Maybe I'm overstating the case by calling it "just a collection of songs." That has more of a negative connotation than I'm trying to convey here.

But all I'm saying is:

College Dropout - soul/chipmunk samples
Late Registration - orchestral beats/Jon Brion
Graduation - stadium sound/synths/808s
808s - ...808s/autotune

MBDTF didn't have that central production theme in my opinion. So Appalled, Runaway, Monster ... those are three of the most different sounding songs musically I can think of contained in one album.

That's not to say it's a bad album necessarily. Just saying that was the first time I ever listened to a Kanye album front to back and felt like I was listening to a collection of really good songs rather than a cohesive unit/album.