6 Kanye West Albums That Got Delayed (And Why)

Kanye announced that he wanted the album to come out sometime around October 2006 at a listening party for Late Registration. Graduation represented another change in musical style for Kanye after he heard a Daft Punk record for the first time. A-Trak accounts: "Kanye heard "Touch It" and thought that beat was cool. I said, "He just swooped up Daft Punk." And Ye said, "Who?" I just couldn't believe that Kanye had never heard Daft Punk".

The new direction meant that Yeezy was spending more time experimenting with new sounds. Also, his perfectionist habits reared its head again. 'Stronger', the chart stomping anthem was mixed an incredible 75 times, while another popular song off the album 'Good Life' was mixed 16 times.

Furthermore, coming off a tour with U2, he was influenced to create arena-ready anthems after seeing the reception the U2's Vertigo tour received. These changes in his creative process resulted in a longer wait than expected for Graduation.

Five months after the original October 2006 release date, he announced on Power 106 radio station that the new release date was the 18th of September 2007. The label then believed the 3rd Kanye instalment would get finished earlier, so they moved it up to an unspecified late August. However, ever the opportunist, Kanye moved his release date to have a sales battle with 50 Cent to the 11th of September. 50 Cent said he would retire from rapping if Kanye outsold his record. Kanye won the sales war in an expert marketing campaign for the album.

So, technically he did provide the album earlier than promised by seven whole days. He just had to miss three other deadlines first.