sky", which was the fourth single from "Late Registration", was played on the speakers.


title: Graduation (album)

text: After he returned to the United States, West joined 50 Cent onstage for a surprise performance before an audience of over 20,000 people at a show held on August 22 in Madison Square Garden during Ciara and T.I.'s Screamfest '07 tour. West performed for a benefit concert raising funds for and promoting higher education sponsored by his charity foundation on August 24 at Chicago's House of Blues. At the concert, he provided live renditions of songs from "Graduation" and gave the audience a sneak peek of the early production stages of his fall Glow in the Dark Tour. On August 28, West hosted a studio album listening session for "Graduation" at New World Stages in New York City. There, West explained his influences and aspirations for the album and played songs over video clips taken from a variety of futuristic sci-fi films, including "Tron", "Akira", "2046", and "". Two days later, on the morning of August 30, the clean version of the album leaked onto the Internet. In a survey conducted by "Billboard", results displayed that an estimated 44% of readers predicted that "Graduation" would sell more units over 50 Cent and Kenny Chesney. Projections for first week scans based on early store sales reports indicated towards the 575,000–700,000 range for "Graduation", while "Curtis" was projected in the 500,000–600,000 range. West and 50 Cent appeared on a "106 & Park" special titled: "Kanye West vs. 50 Cent: The Clash of the Titans", which aired on September, 11. They both performed, had solo interviews, and a joint interview. The episode was the second-highest viewed music series telecast in BET history behind 106 & Park's tribute to Aaliyah in 2001.


title: Graduation (album)

text: On the first day of its release, "Graduation" sold over 437,000 copies. The album debuted at number one on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, grossing a total of over 957,000 copies in its first week in the United States alone. "Graduation" became West's second consecutive studio album to top the "Billboard" 200 and also debuted at number-one on the album charts in the United Kingdom and Canada. It was within the very same week that "Stronger" topped the "Billboard" Hot 100, selling over 205,000 digital downloads and giving West his third number-one single. The album registered the best first-week sales totals of any record released within the last two years, with the last being West's own "Late Registration".


title: Graduation (album)

text: Additionally, "Graduation" became ranked as the 15th highest sales week for an album since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991, as well as the highest sales week at the time of its release for an album since 50 Cent's "The Massacre" (2005). It also set the record for the largest week of an album digitally downloaded, registering over 133,000 paid downloads, beating Maroon 5's previous set record of 102,000 for "It Won't Be Soon Before Long". "Graduation"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first week sales of 957,000 and "Curtis"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s first week sales of 691,000 marked only the second time ever since the inception of Nielsen SoundScan that two albums debuted within the same week with totals surpassing 623,000 copies in the United States. The first occurrence of such an event was in September 1991, when Guns N' Roses conjunctively released "Use Your Illusion I", which sold 685,000 copies, and "Use Your Illusion II", which sold 770,000 copies. The first week sales totals of "Graduation" and "Curtis" have outsold the first week sales totals of Guns N' Roses' two albums. 50 Cent showed graciousness in regards to his defeat. In a statement released to the Associated Press, he said, "I am very excited to have participated in one of the biggest album release weeks in the last two years. Collectively, we have sold hundreds of thousands of units in our debut week. This marks a great moment for hip-hop music, one that will go down in history". After years of slumping sales, the album competition between the two releases and the resulting record breaking performances both albums demonstrated was considered to be a "fantastic day for hip-hop".


title: Graduation (album)

text: In its second week on the "Billboard" 200, "Graduation" outsold "Curtis", 226,000 copies to 143,000. By the next week, on October 3, 2007, the former had sold a total of 1.3 million copies in the US. By year's end, "Graduation" was the third most-downloaded and best-selling album of 2007 on iTunes Store. "Graduation" became West's third consecutive studio album to sell over two million copies in the United States, and it was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for shipping two million copies on October 18, 2007. As of June 14, 2013, Nielsen Soundscan reported that the album has since grossed over 2.7 million copies in the US. The 957,000 copies sold in the first week of "Graduation"s release stood as the sixth largest first week sales in hip hop history up to January 7, 2019.


title: Graduation (album)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Graduation" debuted at number-one on the UK Albums Chart dated September 22, 2007. As of January 22, 2021, the album has been certified Double Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), with sales of 600,000 copies in the UK. In 2018, Official Charts Company revealed that "Graduation" was the 25th highest-selling rap album in the UK in the 21st century. For the issue date of September 20, 2007, "Graduation" debuted atop the Canadian Albums Chart. On January 10, 2008, the album was certified double platinum by Music Canada for sales of 200,000 copies.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" was met with basic critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional critics, the album received an average score of 79, based on 32 reviews.


title: Graduation (album)

text: Reviewing for "Spin" in November 2007, Charles Aaron hailed "Graduation" as "mesmerizing and alienating, like all the purest forms of pop culture", with music in the tradition of Puff Daddy's late 1990s pop-rap, but more skilled: "Its music is a rush of designer adrenaline, its personality insatiable self-justification. It's the paradigm ya love to hate". "Pitchfork" critic Mark Pytlik complimented the accessibility of West's sonic experimentations, finding it impressive and innovative how he assembled seemingly disparate elements on the songs. Greg Tate, writing in "The Village Voice", dubbed him "the most genuinely confessional MC in hip-hop today" and said, "bouts of narcissism aside, "Graduation" contains killer pieces of production". "Stylus Magazine"s Jayson Greene said it "serves as a document of West's maturation" and, "musically, at least, it's the most accomplished thing he's ever done". In "Rolling Stone", Nathan Brackett wrote of West's evolving and increasingly experimental, genre-bending production and said although he lacks Jay-Z's "formal mastery", West has "grown as a writer ... given the lousy year hip-hop has had, the music needs his spazzed-out, neurotic creativity more than ever". Josh Tyrangiel from "Time" wrote, "West plunders the best [samples] and meticulously layers every track with enough surprises that there are thrills and discoveries a dozen listens in".


title: Graduation (album)

text: Some reviewers were more qualified in their praise. For "MSN Music", Robert Christgau deemed "Graduation" a "minor success" in which "every single track offers up its momentary pleasures—choruses that make you say yeah on songs you've already found wanting, confessional details and emotional aperçus on an album that still reduces to quality product when they're over". However, he felt West spent too much of the album rationalizing his obsession with his fame in sketchy fashion and occasionally awkward rhymes, "little stuff like his failure to convert 'this'-'crib'-'shit'-'live'-'serious' into a rhyme" on "Champion" or "'at bay at a distance' into an idiom" on "Big Brother".


title: Graduation (album)

text: Dorian Lynskey from "The Guardian" said West often "undercuts rap cliches with wit and ambivalence", but observed some disappointing lyrics such as on "Can't Tell Me Nothing", which he said revealed his limited perspective. "Slant Magazine" critic Eric Henderson found West's lyrics "only transparently expressive", saying that the songs' hooks "grab your ear on the first listen (notably bypassing your brain), your balls on the second, and your soul from there on out", and described West's production as having "adopted a beefy, synth-glam sheen". Dave Heaton from "PopMatters" felt that though the album is good, it lacks the epochal feel of "Late Registration", with songs that "aren't as richly dressed" and he claimed that West "doesn't seem to be trying as hard".


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" was named to year-end lists for 2007 by multiple publications. "USA Today" ranked it as the best album of the year, with the staff lauding the "musical and thematic variety" as well as "its articulate and witty rhyming". The album was picked by readers of "Entertainment Weekly" as the best of 2007, receiving 41 percent of the votes on the magazine's year-end poll. "Graduation" was listed by Amazon, "My List Pad", and "PopMatters" as the third best album of the year, while it was also selected as one of 2007's top five albums by "Blender", "LAS Magazine", "Rolling Stone", and "Spin". The album was voted in at number six on "The Village Voice"s Pazz & Jop poll of the year, receiving 91 mentions. On the "Idolator" poll for 2007, which surveyed 452 critics, "Graduation" was ranked at number eight.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" later appeared on numerous other best albums lists. "Pitchfork" listed the album at number 87 on their ranking of the best albums of the 2000s, and "Complex" placed it at number 2 on their list. "Rolling Stone" listed "Graduation" at number 45, and it finished second on its readers list. "Complex" ranked the album at number one on their list of the 100 Best Albums of the Complex Decade (2002-2012). "Graduation" was later included on "Rolling Stone"s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, landing at 204 on the 2020 update. It also appeared at 470 on "NME"'s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2013 list.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" won the award of Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album at the American Music Awards of 2008, while also counting towards West earning the award for Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Artist. With his two wins at the ceremony, West was the second biggest winner, behind Chris Brown with three awards to his name. West told the crowd during his acceptance speech that despite winning the Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album award, he wanted to give the award to Lil Wayne instead. Though this stands as one of the multiple times that West has given an award of his to someone else, West also has a frequent history of complaining when he does not win an award.


title: Graduation (album)

text: At the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, "Graduation" won the award for Best Rap Album, becoming West's third consecutive album to do so. The album was also nominated for Album of the Year at the ceremony, making West the only artist in Grammy history to receive a nomination for the award from all of their first three studio albums. West claimed in an interview that he felt confident towards "Graduation" winning the award. The album was considered the favorite to win Album of the Year, and its failure to win was considered by many publications to be a snub. At the same ceremony, "Stronger" and "Good Life" were awarded Best Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Song, respectively. The latter also received a nomination for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, while "Can't Tell Me Nothing" was nominated for Best Rap Song. The six awards that the album led to West contending for at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards were among his total of eight nominations for the ceremony, making West the most nominated music artist of that show. "Graduation" was a contender for numerous other industry awards.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The critical reception and commercial success of "Graduation" left a profound influence on both hip-hop culture and popular music. West has earned praise for his ability to appeal to diverse music audiences such as indie-rock listeners and rave enthusiasts without alienating his core hip-hop audiences. Collaborative tracks such as "Homecoming" signaled the diversification of mainstream hip-hop and its intertwining with the genres of alternative and indie-rock in subsequent years. In addition, songs such as "Everything I Am" have been cited as "the best example of the soulful and introspective atmosphere that came to dominate the rap world, from Drake to The Weeknd". Irish rock band U2 has imparted that touring with West on their Vertigo Tour in turn had a significant effect on their own music as well in regards to the band's twelfth studio album "No Line on the Horizon" (2009). Lead singer Bono elaborated that West's rapping inspired him to utilize more percussive consonants for his songwriting and vocal performance.


title: Graduation (album)

text: West's third studio album, particularly with its two hit singles "Stronger" and "Flashing Lights", has been attributed to not only encouraging other hip-hop artists to incorporate house and electronica elements into their music, but also for playing a role in the revival of disco and electro-infused club music in the late-2000s. The number-one hit "Stronger" was leading part of a wave of synthesizer-driven music which combined danceable electro beats with an accessible pop format. It was succeeded by the high chart placings and multi-platinum sales of singles by artists and bands ranging from "Just Dance" (2008) by singer Lady Gaga to "Right Round" (2009) by rapper Flo Rida.


title: Graduation (album)

text: "Graduation" marked a musical progression towards synth-based production in regards to the art of crafting hip-hop beats. The studio album demonstrated West's shift from sample-orientated hip-hop production and more towards digital synths and drum machines generated by digital audio workstations (DAW). While samples are present throughout the album, they were fewer in number and not nearly as prominent. As hip hop producer Anthony Kilhoffer recalled to "Billboard" in 2017 for "Graduation"s 10th anniversary, "I think it was the first time having a heavy hand in the use of electronic music in hip-hop. Previous to that it was very R&B influenced, tracks like 'Stronger' and 'Flashing Lights' contained very electronic type of elements. This was way before EDM became mainstream, and marked the end of the jersey-wearing era in hip-hop". Since "Graduation"s release, countless other record producers have followed suit in blurring the lines of conventional hip-hop with the incorporation of electronic production. This synth-driven production approach has since been adopted by artists including Future, Young Chop, and Metro Boomin.


title: Graduation (album)

text: The outcome of the highly publicized sales competition between 50 Cent's "Curtis" and West's "Graduation" has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap that once dominated mainstream hip-hop. Ben Detrick of "XXL" cites West defeat over 50 Cent in sales as being responsible for altering the direction of hip-hop and paving the way for new rappers who didn't follow the hardcore-gangster mold, writing, "If there was ever a watershed moment to indicate hip-hop's changing direction, it may have come when 50 Cent competed with Kanye in 2007 to see whose album would claim superior sales. Kanye led a wave of new artists— Kid Cudi, Wale, Lupe Fiasco, Kidz in the Hall, Drake—who lacked the interest or ability to create narratives about any past gunplay or drug-dealing". "The Michigan Daily" columnist Adam Theisen asserts that West's win once and for all "prove[d] that rap music didn't have to conform to gangsta-rap conventions to be commercially successful". "Rolling Stone" remarked that "While Kanye West's decisive triumph over 50 seems inevitable in retrospect, it's easy to forget how much of an underdog he was at the time. "The College Dropout" and "Late Registration" sold a combined 7 million copies in the U.S., but 50 Cent's own first two albums, "Get Rich or Die Trying" and "The Massacre", sold nearly 14 million, almost exactly twice as much. West had the last laugh: "Graduation" sold nearly a million copies in one week, and rap became the playground of emotional heroes like Kid Cudi, Lupe Fiasco, Drake and J. Cole". In retrospect, "Highsnobiety" writer Shahzaib Hussain recognizes "Graduation" in West's opening trilogy of highly successful, education-themed albums that "cemented his role as a progressive rap progenitor".


title: Graduation (album)

text: Going further, Noah Callahan-Bever, chief content officer and editor-in-chief for "Complex Media", marked September 11, 2007: "The Day Kanye West Killed Gangsta Rap". In a retrospective, Lawrence Burney of "Noisey" expands on this notion by asserting that the event caused the more aggressive forms of rap music to undergo an evolution. He continued writing, "Gangsta rap, street music, and the like have yet to recover from that showdown, as only two albums of the sort have gone platinum in the 2010s—Kevin Gates' "Islah" and Meek Mill's "Dreams Worth More Than Money"—If anything, street music has also made a shift since Kanye began to peal back more layers of himself on "Graduation"; 50's whole get up was about being an indestructible, emotionless robot. Now, what connects fans to artists like Gates and Meek is that they aren't afraid to rhythmically cry about lost loves ones and the price of fame". Likewise, "Billboard" wrote, "In 2007, Kanye West trumped 50 Cent in an epic sales battle, in which his opus "Graduation" trounced "Curtis" by several hundred thousand copies. Ye's emotive raps on "Graduation", intertwined with his evolution on the production side, inspired a new wave of MCs to take notes. .. While gangsta rap still has a seat in the ever-expanding classroom of hip-hop, vulnerability and experimentation now serve as the leading candidates in creating your prototypical MC. Because of songs like 'I Wonder', 'Flashing Lights' and 'Stronger'", the hip-hop artists of today "cling on to Kanye's indomitable body of work like a go-to study guide". The competition between 50 Cent and West, when the two released their studio albums on the same day, was penultimate in a series of articles that lists fifty key events in the history of R&B and hip-hop music, written by Rosie Swash of "The Guardian". Swash wrote that it "highlighted the diverging facets of hip-hop in the last decade; the former was gangsta rap for the noughties, while West was the thinking man's alternative".


title: Polymer

text: is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic and natural polymers play essential and ubiquitous roles in everyday life. Polymers range from familiar synthetic plastics such as polystyrene to natural biopolymers such as DNA and proteins that are fundamental to biological structure and function. Polymers, both natural and synthetic, are created via polymerization of many small molecules, known as monomers. Their consequently large molecular mass, relative to small molecule compounds, produces unique physical properties including toughness, high elasticity, viscoelasticity, and a tendency to form amorphous and semicrystalline structures rather than crystals.


title: Polymer

text: The term "polymer" derives from the Greek word πολύς ("polus", meaning "many, much") and μέρος ("meros", meaning "part"). The term was coined in 1833 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, though with a definition distinct from the modern IUPAC definition. The modern concept of polymers as covalently bonded macromolecular structures was proposed in 1920 by Hermann Staudinger, who spent the next decade finding experimental evidence for this hypothesis.


title: Polymer

text: Polymers are studied in the fields of polymer science (which includes polymer chemistry and polymer physics), biophysics and materials science and engineering. Historically, products arising from the linkage of repeating units by covalent chemical bonds have been the primary focus of polymer science. An emerging important area now focuses on supramolecular polymers formed by non-covalent links. Polyisoprene of latex rubber is an example of a natural polymer, and the polystyrene of styrofoam is an example of a synthetic polymer. In biological contexts, essentially all biological macromolecules—i.e., proteins (polyamides), nucleic acids (polynucleotides), and polysaccharides—are purely polymeric, or are composed in large part of polymeric components.


title: Polymer

text: Natural polymeric materials such as hemp, shellac, amber, wool, silk, and natural rubber have been used for centuries. A variety of other natural polymers exist, such as cellulose, which is the main constituent of wood and paper.


title: Polymer

text: The list of synthetic polymers, roughly in order of worldwide demand, includes polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polyvinyl chloride, synthetic rubber, phenol formaldehyde resin (or Bakelite), neoprene, nylon, polyacrylonitrile, PVB, silicone, and many more. More than 330 million tons of these polymers are made every year (2015).


title: Polymer

text: Most commonly, the continuously linked backbone of a polymer used for the preparation of plastics consists mainly of carbon atoms. A simple example is polyethylene ('polythene' in British English), whose repeat unit or monomer is ethylene. Many other structures do exist; for example, elements such as silicon form familiar materials such as silicones, examples being Silly Putty and waterproof plumbing sealant. Oxygen is also commonly present in polymer backbones, such as those of polyethylene glycol, polysaccharides (in glycosidic bonds), and DNA (in phosphodiester bonds).


title: Polymer

text: Polymers have been essential components of commodities since the early days of humankind. The use of wool (keratin), cotton and linen fibres (cellulose) for garments, paper reed (cellulose) for paper are just a few examples of how our ancestors exploited polymer-containing raw materials to obtain artefacts. The latex sap of “caoutchouc” trees (natural rubber) reached Europe in the 16th century from South America long after the Olmec, Maya and Aztec had started using it as a material to make balls, waterproof textiles and containers.


title: Polymer

text: The chemical manipulation of polymers dates back to the 19th century, although at the time the nature of these species was not understood. The behaviour of polymers was initially rationalised according to the theory proposed by Thomas Graham which considered them as colloidal aggregates of small molecules held together by unknown forces.


title: Polymer

text: Notwithstanding the lack of theoretical knowledge, the potential of polymers to provide innovative, accessible and cheap materials was immediately grasped. The work carried out by Braconnot, Parkes, Ludersdorf, Hayard and many others on the modification of natural polymers determined many significant advances in the field. Their contributions led to the discovery of materials such as celluloid, galalith, parkesine, rayon, vulcanised rubber and, later, Bakelite: all materials that quickly entered industrial manufacturing processes and reached households as garments components ("e.g.", fabrics, buttons), crockery and decorative items.


title: Polymer

text: In 1920, Hermann Staudinger published his seminal work “Über Polymerisation”, in which he proposed that polymers were in fact long chains of atoms linked by covalent bonds. His work was debated at length, but eventually it was accepted by the scientific community. Because of this work, Staudinger was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1953.


title: Polymer

text: After the 1930s polymers entered a golden age during which new types were discovered and quickly given commercial applications, replacing naturally-sourced materials. This development was fuelled by an industrial sector with a strong economic drive and it was supported by a broad academic community that contributed innovative syntheses of monomers from cheaper raw material, more efficient polymerisation processes, improved techniques for polymer characterisation and advanced, theoretical understanding of polymers.


title: Polymer

text: Since 1953, six Nobel prizes have been awarded in the area of polymer science, excluding those for research on biological macromolecules. This further testifies to its impact on modern science and technology. As Lord Todd summarised in 1980, “I am inclined to think that the development of polymerization is perhaps the biggest thing that chemistry has done, where it has had the biggest effect on everyday life”.


title: Polymer

text: Polymerization is the process of combining many small molecules known as monomers into a covalently bonded chain or network. During the polymerization process, some chemical groups may be lost from each monomer. This happens in the polymerization of PET polyester. The monomers are terephthalic acid (HOOCCHCOOH) and ethylene glycol (HOCHCHOH) but the repeating unit is OCCHCOOCHCHO, which corresponds to the combination of the two monomers with the loss of two water molecules. The distinct piece of each monomer that is incorporated into the polymer is known as a repeat unit or monomer residue.


title: Polymer

text: Synthetic methods are generally divided into two categories, step-growth polymerization and chain polymerization. The essential difference between the two is that in chain polymerization, monomers are added to the chain one at a time only, such as in polystyrene, whereas in step-growth polymerization chains of monomers may combine with one another directly, such as in polyester. Step-growth polymerization can be divided into polycondensation, in which low-molar-mass by-product is formed in every reaction step, and polyaddition.


title: Polymer

text: Newer methods, such as plasma polymerization do not fit neatly into either category. Synthetic polymerization reactions may be carried out with or without a catalyst. Laboratory synthesis of biopolymers, especially of proteins, is an area of intensive research.


title: Polymer

text: In living cells, they may be synthesized by enzyme-mediated processes, such as the formation of DNA catalyzed by DNA polymerase. The synthesis of proteins involves multiple enzyme-mediated processes to transcribe genetic information from the DNA to RNA and subsequently translate that information to synthesize the specified protein from amino acids. The protein may be modified further following translation in order to provide appropriate structure and functioning. There are other biopolymers such as rubber, suberin, melanin, and lignin.


title: Polymer

text: Naturally occurring polymers such as cotton, starch, and rubber were familiar materials for years before synthetic polymers such as polyethene and perspex appeared on the market. Many commercially important polymers are synthesized by chemical modification of naturally occurring polymers. Prominent examples include the reaction of nitric acid and cellulose to form nitrocellulose and the formation of vulcanized rubber by heating natural rubber in the presence of sulfur. Ways in which polymers can be modified include oxidation, cross-linking, and end-capping.


title: Polymer

text: The structure of a polymeric material can be described at different length scales, from the sub-nm length scale up to the macroscopic one. There is in fact a hierarchy of structures, in which each stage provides the foundations for the next one.


title: Polymer

text: The starting point for the description of the structure of a polymer is the identity of its constituent monomers. Next, the microstructure essentially describes the arrangement of these monomers within the polymer at the scale of a single chain. The microstructure determines the possibility for the polymer to form phases with different arrangements, for example through crystallization, the glass transition or microphase separation.


title: Polymer

text: The identity of the repeat units (monomer residues, also known as "mers") comprising a polymer is its first and most important attribute. Polymer nomenclature is generally based upon the type of monomer residues comprising the polymer. A polymer which contains only a single type of repeat unit is known as a homopolymer, while a polymer containing two or more types of repeat units is known as a copolymer. A terpolymer is a copolymer which contains three types of repeat units.


title: Polymer

text: Polystyrene is composed only of styrene-based repeat units, and is classified as a homopolymer. Polyethylene terephthalate, even though produced from two different monomers (ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid), is usually regarded as a homopolymer because only one type of repeat unit is formed. Ethylene-vinyl acetate contains more than one variety of repeat unit and is a copolymer. Some biological polymers are composed of a variety of different but structurally related monomer residues; for example, polynucleotides such as DNA are composed of four types of nucleotide subunits.


title: Polymer

text: A polymer containing ionizable subunits (e.g., pendant carboxylic groups) is known as a polyelectrolyte or ionomer, when the fraction of ionizable units is large or small respectively.


title: Polymer

text: The microstructure of a polymer (sometimes called configuration) relates to the physical arrangement of monomer residues along the backbone of the chain. These are the elements of polymer structure that require the breaking of a covalent bond in order to change. Various polymer structures can be produced depending on the monomers and reaction conditions: A polymer may consist of linear macromolecules containing each only one unbranched chain. In the case of unbranched polyethylene, this chain is a long-chain "n"-alkane. There are also branched macromolecules with a main chain and side chains, in the case of polyethylene the side chains would be alkyl groups. In particular unbranched macromolecules can be in the solid state semi-crystalline, crystalline chain sections highlighted red in the figure below.


title: Polymer

text: While branched and unbranched polymers are usually thermoplastics, many elastomers have a wide-meshed cross-linking between the "main chains". Close-meshed crosslinking, on the other hand, leads to thermosets. Cross-links and branches are shown as red dots in the figures. Highly branched polymers are amorphous and the molecules in the solid interact randomly.


title: Polymer

text: An important microstructural feature of a polymer is its architecture and shape, which relates to the way branch points lead to a deviation from a simple linear chain. A branched polymer molecule is composed of a main chain with one or more substituent side chains or branches. Types of branched polymers include star polymers, comb polymers, polymer brushes, dendronized polymers, ladder polymers, and dendrimers. There exist also two-dimensional polymers (2DP) which are composed of topologically planar repeat units. A polymer's architecture affects many of its physical properties including solution viscosity, melt viscosity, solubility in various solvents, glass-transition temperature and the size of individual polymer coils in solution. A variety of techniques may be employed for the synthesis of a polymeric material with a range of architectures, for example living polymerization.


title: Polymer

text: A common means of expressing the length of a chain is the degree of polymerization, which quantifies the number of monomers incorporated into the chain. As with other molecules, a polymer's size may also be expressed in terms of molecular weight. Since synthetic polymerization techniques typically yield a statistical distribution of chain lengths, the molecular weight is expressed in terms of weighted averages. The number-average molecular weight ("M") and weight-average molecular weight ("M") are most commonly reported. The ratio of these two values ("M" / "M") is the dispersity ("Đ"), which is commonly used to express the width of the molecular weight distribution.


title: Polymer

text: The physical properties of polymer strongly depend on the length (or equivalently, the molecular weight) of the polymer chain. One important example of the physical consequences of the molecular weight is the scaling of the viscosity (resistance to flow) in the melt. The influence of the weight-average molecular weight (formula_1) on the melt viscosity (formula_2) depends on whether the polymer is above or below the onset of entanglements. Below the entanglement molecular weight, formula_3, whereas above the entanglement molecular weight, formula_4. In the latter case, increasing the polymer chain length 10-fold would increase the viscosity over 1000 times. Increasing chain length furthermore tends to decrease chain mobility, increase strength and toughness, and increase the glass-transition temperature (T). This is a result of the increase in chain interactions such as van der Waals attractions and entanglements that come with increased chain length. These interactions tend to fix the individual chains more strongly in position and resist deformations and matrix breakup, both at higher stresses and higher temperatures.


title: Polymer

text: Copolymers are classified either as statistical copolymers, alternating copolymers, block copolymers, graft copolymers or gradient copolymers. In the schematic figure below, Ⓐ and Ⓑ symbolize the two repeat units.


title: Polymer

text: Monomers within a copolymer may be organized along the backbone in a variety of ways. A copolymer containing a controlled arrangement of monomers is called a sequence-controlled polymer. Alternating, periodic and block copolymers are simple examples of sequence-controlled polymers.


title: Polymer

text: Tacticity describes the relative stereochemistry of chiral centers in neighboring structural units within a macromolecule. There are three types of tacticity: isotactic (all substituents on the same side), atactic (random placement of substituents), and syndiotactic (alternating placement of substituents).


title: Polymer

text: Polymer morphology generally describes the arrangement and microscale ordering of polymer chains in space. The macroscopic physical properties of a polymer are related to the interactions between the polymer chains.


title: Polymer

text: When applied to polymers, the term "crystalline" has a somewhat ambiguous usage. In some cases, the term "crystalline" finds identical usage to that used in conventional crystallography. For example, the structure of a crystalline protein or polynucleotide, such as a sample prepared for x-ray crystallography, may be defined in terms of a conventional unit cell composed of one or more polymer molecules with cell dimensions of hundreds of angstroms or more. A synthetic polymer may be loosely described as crystalline if it contains regions of three-dimensional ordering on atomic (rather than macromolecular) length scales, usually arising from intramolecular folding or stacking of adjacent chains. Synthetic polymers may consist of both crystalline and amorphous regions; the degree of crystallinity may be expressed in terms of a weight fraction or volume fraction of crystalline material. Few synthetic polymers are entirely crystalline. The crystallinity of polymers is characterized by their degree of crystallinity, ranging from zero for a completely non-crystalline polymer to one for a theoretical completely crystalline polymer. Polymers with microcrystalline regions are generally tougher (can be bent more without breaking) and more impact-resistant than totally amorphous polymers. Polymers with a degree of crystallinity approaching zero or one will tend to be transparent, while polymers with intermediate degrees of crystallinity will tend to be opaque due to light scattering by crystalline or glassy regions. For many polymers, crystallinity may also be associated with decreased transparency.


title: Polymer

text: The space occupied by a polymer molecule is generally expressed in terms of radius of gyration, which is an average distance from the center of mass of the chain to the chain itself. Alternatively, it may be expressed in terms of pervaded volume, which is the volume spanned by the polymer chain and scales with the cube of the radius of gyration.


title: Polymer

text: Polymer properties depend of their structure and they are divided into classes according to their physical bases. Many physical and chemical properties describe how a polymer behaves as a continuous macroscopic material. They are classified as bulk properties, or intensive properties according to thermodynamics.


title: Polymer

text: The bulk properties of a polymer are those most often of end-use interest. These are the properties that dictate how the polymer actually behaves on a macroscopic scale.


title: Polymer

text: The tensile strength of a material quantifies how much elongating stress the material will endure before failure. This is very important in applications that rely upon a polymer's physical strength or durability. For example, a rubber band with a higher tensile strength will hold a greater weight before snapping. In general, tensile strength increases with polymer chain length and crosslinking of polymer chains.


title: Polymer

text: Young's modulus quantifies the elasticity of the polymer. It is defined, for small strains, as the ratio of rate of change of stress to strain. Like tensile strength, this is highly relevant in polymer applications involving the physical properties of polymers, such as rubber bands. The modulus is strongly dependent on temperature. Viscoelasticity describes a complex time-dependent elastic response, which will exhibit hysteresis in the stress-strain curve when the load is removed. Dynamic mechanical analysis or DMA measures this complex modulus by oscillating the load and measuring the resulting strain as a function of time.


title: Polymer

text: Transport properties such as diffusivity describe how rapidly molecules move through the polymer matrix. These are very important in many applications of polymers for films and membranes.


title: Polymer

text: The movement of individual macromolecules occurs by a process called reptation in which each chain molecule is constrained by entanglements with neighboring chains to move within a virtual tube. The theory of reptation can explain polymer molecule dynamics and viscoelasticity.


title: Polymer

text: Depending on their chemical structures, polymers may be either semi-crystalline or amorphous. Semi-crystalline polymers can undergo crystallization and melting transitions, whereas amorphous polymers do not. In polymers, crystallization and melting do not suggest solid-liquid phase transitions, as in the case of water or other molecular fluids. Instead, crystallization and melting refer to the phase transitions between two solid states ("i.e.", semi-crystalline and amorphous). Crystallization occurs above the glass-transition temperature ("T") and below the melting temperature ("T").


title: Polymer

text: All polymers (amorphous or semi-crystalline) go through glass transitions. The glass-transition temperature ("T") is a crucial physical parameter for polymer manufacturing, processing, and use. Below "T", molecular motions are frozen and polymers are brittle and glassy. Above "T", molecular motions are activated and polymers are rubbery and viscous. The glass-transition temperature may be engineered by altering the degree of branching or crosslinking in the polymer or by the addition of plasticizers.


title: Polymer

text: Whereas crystallization and melting are first-order phase transitions, the glass transition is not. The glass transition shares features of second-order phase transitions (such as discontinuity in the heat capacity, as shown in the figure), but it is generally not considered a thermodynamic transition between equilibrium states.


title: Polymer

text: In general, polymeric mixtures are far less miscible than mixtures of small molecule materials. This effect results from the fact that the driving force for mixing is usually entropy, not interaction energy. In other words, miscible materials usually form a solution not because their interaction with each other is more favorable than their self-interaction, but because of an increase in entropy and hence free energy associated with increasing the amount of volume available to each component. This increase in entropy scales with the number of particles (or moles) being mixed. Since polymeric molecules are much larger and hence generally have much higher specific volumes than small molecules, the number of molecules involved in a polymeric mixture is far smaller than the number in a small molecule mixture of equal volume. The energetics of mixing, on the other hand, is comparable on a per volume basis for polymeric and small molecule mixtures. This tends to increase the free energy of mixing for polymer solutions and thereby making solvation less favorable, and thereby making the availability of concentrated solutions of polymers far rarer than those of small molecules.


title: Polymer

text: Furthermore, the phase behavior of polymer solutions and mixtures is more complex than that of small molecule mixtures. Whereas most small molecule solutions exhibit only an upper critical solution temperature phase transition (UCST), at which phase separation occurs with cooling, polymer mixtures commonly exhibit a lower critical solution temperature phase transition (LCST), at which phase separation occurs with heating.


title: Polymer

text: In dilute solutions, the properties of the polymer are characterized by the interaction between the solvent and the polymer. In a good solvent, the polymer appears swollen and occupies a large volume. In this scenario, intermolecular forces between the solvent and monomer subunits dominate over intramolecular interactions. In a bad solvent or poor solvent, intramolecular forces dominate and the chain contracts. In the theta solvent, or the state of the polymer solution where the value of the second virial coefficient becomes 0, the intermolecular polymer-solvent repulsion balances exactly the intramolecular monomer-monomer attraction. Under the theta condition (also called the Flory condition), the polymer behaves like an ideal random coil. The transition between the states is known as a coil–globule transition.