Watch The Throne, the highly anticipated collaborative effort between Kanye West and Jay-Z , was released last night exclusively via iTunes. I shacked up the $15 for the deluxe version, added it to my iPod, and awaited my flight from Chicago to Boston before pressing play. After listening to the album four times front to back, I felt the need to put the initial reaction into words. Before we get too far into this, let’s get one thing straight: Kanye West and Sean Carter are just two human beings who make music for a profession. With the immense, over-the-top hype behind this album, and the duo’s enormous effect on pop culture, it’s easy to lose sight of that. That being said, it was borderline impossible to listen to this album for the first time without stacking it up against the hype. In other words, with the gargantuan expectations, it’s difficult to not be disappointed after an initial listen. Don’t let that stray you away though, because after some more airtime, Watch The Throne will quickly take you over.

Instead of boring you with a track by track analysis, I’m just going to hit some quick points after my initial few listens of the album. As a pre-cursor, let me just say that it’s incredible that this album didn’t leak at all before it’s release date. In these days of digital music, an album leaks 2 weeks before it’s released; that’s just how it works. A studio engineer, a PR representative, a journalist, a truck driver, a Best Buy employee — all of these people upload albums to the internet prematurely. Kanye and Jay experimented and strictly did a digital release, prior to the physical CD release. I don’t know why it took so long for labels to try this out, but it clearly worked. Should be interesting to see how this affects record releases down the line. Let’s get into my instant reaction:

• This album just sounds expensive. It sounds like it was recorded in a private estate in Australia, which, shocker, it was. It sounds like Kanye and Jay take out their 14 million dollar private yachts on a Tuesday afternoon just because they fucking can. I mean look at the album cover. Honestly, it’s a little much at times.

• In my mind, Watch The Throne has absolutely no in-your-face singles. Nothing jumped out and demanded to be replayed from the get-go, with the exception of “Murder to Excellence”. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just an observation.

• Frank Ocean features on the opening track, and puts his talents on full display later on the instant classic “Made In America”. If you didn’t know already, it’s now confirmed that he’s going to be absolutely huge.

• The production as a whole is entirely different from the Kanye West of norm; which threw me off at first. Granted he had some help on this one, from the Neptunes, to RZA to Q-Tip – so the sound was bound to be different. In particular, the Flux Pavilion sample on “Who Gon Stop Me” completely caught me off guard — first Bon Iver, and now dubstep? It’s cool to see that Kanye generally appreciates all genres of music.

• “New Day” is lyrically the best track on the album, as the two go back and forth in writing letters to their future sons. This is one of the few cuts off the album that strays away from the bragadocious undertones and gets into the minds of Jay and Kanye. I feel like the album as a whole could have used a little more lyrical substance like this. I only need to be told so many times that neither Jay nor Kanye have limits on their AMEX black cards. Nor do I care how many pairs of Louis Vuitton slippers they have.

• Where the hell has Mr. Hudson been? Kanye brings him out of the woodwork on “Why I Love You”, and he nails the chorus as he always does.

• As soon as I got past the self-absorbed lyrics, I was able to appreciate the album a little more. I’m not sure why this surprised me, as bragging and verbally competing against others makes up a vast majority of hip-hop. It’s just that Kanye and Jay aren’t on the same level as “normal hip-hop”; they’re beyond that.

• Additionally, like I said, there are no tracks that scream Billboard #1 hit, but that’s not what these two are looking for. They’ve already done that.

I’m nowhere near ready to call the entire project a “classic”, per se, but there is definitely a handful of classic, individual tracks. Songs like “Made In America” and “Murder to Excellence” are worth the price of the album alone. After a few listens, I find myself continuously impressed with the duo’s chemistry, and I’m expecting The Throne to pull a few more albums out of their pockets down the line. Pick up the album on iTunes, and let me know what you think about it after you’ve given the project a few listens. If you can, try to put the hype aside, and give me your honest opinion on the album. I’m interested to see what you guys think.