Never before has he created a melody as instantly recongnizable or as simplistic as the one gently pressed in those opening piano keys. Never before has Kanye's tinkering with Autotune produced a result as awe-inspiring as the song's coda, a duet with a cello that takes up half of the track's runtime. In a record full of self-flagellation, 'Runaway' is the towering peak of Ye's benediction, a shrieking wail from the depths of his soul acknowledging how far his mighty hubris had made him fall.Īnd we accept his apology, because 'Runaway' is nothing short of nine minutes of sheer perfection. One cannot overlook the context of its creation in which this song was the definitive statement in an album that was a true make-or-break moment in absolving his sins in the eyes of a public still reeling from that fabled mic theft. In a catalogue that spans decades, hundreds of tracks, an army of collaborators and a smorgasbord of musical styles, 'Runaway' was decidedly and unanimously our choice to close out the list of best Kanye West songs.

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