JDNotorious
New member
Chris Rock's part at the end of "Blame Game" is fucking hilarious!!!
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I love monster and so appalled. I don't understand the hate for those tracks. Straight raw hip hop. The only weak verse on those two tracks is the prince nigga. Great beats and Bon Iver's parts at the beginning and end of monster is the perfect transition.
The weakest track IMO is gorgeous cause the beat is kind of boring. If I had a better sound system and the 320 version I think I could appreciate that beat and a lot of these other beats more
The weakest track IMO is gorgeous cause the beat is kind of boring. If I had a better sound system and the 320 version I think I could appreciate that beat and a lot of these other beats more
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Fuck! Pitchfork just gave MBDTF a perfect 10 score, and they never do that
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
[Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella; 2010]
10.0
Kanye West's 35-minute super-video, Runaway, peaks with a parade. Fireworks flash while red hoods march through a field. At the center of the spectacle is a huge, pale, cartoonish rendering of Michael Jackson's head. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's gargantuan "All of the Lights" soundtracks the procession, with Kanye pleading, "Something wrong, I hold my head/ MJ gone, our nigga dead." The tribute marks another chapter in West's ongoing obsession with the King of Pop.
West's discography contains innumerable references and allusions to Jackson. His first hit as a producer, Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)", sampled the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". For many, his first memorable lines as a rapper came during 2003's "Slow Jamz": "She got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson/ Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson." And when West's recent interview with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show went awry, he took to Twitter, writing, "I wish Michael Jackson had twitter!!!!!! Maybe Mike could have explained how the media tried to set him up!!! It's all a fucking set up!!!!" Like most everything else, Kanye may exaggerate the kinship, but it's real. And it's never more apparent than on Twisted Fantasy, a blast of surreal pop excess that few artists are capable of creating, or even willing to attempt.
To be clear, Kanye West is not Michael Jackson. As he told MTV last month, "I do have a goal in this lifetime to be the greatest artist of all time, [but] that's very difficult being that I can't dance or sing." He ended the thought with a laugh, but you get the impression he's not kidding. Unlike Michael, he's not interested in scrubbing away bits of himself-- his blackness, his candidness-- to appease the masses. And while Jackson's own twisted fantasies of paranoia and betrayal eventually consumed him whole, West is still aware of his illusions, though that mindfulness becomes increasingly unmoored with each newspaper-splashing controversy. The balance is tenuous, but right now it's working to his advantage. On Twisted Fantasy, Kanye is crazy enough to truly believe he's the greatest out there. And, about a decade into his career, the hardworking perfectionist has gained the talent on the mic and in the control room to make a startlingly strong case for just that.
Kanye's last album, 2008's 808s and Heartbreak, was heavy on the Auto-Tune and stark synths, but relatively light on grandiose ideas. It was a necessary detour that expanded his emotional palette; a bloodletting after a harsh breakup and the passing of his mother that manifests itself in Twisted Fantasy's harshest lows. But musically, the new album largely continues where 2007's Graduation left off in its maximalist hip-hop bent, with flashes of The College Dropout's comfort-food sampling and Late Registration's baroque instrumentation weaved in seamlessly. As a result, the record comes off like a culmination and an instant greatest hits, the ultimate realization of his strongest talents and divisive public persona. And since the nerd-superstar rap archetype he popularized has now become commonplace, he leaves it in the dust, taking his style and drama to previously uncharted locales, far away from typical civilization.
He's got a lot on his mind, too. After exiling himself for months following last year's infamous Taylor Swift stage bomb, the rapper made some of his first comeback appearances at the headquarters of Facebook and Twitter in late July. Videos of West standing on a table in tailored GQ duds while gesticulating through new rhymes (sans musical accompaniment) quickly made the rounds. The Silicon Valley visits seemed like a stunt, but they were prophetic. Forever an over-sharer, Kanye was looking for an outlet for his latest mirror-born musings. He found that platform with Twitter, and proceeded to dictate his own narrative in 140 character hits. Whether showing off exotic purchases, defending himself against the press, or going on stream-of-consciousness rants, Kanye finally had the middleman-free, instant-gratification platform he'd always wanted.
Juiced on the direct connection, he began releasing weekly songs for free online, the generosity of which would be moot if the songs didn't deliver. But they did, over and over, eventually building up the same type of superstar goodwill Radiohead pulled off with their pay-what-you-want In Rainbows release plan and Lil Wayne's free mixtape barrage leading up to 2008's Tha Carter III. So while Kanye can't sing or dance like Michael, he's making meaningful connections in a fresh, oftentimes (ahem) naked way. "When I used to finish an album I would be so excited for my mom to hear the final - final!" he wrote on November 11. "The final - final is what we used to call the... completed album with all the skits!!! I made songs to please one person... MY MOM!!! I would think... would my my Mom like this song!"
I'm not sure which song he's talking about. Because, between July and November, West seemingly decided to make My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy less mom-friendly and more of a hedonistic exploration into a rich and famous American id. At Facebook, he rapped the first verse of what would become album closer "Lost in the World", at one point changing Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something" refrain to, "Mama-say mama-sah Mama Donda's son," referring to his late mother. The familial allusion was left off the album. Another Facebook tune-- a brutally oedipal account called "Mama's Boyfriend"-- was also deleted, along with the vintage-Kanye-sounding "See Me Now". Such exclusions speak to the album's sharp focus-- to move everything forward while constantly tipping on the brink of frantic instability.
This isn't the same resourceful prodigy who made The College Dropout or even the wounded soul behind 808s and Heartbreak. Instead, Kanye's Twisted Fantasy incarnation cherry-picks little things from his previous work and blows them up into something less than sane. The expansive, all-encompassing nature of the album is borne out in its staggering guest list which includes mentors Jay-Z, RZA, and No ID, along with new charges like Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, and Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. The inclusion of Minaj (who contributes the schizoid verse of her life on "Monster"), Ross (a guy known for making up his own reality as he goes), and Cudi (who's probably even more wildly self-destructive than Kanye) especially adds to the hallucinatory tone. By the time Chris Rock shows up to provide comic relief during one of the album's bleakest moments, it begins to feel as if Kanye is stage-managing his own award show with enough starpower, shock, and dynamism to flatten the Grammys, the VMAs, and the rest all at once.
Over the past few months, Kanye has intermittently tried to flush away his rep as a boorish egoist in interviews and on Twitter, which is, fortunately, impossible. Because without his exploding self-worth-- itself a cyclical reaction to the self-doubt so much of his music explores-- there would be no Twisted Fantasy. "Every superhero needs his theme music," he says on "POWER", and though he's far from the virtuous paragons of comic book lore, he's no less complex. In his public life, he exhibits vulnerability and invincibility in equal measure, but he's just as apt at villainy-- especially here.
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
[Def Jam / Roc-A-Fella; 2010]
10.0
Kanye West's 35-minute super-video, Runaway, peaks with a parade. Fireworks flash while red hoods march through a field. At the center of the spectacle is a huge, pale, cartoonish rendering of Michael Jackson's head. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's gargantuan "All of the Lights" soundtracks the procession, with Kanye pleading, "Something wrong, I hold my head/ MJ gone, our nigga dead." The tribute marks another chapter in West's ongoing obsession with the King of Pop.
West's discography contains innumerable references and allusions to Jackson. His first hit as a producer, Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)", sampled the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". For many, his first memorable lines as a rapper came during 2003's "Slow Jamz": "She got a light-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson/ Got a dark-skinned friend look like Michael Jackson." And when West's recent interview with Matt Lauer on the "Today" show went awry, he took to Twitter, writing, "I wish Michael Jackson had twitter!!!!!! Maybe Mike could have explained how the media tried to set him up!!! It's all a fucking set up!!!!" Like most everything else, Kanye may exaggerate the kinship, but it's real. And it's never more apparent than on Twisted Fantasy, a blast of surreal pop excess that few artists are capable of creating, or even willing to attempt.
To be clear, Kanye West is not Michael Jackson. As he told MTV last month, "I do have a goal in this lifetime to be the greatest artist of all time, [but] that's very difficult being that I can't dance or sing." He ended the thought with a laugh, but you get the impression he's not kidding. Unlike Michael, he's not interested in scrubbing away bits of himself-- his blackness, his candidness-- to appease the masses. And while Jackson's own twisted fantasies of paranoia and betrayal eventually consumed him whole, West is still aware of his illusions, though that mindfulness becomes increasingly unmoored with each newspaper-splashing controversy. The balance is tenuous, but right now it's working to his advantage. On Twisted Fantasy, Kanye is crazy enough to truly believe he's the greatest out there. And, about a decade into his career, the hardworking perfectionist has gained the talent on the mic and in the control room to make a startlingly strong case for just that.
Kanye's last album, 2008's 808s and Heartbreak, was heavy on the Auto-Tune and stark synths, but relatively light on grandiose ideas. It was a necessary detour that expanded his emotional palette; a bloodletting after a harsh breakup and the passing of his mother that manifests itself in Twisted Fantasy's harshest lows. But musically, the new album largely continues where 2007's Graduation left off in its maximalist hip-hop bent, with flashes of The College Dropout's comfort-food sampling and Late Registration's baroque instrumentation weaved in seamlessly. As a result, the record comes off like a culmination and an instant greatest hits, the ultimate realization of his strongest talents and divisive public persona. And since the nerd-superstar rap archetype he popularized has now become commonplace, he leaves it in the dust, taking his style and drama to previously uncharted locales, far away from typical civilization.
He's got a lot on his mind, too. After exiling himself for months following last year's infamous Taylor Swift stage bomb, the rapper made some of his first comeback appearances at the headquarters of Facebook and Twitter in late July. Videos of West standing on a table in tailored GQ duds while gesticulating through new rhymes (sans musical accompaniment) quickly made the rounds. The Silicon Valley visits seemed like a stunt, but they were prophetic. Forever an over-sharer, Kanye was looking for an outlet for his latest mirror-born musings. He found that platform with Twitter, and proceeded to dictate his own narrative in 140 character hits. Whether showing off exotic purchases, defending himself against the press, or going on stream-of-consciousness rants, Kanye finally had the middleman-free, instant-gratification platform he'd always wanted.
Juiced on the direct connection, he began releasing weekly songs for free online, the generosity of which would be moot if the songs didn't deliver. But they did, over and over, eventually building up the same type of superstar goodwill Radiohead pulled off with their pay-what-you-want In Rainbows release plan and Lil Wayne's free mixtape barrage leading up to 2008's Tha Carter III. So while Kanye can't sing or dance like Michael, he's making meaningful connections in a fresh, oftentimes (ahem) naked way. "When I used to finish an album I would be so excited for my mom to hear the final - final!" he wrote on November 11. "The final - final is what we used to call the... completed album with all the skits!!! I made songs to please one person... MY MOM!!! I would think... would my my Mom like this song!"
I'm not sure which song he's talking about. Because, between July and November, West seemingly decided to make My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy less mom-friendly and more of a hedonistic exploration into a rich and famous American id. At Facebook, he rapped the first verse of what would become album closer "Lost in the World", at one point changing Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Something" refrain to, "Mama-say mama-sah Mama Donda's son," referring to his late mother. The familial allusion was left off the album. Another Facebook tune-- a brutally oedipal account called "Mama's Boyfriend"-- was also deleted, along with the vintage-Kanye-sounding "See Me Now". Such exclusions speak to the album's sharp focus-- to move everything forward while constantly tipping on the brink of frantic instability.
This isn't the same resourceful prodigy who made The College Dropout or even the wounded soul behind 808s and Heartbreak. Instead, Kanye's Twisted Fantasy incarnation cherry-picks little things from his previous work and blows them up into something less than sane. The expansive, all-encompassing nature of the album is borne out in its staggering guest list which includes mentors Jay-Z, RZA, and No ID, along with new charges like Nicki Minaj, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, and Bon Iver's Justin Vernon. The inclusion of Minaj (who contributes the schizoid verse of her life on "Monster"), Ross (a guy known for making up his own reality as he goes), and Cudi (who's probably even more wildly self-destructive than Kanye) especially adds to the hallucinatory tone. By the time Chris Rock shows up to provide comic relief during one of the album's bleakest moments, it begins to feel as if Kanye is stage-managing his own award show with enough starpower, shock, and dynamism to flatten the Grammys, the VMAs, and the rest all at once.
Over the past few months, Kanye has intermittently tried to flush away his rep as a boorish egoist in interviews and on Twitter, which is, fortunately, impossible. Because without his exploding self-worth-- itself a cyclical reaction to the self-doubt so much of his music explores-- there would be no Twisted Fantasy. "Every superhero needs his theme music," he says on "POWER", and though he's far from the virtuous paragons of comic book lore, he's no less complex. In his public life, he exhibits vulnerability and invincibility in equal measure, but he's just as apt at villainy-- especially here.
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
With "Runaway", he rousingly highlights his own douchebaggery, turning it into a rallying cry for all humanity. Like many of his greatest songs, it's funny, sad, and perversely relatable. And while the royal horns and martial drums of "All of the Lights" make it sound like the ideal outlet for the most over-the-top boasts imaginable, West instead inhabits the role of an abusive deadbeat desperate to make good on a million blown promises. "Hell of a Life" attempts to bend its central credo-- "no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need"-- into a noble pursuit. As a woofer-mulching synth line lurks, Kanye justifies his dreams of not sleeping with but marrying a porn star, peaking with the combative taunt, "How can you say they live they life wrong/ When you never fuck with the lights on." Inspired by his two-year relationship with salacious model Amber Rose, the song blurs the line between fantasy and reality, sex and romance, love and religion, until no lines exist at all. It's a zonked nirvana with demons underneath; a fragile state that can't help but break apart on the very next song.
The haunted, Aphex Twin-sampling "Blame Game" bottoms out with a verse in which Kanye's voice is sped up, slowed down and stretched out. The effect is almost psychotic, suggesting three or four inner monologues fighting over smashed emotions. It's one of many moments on the record where West manipulates his vocals. Whether funneling some of his best-ever rhymes through a tinny, Strokes-like filter on "Gorgeous" or making himself wail like a dying cyborg in the final minutes of "Runaway", he uses studio wizardry to draw out his multitudes. Tellingly, though, he doesn't get the last word the album. That distinction goes to the sobering tones of Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 spoken-word piece "Comment #1", a stark take on the American fable. "All I want is a good home and a wife and children and some food to feed them every night," says Scott-Heron, bringing the fantasy to a close.
On "POWER", Kanye raps, "My childlike creativity, purity, and honesty is honestly being crowded by these grown thoughts/ Reality is catching up with me, taking my inner child, I'm fighting for custody." The lines nail another commonality between the rapper and his hero. Like Michael, Kanye's behavior-- from the poorly planned outbursts to the musical brilliance-- is wide-eyed in a way that most 33 year olds have long left behind. That naivety is routinely battered on Twisted Fantasy, yet it survives, better for the wear. With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye's man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic. "I can't be everybody's hero and villain, savior and sinner, Christian and anti Christ!" he wrote earlier this month. That may be true, but he's more willing than anyone else to try.
— Ryan Dombal, November 22, 2010
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14880-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy/
The haunted, Aphex Twin-sampling "Blame Game" bottoms out with a verse in which Kanye's voice is sped up, slowed down and stretched out. The effect is almost psychotic, suggesting three or four inner monologues fighting over smashed emotions. It's one of many moments on the record where West manipulates his vocals. Whether funneling some of his best-ever rhymes through a tinny, Strokes-like filter on "Gorgeous" or making himself wail like a dying cyborg in the final minutes of "Runaway", he uses studio wizardry to draw out his multitudes. Tellingly, though, he doesn't get the last word the album. That distinction goes to the sobering tones of Gil Scott-Heron's 1970 spoken-word piece "Comment #1", a stark take on the American fable. "All I want is a good home and a wife and children and some food to feed them every night," says Scott-Heron, bringing the fantasy to a close.
On "POWER", Kanye raps, "My childlike creativity, purity, and honesty is honestly being crowded by these grown thoughts/ Reality is catching up with me, taking my inner child, I'm fighting for custody." The lines nail another commonality between the rapper and his hero. Like Michael, Kanye's behavior-- from the poorly planned outbursts to the musical brilliance-- is wide-eyed in a way that most 33 year olds have long left behind. That naivety is routinely battered on Twisted Fantasy, yet it survives, better for the wear. With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye's man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic. "I can't be everybody's hero and villain, savior and sinner, Christian and anti Christ!" he wrote earlier this month. That may be true, but he's more willing than anyone else to try.
— Ryan Dombal, November 22, 2010
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14880-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy/
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
(Def Jam; 2010)
Rating: 90%
Combined Rating: 88%
Kanye West had to do him; and lo and behold, he has. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the most cohesive and assured record in mainstream hip-hop since Jay-Z sketched his Blueprint (2001). But even within that tradition, its lineage is weirder and more unexpected: its gigantic-yet-hermetic orchestral narratives recall OK Computer (1997); its soulful, peak-and-valley pacing, full of wonky guitar interludes and maximalist freakouts, feels like There’s a Riot Going On (1971) or Curtis (1970); its ability to figure a bunch of personalities into one cohesive vision recalls the grandiose pop politics of Rumours (1977). No wonder Rolling Stone dropped a perfect score on it—in order to make his canonical record Kanye had to dodge hip-hop’s self-aggrandizing influence and delve into the epic myopia of ’70s soul and classic rock. That it does all this while still being rigidly, unabashedly hip-hop narrows its direct precedents to one record: that is, the masterwork Aquemini (1998).
But where point zero for Andre and Big Boi was their artistic communion, Kanye’s is both simpler and shiftier. Kanye, like we’re saying, is doing Kanye. At last, he proves up to the challenge. In the past two years he gave up a portion of his self-image, took the fish-stick jokes head-on, realized not just that people hate him but why they do, and, lastly and most importantly, agreed with them. Off with the king’s head, then.
In this context 808s & Heartbreak (2008) feels even more like a crisis of identity than it did initially. Who can argue, now, that it doesn’t sound two-dimensional and slight? Kanye’s melancholy was acted out in a vacuum. It felt sterile, taxidermic, the spectacle of Melancholy put on display like a museum piece. At best, it found triumph in unexpected places, like the stupid sublimity of “RoboCop.” At worst, it was the album-length equivalent of the sputtering “I’m cold / I’m cold / I’m cold” at the beginning of “See You in My Nightmare.” Either way, it was his heartbreak, but for Ye and for us, it was ultimately without catharsis, ending as cold as it began.
That phoenix he’s fucking on the cover of Fantasy (again: Kanye doing Kanye) is the first clue that this is meant as a resurrection, from scandal as much as from the inarticulate dead end that was 808s & Heartbreak. His melancholic impulses are collapsed with his triumphalist ones, and the resulting duality is revelatory—mostly, it seems, to Kanye himself. Both here and throughout his string of G.O.O.D. Fridays releases, he marries the long-form posse cut of Late Registration (2006) triumphs “Gone” and “We Major” with something new. It is the melancholy of its predecessor but flipped in its details to something angry, like the ominous sweep that re-introduces the beat on opener “Dark Fantasy,” or the martial bass drum, suggesting a sort of Caligulan debauchery, on “Power.” Sadness and glory ebb together, utterly twinned. Baleful horns gird tough raps and get-it hooks on “All of the Lights”; Hova confesses a naked desire for love on the otherwise giddy “”Monster”; on “Blame Game,” a Chris Rock monologue plays out as tragedy. Indeed, his guests here are all subsumed by his vision, his influences treated as subject to his emotions. Pusha’s lovely closing couplet on “Runaway” might sound like shit talk on a Clipse record; here, amidst black-swan strings, he sounds like he just glimpsed infinity and came back terrified.
But while his superlative skill as a producer has succeeded in doing the impossible—making a Thornton brother sound vulnerable—the most quantum step forward here comes from Kanye as an emcee. Vaulting past the Chicago-leaning conscious-rap of his early career, and past the sharp, lewd wit he debuted in 2008 and 2009, on Fantasy Kanye at last perfects a style that is truly his own. Less eager to please, and more substantial in his message and vision, he packs verses with spit-take punchlines and acidic ruminations on race, often simultaneously: “I treat the cash like the government treats AIDS / I won’t be satisfied till all my niggas get it.” He has taken piecemeal the parts he likes from his favorite emcees: buoyant politics from Common Sense and Q-Tip, generous use of blank space from Jay-Z and Murda Ma$e, freewheeling lasciviousness from Pusha and Weezy. And then he has channeled this flow into song-length conceptual arcs: the red-eyed freakout “All of the Lights,” the cackling fuck-you of “So Appalled,” or, most dazzlingly, the celestial braggadocio of “Devil in a New Dress.” His lyrical clarity recalls, again, Andre 3000; yet his submission of private affairs to public discrimination recalls no one so much as 2pac.
Which is, then, what makes My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy what it is: our perception of its author. Over the past few years, most conversations about Kanye have turned away from his music, propagating instead a stubbornly persistent notion that he’s nothing more than a broken silhouette of Internet memes, Twitter koans, and public temper tantrums—the definitive celebrity of a particularly substance-less moment in pop culture. But My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is defiantly substantive; it’s not (despite what its fourth-grader art project title implies) simply Ye’s assertion of self. It’s the large-scale greatness of mainstream art played out in 2010: not so much a snapshot of a moment as a meticulously sketched plot to break out of it. Because “lost in this plastic life / let’s break out of this fake-ass party” is a sentiment utterly un-meme-able.
And totally universal. What’s strange is how good pop’s biggest asshole has suddenly become at sharing things, how everything—the passion, nihilism, self-loathing, and fury—feels as much his as it is ours. It’s a sprawling monument to wholeness towering over an artistically and emotionally fragmented landscape. It’s Kanye, like we said, doing him: a circuit at last complete.
http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5791/kanyewest-fantasy-2010
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
(Def Jam; 2010)
Rating: 90%
Combined Rating: 88%
Kanye West had to do him; and lo and behold, he has. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the most cohesive and assured record in mainstream hip-hop since Jay-Z sketched his Blueprint (2001). But even within that tradition, its lineage is weirder and more unexpected: its gigantic-yet-hermetic orchestral narratives recall OK Computer (1997); its soulful, peak-and-valley pacing, full of wonky guitar interludes and maximalist freakouts, feels like There’s a Riot Going On (1971) or Curtis (1970); its ability to figure a bunch of personalities into one cohesive vision recalls the grandiose pop politics of Rumours (1977). No wonder Rolling Stone dropped a perfect score on it—in order to make his canonical record Kanye had to dodge hip-hop’s self-aggrandizing influence and delve into the epic myopia of ’70s soul and classic rock. That it does all this while still being rigidly, unabashedly hip-hop narrows its direct precedents to one record: that is, the masterwork Aquemini (1998).
But where point zero for Andre and Big Boi was their artistic communion, Kanye’s is both simpler and shiftier. Kanye, like we’re saying, is doing Kanye. At last, he proves up to the challenge. In the past two years he gave up a portion of his self-image, took the fish-stick jokes head-on, realized not just that people hate him but why they do, and, lastly and most importantly, agreed with them. Off with the king’s head, then.
In this context 808s & Heartbreak (2008) feels even more like a crisis of identity than it did initially. Who can argue, now, that it doesn’t sound two-dimensional and slight? Kanye’s melancholy was acted out in a vacuum. It felt sterile, taxidermic, the spectacle of Melancholy put on display like a museum piece. At best, it found triumph in unexpected places, like the stupid sublimity of “RoboCop.” At worst, it was the album-length equivalent of the sputtering “I’m cold / I’m cold / I’m cold” at the beginning of “See You in My Nightmare.” Either way, it was his heartbreak, but for Ye and for us, it was ultimately without catharsis, ending as cold as it began.
That phoenix he’s fucking on the cover of Fantasy (again: Kanye doing Kanye) is the first clue that this is meant as a resurrection, from scandal as much as from the inarticulate dead end that was 808s & Heartbreak. His melancholic impulses are collapsed with his triumphalist ones, and the resulting duality is revelatory—mostly, it seems, to Kanye himself. Both here and throughout his string of G.O.O.D. Fridays releases, he marries the long-form posse cut of Late Registration (2006) triumphs “Gone” and “We Major” with something new. It is the melancholy of its predecessor but flipped in its details to something angry, like the ominous sweep that re-introduces the beat on opener “Dark Fantasy,” or the martial bass drum, suggesting a sort of Caligulan debauchery, on “Power.” Sadness and glory ebb together, utterly twinned. Baleful horns gird tough raps and get-it hooks on “All of the Lights”; Hova confesses a naked desire for love on the otherwise giddy “”Monster”; on “Blame Game,” a Chris Rock monologue plays out as tragedy. Indeed, his guests here are all subsumed by his vision, his influences treated as subject to his emotions. Pusha’s lovely closing couplet on “Runaway” might sound like shit talk on a Clipse record; here, amidst black-swan strings, he sounds like he just glimpsed infinity and came back terrified.
But while his superlative skill as a producer has succeeded in doing the impossible—making a Thornton brother sound vulnerable—the most quantum step forward here comes from Kanye as an emcee. Vaulting past the Chicago-leaning conscious-rap of his early career, and past the sharp, lewd wit he debuted in 2008 and 2009, on Fantasy Kanye at last perfects a style that is truly his own. Less eager to please, and more substantial in his message and vision, he packs verses with spit-take punchlines and acidic ruminations on race, often simultaneously: “I treat the cash like the government treats AIDS / I won’t be satisfied till all my niggas get it.” He has taken piecemeal the parts he likes from his favorite emcees: buoyant politics from Common Sense and Q-Tip, generous use of blank space from Jay-Z and Murda Ma$e, freewheeling lasciviousness from Pusha and Weezy. And then he has channeled this flow into song-length conceptual arcs: the red-eyed freakout “All of the Lights,” the cackling fuck-you of “So Appalled,” or, most dazzlingly, the celestial braggadocio of “Devil in a New Dress.” His lyrical clarity recalls, again, Andre 3000; yet his submission of private affairs to public discrimination recalls no one so much as 2pac.
Which is, then, what makes My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy what it is: our perception of its author. Over the past few years, most conversations about Kanye have turned away from his music, propagating instead a stubbornly persistent notion that he’s nothing more than a broken silhouette of Internet memes, Twitter koans, and public temper tantrums—the definitive celebrity of a particularly substance-less moment in pop culture. But My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is defiantly substantive; it’s not (despite what its fourth-grader art project title implies) simply Ye’s assertion of self. It’s the large-scale greatness of mainstream art played out in 2010: not so much a snapshot of a moment as a meticulously sketched plot to break out of it. Because “lost in this plastic life / let’s break out of this fake-ass party” is a sentiment utterly un-meme-able.
And totally universal. What’s strange is how good pop’s biggest asshole has suddenly become at sharing things, how everything—the passion, nihilism, self-loathing, and fury—feels as much his as it is ours. It’s a sprawling monument to wholeness towering over an artistically and emotionally fragmented landscape. It’s Kanye, like we said, doing him: a circuit at last complete.
http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5791/kanyewest-fantasy-2010
Last edited:
dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Times have been tough for Kanye West of late. Prior to beginning work on his latest album, the man suffered two awful life traumas (the unexpected death of his mother and the breakup of his engagement), events which wrought themselves in caps all over the angst-laden auto-croon of his last work. While 808s and Heartbreak may have helped West publically exorcise the pain of these tragedies from his life, the years between its release and his latest have been, if not as tragic, far from smooth. Since mid-2008 or so, West's life seems to have taken a turn away from the heart-rending and into the realm of the surreal. His proclivity for awards-show interruptions came to a gruesome head at the 2009 MTV awards, culminating in the President of the United States publically referring to him as a jackass and his being made the brunt of a particularly memorable episode of South Park (ouch). Add in a mullet and some over-the-top outfits, and these last couple years have been a confusing time for our protagonist. Fortunately for the listener, West has always excelled at turning personal adversity into excellent art (as 'Through the Wire' so perfectly illustrated). However, listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one gets the sense that, once again, Kanye has not escaped unscathed.
West has always been a person uncomfortable in his own skin, which to a large extent has formed the cornerstone of his likeability. Despite an unembellished background free of criminality or street hyperbole, West is, in my mind at least, a more engaging character than any number of Gambino clones due to the conflict in his personality. On the one hand he's a remarkably self-confident man, assured of his own brilliance and validated by a decade of remarkable success. On the other hand, for a chap who seems to be so enamoured with what he's able to do, he still comes across as a person with a whole lot of self-doubt. His music has always oscillated between grandiosity and self-recrimination—see 'All Falls Down' or 'Diamonds are Forever - Remix' for instance.
MBDTF, however, signals a shift in the way West appears to view himself. Previously, despite his occasional lack of confidence, he always seemed to cut himself some slack. However, the Kanye we have here, whilst still supremely assured of the greatness of his abilities, no longer appears to think of himself as a god guy. 'Power', the lead single, makes this absolutely clear. To pull a few quotes: "I'm an asshole"; "I embody every characteristic of the egotistic"; "I was the abomination of Obama's nation". Oh yeah, it also features a reprise that sees him fantasizing about jumping out of a window. Not exactly a breezy listen, then.
To some extent, the album seems to suffused with this same sense of regret: it works as a kind of meditation on the consequences of one's bad choices, a particularly appropriate topic after Kanye's last couple of years. Whether in the realm of the hypothetical ('All of the Lights', where Kanye raps from the perspective of an ex-con trying to regain custody of his daughter), the personal ('Power'), the macro-economic ('So Appalled', in which Kanye's verse seems to draw a parallel between the financial excesses of the past decade and his own "fucking ridiculous" behaviour) to the (doomed) romantic ('Devil in a Blue Dress', 'Runaway', 'Blame Game'), the album is concerned with the results of one's actions when one's actions don't quite work out how one hopes. Yet, despite standing in the wreckage of his reputation and wallowing in the consequences of his public misbehavior, West simultaneously manages to come across on this album as remarkably arrogant as ever, an unrepentant antihero, "the LeBron of rhyme", fully aware of what he's done yet still as bracingly cocky and compellingly contradictory as ever. Just a lot sadder than before.
To add to the thematic elements, on a purely musical level, MBDTF is West's most fully realized work to date. He's more sonically and lyrically spot-on than he's ever been. The production is trademark West, displaying a musicality which puts nearly any contemporary pop music to shame. And a breadth of obscure sample sources that could put the knowledge of many a music nerd to shame. Kanye's rapping his ass off here, and while occasionally eclipsed by a guest star (most notably a fire-breathing Nicki Minaj on 'Monster') his rhymes on the record are consistently up there with his best ever, frequently delivered through a layer of vocal distortion, displaying a barbed wit and a sense of dark humour, coupled in places with a sense of socio-political consciousness as strong as his work on The College Dropout, but with a world-weary, cynical tint. Most notably after the diversion of 808s and Heartbreak, the record is wholeheartedly a rap album (and features input from some old school greats, with guest production from RZA, Pete Rock, Q-Tip and DJ Premier). Yet MBDTF doesn't sound particularly like any of Kanye's previous work; nor does it really sound like any rap that's come out before, either. This album should serve as a challenge to any other artists who feel that rap as a genre is constrictive to stepping their game up (cough, Andre 3000, cough). For rap fans it's both a testament to the versatility of the genre and Kanye's own brilliance that he can make something so refreshingly different which still fits comfortably in the rap canon. Oh, and if all this wasn't enough, the album also includes a skit that's genuinely funny, a near statistical impossibility for rap albums.
So, then, Kanye West may be a jackass, a douchebag, an asshole, or all of the above; it's disputable. But what's indisputable is that he's one of rap's, and popular music in general's most consistently brilliant voices. He's had it rough (or as rough as can be for one with his level of talent and success anyway), but once again he's managed to take his adversity and turn it into perhaps the album of the year.
He told you so.
9/10
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/15827/reviews/4141567?ticker
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Times have been tough for Kanye West of late. Prior to beginning work on his latest album, the man suffered two awful life traumas (the unexpected death of his mother and the breakup of his engagement), events which wrought themselves in caps all over the angst-laden auto-croon of his last work. While 808s and Heartbreak may have helped West publically exorcise the pain of these tragedies from his life, the years between its release and his latest have been, if not as tragic, far from smooth. Since mid-2008 or so, West's life seems to have taken a turn away from the heart-rending and into the realm of the surreal. His proclivity for awards-show interruptions came to a gruesome head at the 2009 MTV awards, culminating in the President of the United States publically referring to him as a jackass and his being made the brunt of a particularly memorable episode of South Park (ouch). Add in a mullet and some over-the-top outfits, and these last couple years have been a confusing time for our protagonist. Fortunately for the listener, West has always excelled at turning personal adversity into excellent art (as 'Through the Wire' so perfectly illustrated). However, listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, one gets the sense that, once again, Kanye has not escaped unscathed.
West has always been a person uncomfortable in his own skin, which to a large extent has formed the cornerstone of his likeability. Despite an unembellished background free of criminality or street hyperbole, West is, in my mind at least, a more engaging character than any number of Gambino clones due to the conflict in his personality. On the one hand he's a remarkably self-confident man, assured of his own brilliance and validated by a decade of remarkable success. On the other hand, for a chap who seems to be so enamoured with what he's able to do, he still comes across as a person with a whole lot of self-doubt. His music has always oscillated between grandiosity and self-recrimination—see 'All Falls Down' or 'Diamonds are Forever - Remix' for instance.
MBDTF, however, signals a shift in the way West appears to view himself. Previously, despite his occasional lack of confidence, he always seemed to cut himself some slack. However, the Kanye we have here, whilst still supremely assured of the greatness of his abilities, no longer appears to think of himself as a god guy. 'Power', the lead single, makes this absolutely clear. To pull a few quotes: "I'm an asshole"; "I embody every characteristic of the egotistic"; "I was the abomination of Obama's nation". Oh yeah, it also features a reprise that sees him fantasizing about jumping out of a window. Not exactly a breezy listen, then.
To some extent, the album seems to suffused with this same sense of regret: it works as a kind of meditation on the consequences of one's bad choices, a particularly appropriate topic after Kanye's last couple of years. Whether in the realm of the hypothetical ('All of the Lights', where Kanye raps from the perspective of an ex-con trying to regain custody of his daughter), the personal ('Power'), the macro-economic ('So Appalled', in which Kanye's verse seems to draw a parallel between the financial excesses of the past decade and his own "fucking ridiculous" behaviour) to the (doomed) romantic ('Devil in a Blue Dress', 'Runaway', 'Blame Game'), the album is concerned with the results of one's actions when one's actions don't quite work out how one hopes. Yet, despite standing in the wreckage of his reputation and wallowing in the consequences of his public misbehavior, West simultaneously manages to come across on this album as remarkably arrogant as ever, an unrepentant antihero, "the LeBron of rhyme", fully aware of what he's done yet still as bracingly cocky and compellingly contradictory as ever. Just a lot sadder than before.
To add to the thematic elements, on a purely musical level, MBDTF is West's most fully realized work to date. He's more sonically and lyrically spot-on than he's ever been. The production is trademark West, displaying a musicality which puts nearly any contemporary pop music to shame. And a breadth of obscure sample sources that could put the knowledge of many a music nerd to shame. Kanye's rapping his ass off here, and while occasionally eclipsed by a guest star (most notably a fire-breathing Nicki Minaj on 'Monster') his rhymes on the record are consistently up there with his best ever, frequently delivered through a layer of vocal distortion, displaying a barbed wit and a sense of dark humour, coupled in places with a sense of socio-political consciousness as strong as his work on The College Dropout, but with a world-weary, cynical tint. Most notably after the diversion of 808s and Heartbreak, the record is wholeheartedly a rap album (and features input from some old school greats, with guest production from RZA, Pete Rock, Q-Tip and DJ Premier). Yet MBDTF doesn't sound particularly like any of Kanye's previous work; nor does it really sound like any rap that's come out before, either. This album should serve as a challenge to any other artists who feel that rap as a genre is constrictive to stepping their game up (cough, Andre 3000, cough). For rap fans it's both a testament to the versatility of the genre and Kanye's own brilliance that he can make something so refreshingly different which still fits comfortably in the rap canon. Oh, and if all this wasn't enough, the album also includes a skit that's genuinely funny, a near statistical impossibility for rap albums.
So, then, Kanye West may be a jackass, a douchebag, an asshole, or all of the above; it's disputable. But what's indisputable is that he's one of rap's, and popular music in general's most consistently brilliant voices. He's had it rough (or as rough as can be for one with his level of talent and success anyway), but once again he's managed to take his adversity and turn it into perhaps the album of the year.
He told you so.
9/10
http://drownedinsound.com/releases/15827/reviews/4141567?ticker
Last edited:
dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Album Review: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Def Jam/Roc-A-Fella)
He's finally sorted his life out and is back on fine - if slightly odd - form, with a little help from his A-list friends
Kanye West: douchebag, enemy of the state, incurable gobshite who’s annoyed more American presidents than Fidel Castro. A man with a head so unfeasibly smooth, it looks like he’s slowly evolving into a Madame Tussauds effigy of himself.
For better or worse, he’s also the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American dream to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart.
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ captures that essence in full. It’s an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man that is by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking.
Reportedly a cool $3million in the making and with a stellar cast comprising the great and good of 2010’s musical establishment – plus Fergie from Black Eyed Peas – it’s an epically conceived song-suite, a titanic wrestling with music’s most colossal ego that effortlessly engages its hype as the most feverishly anticipated record of the year. It’s a world away from the indifferent reception afforded to ‘808s & Heartbreak’, a brave but unloveable record of synth-drenched introspection dealing with Kanye’s split from Alexis Phifer in 2008 and the tragic death of his mother, who died following cosmetic surgery.
‘My Beautiful…’ kicks off proceedings with a suitable sense of what’s at stake here; a tense, string-laden affair with Kanye musing how “the plan was to drink until the pain was over/But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?” There’s more trouble at hand with Kid Cudi collaboration ‘Gorgeous’’s slouching guitars but Kanye relocates his funny bone with lines like: “This week has been a bad massage/I need a happy ending”.
Then the record’s first real moment of catharsis arrives in the shape of the gladiatorial ‘Power’, whose tribal fanfare and supercharged lyric seems to imagine in advance Kanye’s warm welcome into heaven: “I guess every superhero need his theme music”.
‘All Of The Lights’ is the sleb-studded centrepiece, with a credit list including Rihanna, Elton John, Alicia Keys, John Legend, The Dream, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Ryan Leslie, Charlie Wilson, Tony Williams and La Roux’s Elly Jackson. In anyone else’s hands it’d be an A-list circle-jerk of horrid proportions, but through Kanye’s bar-raising vision it becomes a truly wondrous thing, all Rocky-apeing brass flourishes and epileptic drum’n’bass breaks.
Elsewhere, ‘Monster’ proves a riotous bit of respite, Yeezy sending up his rep with a self-mocking diatribe about drowning his pain in a blizzard of blow jobs and mass adulation (beats Prozac, we suppose) while Nicki Minaj sets the dials to ‘ridiculous’ with a fire-breathing, raga-inflected verse.
Kanye raises a trip-hoppy toast to the douchebags of the world on ‘Runaway’ – generously remembering to include himself – before finally squaring up to some uncomfortable home truths: “Never was much of a romantic/I could never take the intimacy/And I know it did damage/’Cos the look in your eyes is killin’ me”.
But it’s ‘Lost In The World’ that provides the heart-rending highlight, chasing down Yeezy’s soul past velvet ropes and jaded afterparties as Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon reprises an autotuned vocal from last year’s ‘Blood Bank’ to quite brilliant effect. Segueing into a coda which samples Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Comment #1’, it frames Kanye’s inner demons in a universal way, recasting Vernon’s semi-mythical woodland retreat as his own cipher for spiritual replenishment.
If ‘808s & Heatbreak’ was the wilderness period, then by extension ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is Kanye’s entry into Jerusalem, on a jet-propelled donkey with chrome-plated hooves. It’s the best thing he’s done since his game-changing debut, and heartening evidence to suggest the self-professed Louis Vuitton don is in a good place right now. You’d be mad not to follow him.
9 out of 10
Alex Denney
http://www.nme.com/reviews/kanye-west/11723
He's finally sorted his life out and is back on fine - if slightly odd - form, with a little help from his A-list friends
Kanye West: douchebag, enemy of the state, incurable gobshite who’s annoyed more American presidents than Fidel Castro. A man with a head so unfeasibly smooth, it looks like he’s slowly evolving into a Madame Tussauds effigy of himself.
For better or worse, he’s also the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American dream to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart.
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ captures that essence in full. It’s an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man that is by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking.
Reportedly a cool $3million in the making and with a stellar cast comprising the great and good of 2010’s musical establishment – plus Fergie from Black Eyed Peas – it’s an epically conceived song-suite, a titanic wrestling with music’s most colossal ego that effortlessly engages its hype as the most feverishly anticipated record of the year. It’s a world away from the indifferent reception afforded to ‘808s & Heartbreak’, a brave but unloveable record of synth-drenched introspection dealing with Kanye’s split from Alexis Phifer in 2008 and the tragic death of his mother, who died following cosmetic surgery.
‘My Beautiful…’ kicks off proceedings with a suitable sense of what’s at stake here; a tense, string-laden affair with Kanye musing how “the plan was to drink until the pain was over/But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?” There’s more trouble at hand with Kid Cudi collaboration ‘Gorgeous’’s slouching guitars but Kanye relocates his funny bone with lines like: “This week has been a bad massage/I need a happy ending”.
Then the record’s first real moment of catharsis arrives in the shape of the gladiatorial ‘Power’, whose tribal fanfare and supercharged lyric seems to imagine in advance Kanye’s warm welcome into heaven: “I guess every superhero need his theme music”.
‘All Of The Lights’ is the sleb-studded centrepiece, with a credit list including Rihanna, Elton John, Alicia Keys, John Legend, The Dream, Fergie, Kid Cudi, Ryan Leslie, Charlie Wilson, Tony Williams and La Roux’s Elly Jackson. In anyone else’s hands it’d be an A-list circle-jerk of horrid proportions, but through Kanye’s bar-raising vision it becomes a truly wondrous thing, all Rocky-apeing brass flourishes and epileptic drum’n’bass breaks.
Elsewhere, ‘Monster’ proves a riotous bit of respite, Yeezy sending up his rep with a self-mocking diatribe about drowning his pain in a blizzard of blow jobs and mass adulation (beats Prozac, we suppose) while Nicki Minaj sets the dials to ‘ridiculous’ with a fire-breathing, raga-inflected verse.
Kanye raises a trip-hoppy toast to the douchebags of the world on ‘Runaway’ – generously remembering to include himself – before finally squaring up to some uncomfortable home truths: “Never was much of a romantic/I could never take the intimacy/And I know it did damage/’Cos the look in your eyes is killin’ me”.
But it’s ‘Lost In The World’ that provides the heart-rending highlight, chasing down Yeezy’s soul past velvet ropes and jaded afterparties as Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon reprises an autotuned vocal from last year’s ‘Blood Bank’ to quite brilliant effect. Segueing into a coda which samples Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘Comment #1’, it frames Kanye’s inner demons in a universal way, recasting Vernon’s semi-mythical woodland retreat as his own cipher for spiritual replenishment.
If ‘808s & Heatbreak’ was the wilderness period, then by extension ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is Kanye’s entry into Jerusalem, on a jet-propelled donkey with chrome-plated hooves. It’s the best thing he’s done since his game-changing debut, and heartening evidence to suggest the self-professed Louis Vuitton don is in a good place right now. You’d be mad not to follow him.
9 out of 10
Alex Denney
http://www.nme.com/reviews/kanye-west/11723
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
KingdomKame;1638895 said:
Unless you're Radiohead, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or an old band reissuing a classic album then you're never going to be touching anywhere near a ten. The last time they gave a 10 to a new release was apparently for Wilco in 2002. Something like under ten albums have ever had a 10 by them. I did have a feeling they were going to give MBDTF a high rating, somewhere between 8.5-9.5 because they do overinflate their scores for Hip Hop albums, but to paraphrase RZA, "a 10 is fucking ridiculous"
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I'm A Chi-Town N**** With A Nas Flow....... Who Will Survive In America ?1 question, 5 words Joe ---------->>>>>>>>>>>> Who Will Survive In America ?
How you say broke in Spanish? N**** Me No Hablo
Good Ass Job , Chi-Town run this rap shit right now Hovi said so..........................................
You know what it issssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..
Im reppin MY Town Everytime U see Me G
When I pull Off the lot? N**** thats stuntin.. No keys, push to start...............U know what it is...........................
Real Rap , u know what it is.................................
How you say broke in Spanish? N**** Me No Hablo
Good Ass Job , Chi-Town run this rap shit right now Hovi said so..........................................
You know what it issssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss..
Im reppin MY Town Everytime U see Me G
When I pull Off the lot? N**** thats stuntin.. No keys, push to start...............U know what it is...........................
Real Rap , u know what it is.................................
Last edited:
supern0va_
New member
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14880-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy/
damn! just bought it on itunes.
Last edited:
dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Kanye West's 'Fantasy' is a masterpiece. When you're this great, you can be forgiven anything
Kanye West has made the album of the year. Here is an artist so far ahead of the field, he may as well be in a different field altogether.
As I suggested in my Kanye feature, My Dark Twisted Fantasy may be the Sgt. Pepper of hip hop. It’s an extraordinary piece of work that mashes together the sonic invention and cut and paste construction of hip hop with the scale of stadium rock, the grooves of clubland, the passion of soul music and the melodic and harmonic daring of a classicist. It’s lovingly assembled with megalomaniac grandeur but driven with the emotional neediness of a man desperate to express himself. There is no disputing that West can come across as an egotist, a narcissist and (to quote President Obama) a “jackass”. But who said stars had to be well adjusted?
It is “old school” hip hop in its grounding in samples and rapping, but the eclecticism and inventiveness of West’s musical palette leaves most producers in the shade. He constructs crazed grooves from samples of not just the usual soul legends like Smokey Robinson (whose ‘Will You Love Me’ is transformed into a demonic slow jam on ‘Devil In A Blue Dress’) but British prog rockers King Crimson (the cry “21st century schizoid man” goes up in the pulsating ‘Power’), electronic experimentalist Aphex Twin on ‘The Blame Game’ (where a guilt ridden explosion of jealousy is set against a soulful John Legend vocal, before turning into a twisted Chris Rock comedy skit) and sensitive leftfield singer-songwriter Bon Iver (whose delicately autotuned ‘Woods’ is layered up to epic proportions for ‘Lost In The Woods’, building up a fierce head of steam before metamorphosing into an incendiary Gil Scott-Heron political rant). And his beats provide a forum not only for his own sharp, witty rhyming, but near career best performances for a host of hip hop’s finest, from veteran supremo Jay-Z to new girl on the block Nicki Minaj. Kanye orchestrates a blockbuster cast of guests with the confidence of a maestro.
Part of what keeps things bubbling is West’s musicality (not always a given in hip hop), his sure sense of melody and instinct for pop hooks (delivered by such exceptional vocalists as Rihanna and Alicia Keys), stacking choruses with criss-crossing vocal harmonies, constantly shifting the sonic dynamics with new shades of orchestration and instrumentation (from Elton John on the piano to West’s own off the wall vocoder solo) on songs that seem to build to breaking point then suddenly turn left with surprising codas punchy enough to be hits in themselves.
The tracks are not short, some running to over nine minutes, yet they never overstay their welcome, maintaining a vital balance between the hypnotic addictiveness of a solid groove and the ear-catching stimulation of pop. This is a shapeshifting album that, even after repeated listens, remains hard to pin down, it takes the rough and smashes it against the smooth, it’s got grit and it’s got art, it’s accessible and aspirational.
At the centre of it is West himself, his witty lyrics shot through with almost fragile anger. There is a political edge to West’s rapping but at its core Fantasy is an intimate, complex psychological portrait of a man all too aware of his own flaws yet paradoxically proud of the humanity inherent in admitting weakness. It veers between grief and pride, tackled with the curious, conflicting mix of braggadocio and self-loathing that makes many of the greatest stars (from John Lennon to Kurt Cobain to dear Robbie Williams) so compelling. And on the extraordinary nine minute ‘Runaway’ (underpinned by single icy piano notes), West delivers an anthem for the loser in us all, singing (with a shaky yet compelling soulfulness) “Let’s have a toast for the douchebags / Let’s have a toast for the assholes / Let’s have a toast for the scumbags / Every one of them that I know”, and advising the object of his affections to “run away as fast as you can.”
There can be little doubt that the douchebag West is referring to is himself. This album is both an apology for his behaviour and an excuse for it. When you really are this great, you can be forgiven almost anything.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/cultur...oure-this-great-you-can-be-forgiven-anything/
Kanye West has made the album of the year. Here is an artist so far ahead of the field, he may as well be in a different field altogether.
As I suggested in my Kanye feature, My Dark Twisted Fantasy may be the Sgt. Pepper of hip hop. It’s an extraordinary piece of work that mashes together the sonic invention and cut and paste construction of hip hop with the scale of stadium rock, the grooves of clubland, the passion of soul music and the melodic and harmonic daring of a classicist. It’s lovingly assembled with megalomaniac grandeur but driven with the emotional neediness of a man desperate to express himself. There is no disputing that West can come across as an egotist, a narcissist and (to quote President Obama) a “jackass”. But who said stars had to be well adjusted?
It is “old school” hip hop in its grounding in samples and rapping, but the eclecticism and inventiveness of West’s musical palette leaves most producers in the shade. He constructs crazed grooves from samples of not just the usual soul legends like Smokey Robinson (whose ‘Will You Love Me’ is transformed into a demonic slow jam on ‘Devil In A Blue Dress’) but British prog rockers King Crimson (the cry “21st century schizoid man” goes up in the pulsating ‘Power’), electronic experimentalist Aphex Twin on ‘The Blame Game’ (where a guilt ridden explosion of jealousy is set against a soulful John Legend vocal, before turning into a twisted Chris Rock comedy skit) and sensitive leftfield singer-songwriter Bon Iver (whose delicately autotuned ‘Woods’ is layered up to epic proportions for ‘Lost In The Woods’, building up a fierce head of steam before metamorphosing into an incendiary Gil Scott-Heron political rant). And his beats provide a forum not only for his own sharp, witty rhyming, but near career best performances for a host of hip hop’s finest, from veteran supremo Jay-Z to new girl on the block Nicki Minaj. Kanye orchestrates a blockbuster cast of guests with the confidence of a maestro.
Part of what keeps things bubbling is West’s musicality (not always a given in hip hop), his sure sense of melody and instinct for pop hooks (delivered by such exceptional vocalists as Rihanna and Alicia Keys), stacking choruses with criss-crossing vocal harmonies, constantly shifting the sonic dynamics with new shades of orchestration and instrumentation (from Elton John on the piano to West’s own off the wall vocoder solo) on songs that seem to build to breaking point then suddenly turn left with surprising codas punchy enough to be hits in themselves.
The tracks are not short, some running to over nine minutes, yet they never overstay their welcome, maintaining a vital balance between the hypnotic addictiveness of a solid groove and the ear-catching stimulation of pop. This is a shapeshifting album that, even after repeated listens, remains hard to pin down, it takes the rough and smashes it against the smooth, it’s got grit and it’s got art, it’s accessible and aspirational.
At the centre of it is West himself, his witty lyrics shot through with almost fragile anger. There is a political edge to West’s rapping but at its core Fantasy is an intimate, complex psychological portrait of a man all too aware of his own flaws yet paradoxically proud of the humanity inherent in admitting weakness. It veers between grief and pride, tackled with the curious, conflicting mix of braggadocio and self-loathing that makes many of the greatest stars (from John Lennon to Kurt Cobain to dear Robbie Williams) so compelling. And on the extraordinary nine minute ‘Runaway’ (underpinned by single icy piano notes), West delivers an anthem for the loser in us all, singing (with a shaky yet compelling soulfulness) “Let’s have a toast for the douchebags / Let’s have a toast for the assholes / Let’s have a toast for the scumbags / Every one of them that I know”, and advising the object of his affections to “run away as fast as you can.”
There can be little doubt that the douchebag West is referring to is himself. This album is both an apology for his behaviour and an excuse for it. When you really are this great, you can be forgiven almost anything.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/cultur...oure-this-great-you-can-be-forgiven-anything/
Last edited:
Just picked it up at target deluxe I'm on track 6 monster the sound is very vibrant. I feel every artist has that one album that stands out in there career Michael jackson had "Thriller" Usher had "Confessions" now Kanye West has "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" I see why Kanye change the name of his album because the production and direction was too grand for a simple title.
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2pacnbiggie
New member
im not gettin this album of the year and classic talk its not even the best kanye album and theres filler at the end of tha album
Add to the fact Lloyd Banks Hunger For More 2 and Eminem - Recovery >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My Beautiful Twisted Fantasy
Add to the fact Lloyd Banks Hunger For More 2 and Eminem - Recovery >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My Beautiful Twisted Fantasy
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2pacnbiggie;1639114 said:
thats not what the world''s sayng b, and be clear this is critical acclaim, not just sales (which might be pretty high)
Ye should be proud of this, like that dontdie said before only radiohead, or old ass bands get 10's, for a hip hop artist this is big
Last edited:
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