StillDreaming
New member
KingdomKame;1642526 said:
Yea I just noticed it after I opened it.
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Yea I just noticed it after I opened it.
IceBergTaylor
New member
stilldreaming;1642508 said:
rofl..........
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dontdiedontkillanyone;1639013 said: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/
I aint the only one putting it at that level...In fact my opinion is pretty mainstream seeing the reviews. The worst review on Metacritic right now was an 88.
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StillDreaming
New member
JerfyT;1642721 said:
Album of the year without question. Best $10 I've spent all year(Teflon Don is a close second).
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StillDreaming
New member
gee757;1643196 said:
LOL yea bruh Ye earned my money with this album.
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marie addams
New member
I did not see this cover in the original 5. interesting.
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maximus preme
New member
Just downloaded this off amazon. Damn I might have to go cop the hard copy.
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
A Gallery Of Twitter Responses To Pitchfork's 10.0 Kanye West Review:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2010/11/kanye_pitchfork_twitter.php
The backlash continues:
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/altrep...fork-have-we-finally-found-perfect-album.html
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/11/negrofication-pitchfork-and-death-white-mans-indie.html
Kanye stays winning
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2010/11/kanye_pitchfork_twitter.php
The backlash continues:
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/altrep...fork-have-we-finally-found-perfect-album.html
http://www.hipsterrunoff.com/2010/11/negrofication-pitchfork-and-death-white-mans-indie.html
Kanye stays winning
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IceBergTaylor
New member
Man I think its a hip-hop classic. I'm tired of people trying to tell others whats classic and why some of the more recent shit of this decade isn't.
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supern0va_
New member
first 5 star rating djbooth has ever given
As I’ve written before, the central paradox of rating albums is not only the cognitive dissonance involved in assigning a numerical value to a work of art, but in instantly assessing an album’s impending legacy. A classic album is one that stands the test of time; that hits just as strong, if not stronger, five, ten, fifty years after its first listen. The impact of Dark Twisted Fantasy remains to be seen, not many will be able to approximate, let alone duplicate, what Kanye’s done here, but for the first time I have no doubt that we’ll still be talking about this album a decade from now. Don’t let it go to your head Kanye.
Read more: http://www.djbooth.net/index/albums/review/kanye-west-beautiful-dark-fantasy-11221001/
As I’ve written before, the central paradox of rating albums is not only the cognitive dissonance involved in assigning a numerical value to a work of art, but in instantly assessing an album’s impending legacy. A classic album is one that stands the test of time; that hits just as strong, if not stronger, five, ten, fifty years after its first listen. The impact of Dark Twisted Fantasy remains to be seen, not many will be able to approximate, let alone duplicate, what Kanye’s done here, but for the first time I have no doubt that we’ll still be talking about this album a decade from now. Don’t let it go to your head Kanye.
Read more: http://www.djbooth.net/index/albums/review/kanye-west-beautiful-dark-fantasy-11221001/
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raphaelmercury
New member
this is kanye's 'thriller'... it fires on all cylinders, not one weak track, best work since and could be better than college dropout
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I never really felt his rapping was all that great to begin with but his content and what he rapped about mostly grown man relatable shit along with ill production he made great music...choppa_style;1641830 said:
IDK if this true but I heard a radio ad for the album and it mentioned perfect scores from Rolling Stone and XXL but it also said The Source gave it 5 Mics... Is this true??
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dontdiedontkillanyon
New member
Kanye West's fantasy has come true – critics believe the hype
Reviews for Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy have been off the scale. But have critics confused size, ambition and bluster for a genuinely brilliant record?
British music critics of a certain vintage still shudder at the mention of Oasis' Be Here Now, a record that inspired five-star hyperbole far out of proportion to its modest virtues. Britpop's armageddon came to mind when I was reading reviews of Kanye West's fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's not that West's effort is a dud like Be Here Now – in fact it's sporadically brilliant – but the critical rhetoric seems similarly dazzled by its scale and ostentation.
Pitchfork (which awarded the site's first perfect 10.0 for a new album in years) congratulated West for "taking his style and drama to previously uncharted locales, far away from typical civilisation". Other critics have described Kanye as "coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus", producing "a monument to self, to desire, to smashing limitations", and making "the Sgt Pepper of hip-hop". The album's current score on review aggregator Metacritic is a whopping 98% at the time of writing. West recently profiled himself for XXL magazine; now it reads as if he is reviewing himself as well. He says he's the best; ergo, he is the best.
It's always worth pausing for breath when hyperbolic music spawns hyperbolic prose. Because West is, depending on what Lady Gaga's up to that week, the most interesting pop star in the world; because his ego is as big as the Death Star; because his first two albums were hip-hop landmarks; because Twisted Fantasy is so overstuffed and overwhelming, it almost forces an awestruck response. If it walks like a masterpiece and it quacks like a masterpiece ...
But it feels like many people are applauding the idea of the album, rather than the reality (or even just the idea of West – one review spent as much time discussing his Twitter feed as his music). Sure, in a field of hedged bets and half-measures, lunatic excess is to be welcomed, but there are too many lazy lyrics, too many unnecessary guests (All of the Lights seems to feature everyone bar Brandon Flowers, Willie Nelson and MC Skat Kat), too many foot-dragging codas, too much dead-end self-absorption for this to live up to its billing.
It's not even a creative breakthrough. West's already done contradiction on The College Dropout, triumphalism on Late Registration, celebrity angst (and unexpected sampling) on Graduation, and moping on 808s & Heartbreak. Now he's just doing them all at once, louder. And the creeping sense that he's had nothing new to say since 2005 becomes undeniable when, at the end of an album about West's adventures in celebrityland, he has to turn to a 1970 spoken-word piece by Gil Scott-Heron for some big-picture gravitas.
The album's intended message is clear: I AM A COMPLEX GENIUS. And sometimes he is. Songs such as Power and Lost in the World make West's glitzy, paranoid melodrama sound as exciting as anything in pop. But at more than 68 minutes, it feels tiring, bludgeoning, blockbusterish: an album that seeks nothing from the listener beyond stunned awe. It reminds me of a medieval banquet where, just as you're starting to feel stuffed and nauseous, they wheel out the roast hog.
Maybe the current glowing consensus is down to the late release of promo copies, forcing critics to write reviews based on initial impressions – grandiosity tends to impress quickly but date badly (in the past I've overrated certain albums under deadline pressure). But maybe it's a more profound longing, in a fragmented, long-tail, death-of-the-megastar era, for a Thriller: a record by the biggest, most compelling man in pop that just happens to be an all-time classic on which everyone can agree. Wouldn't that be something?
But wanting it won't make it so. Rolling Stone wrote that "West wants us to demand more". I think we (and Kanye) should instead demand better. As anyone who bought Be Here Now will tell you, more and better are not the same at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/nov/23/kanye-west-fantasy-critics-hype
Reviews for Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy have been off the scale. But have critics confused size, ambition and bluster for a genuinely brilliant record?
British music critics of a certain vintage still shudder at the mention of Oasis' Be Here Now, a record that inspired five-star hyperbole far out of proportion to its modest virtues. Britpop's armageddon came to mind when I was reading reviews of Kanye West's fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's not that West's effort is a dud like Be Here Now – in fact it's sporadically brilliant – but the critical rhetoric seems similarly dazzled by its scale and ostentation.
Pitchfork (which awarded the site's first perfect 10.0 for a new album in years) congratulated West for "taking his style and drama to previously uncharted locales, far away from typical civilisation". Other critics have described Kanye as "coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus", producing "a monument to self, to desire, to smashing limitations", and making "the Sgt Pepper of hip-hop". The album's current score on review aggregator Metacritic is a whopping 98% at the time of writing. West recently profiled himself for XXL magazine; now it reads as if he is reviewing himself as well. He says he's the best; ergo, he is the best.
It's always worth pausing for breath when hyperbolic music spawns hyperbolic prose. Because West is, depending on what Lady Gaga's up to that week, the most interesting pop star in the world; because his ego is as big as the Death Star; because his first two albums were hip-hop landmarks; because Twisted Fantasy is so overstuffed and overwhelming, it almost forces an awestruck response. If it walks like a masterpiece and it quacks like a masterpiece ...
But it feels like many people are applauding the idea of the album, rather than the reality (or even just the idea of West – one review spent as much time discussing his Twitter feed as his music). Sure, in a field of hedged bets and half-measures, lunatic excess is to be welcomed, but there are too many lazy lyrics, too many unnecessary guests (All of the Lights seems to feature everyone bar Brandon Flowers, Willie Nelson and MC Skat Kat), too many foot-dragging codas, too much dead-end self-absorption for this to live up to its billing.
It's not even a creative breakthrough. West's already done contradiction on The College Dropout, triumphalism on Late Registration, celebrity angst (and unexpected sampling) on Graduation, and moping on 808s & Heartbreak. Now he's just doing them all at once, louder. And the creeping sense that he's had nothing new to say since 2005 becomes undeniable when, at the end of an album about West's adventures in celebrityland, he has to turn to a 1970 spoken-word piece by Gil Scott-Heron for some big-picture gravitas.
The album's intended message is clear: I AM A COMPLEX GENIUS. And sometimes he is. Songs such as Power and Lost in the World make West's glitzy, paranoid melodrama sound as exciting as anything in pop. But at more than 68 minutes, it feels tiring, bludgeoning, blockbusterish: an album that seeks nothing from the listener beyond stunned awe. It reminds me of a medieval banquet where, just as you're starting to feel stuffed and nauseous, they wheel out the roast hog.
Maybe the current glowing consensus is down to the late release of promo copies, forcing critics to write reviews based on initial impressions – grandiosity tends to impress quickly but date badly (in the past I've overrated certain albums under deadline pressure). But maybe it's a more profound longing, in a fragmented, long-tail, death-of-the-megastar era, for a Thriller: a record by the biggest, most compelling man in pop that just happens to be an all-time classic on which everyone can agree. Wouldn't that be something?
But wanting it won't make it so. Rolling Stone wrote that "West wants us to demand more". I think we (and Kanye) should instead demand better. As anyone who bought Be Here Now will tell you, more and better are not the same at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/nov/23/kanye-west-fantasy-critics-hype
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dontdiedontkillanyone;1644813 said:Kanye West's fantasy has come true – critics believe the hype
Reviews for Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy have been off the scale. But have critics confused size, ambition and bluster for a genuinely brilliant record?
British music critics of a certain vintage still shudder at the mention of Oasis' Be Here Now, a record that inspired five-star hyperbole far out of proportion to its modest virtues. Britpop's armageddon came to mind when I was reading reviews of Kanye West's fifth album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It's not that West's effort is a dud like Be Here Now – in fact it's sporadically brilliant – but the critical rhetoric seems similarly dazzled by its scale and ostentation.
Pitchfork (which awarded the site's first perfect 10.0 for a new album in years) congratulated West for "taking his style and drama to previously uncharted locales, far away from typical civilisation". Other critics have described Kanye as "coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus", producing "a monument to self, to desire, to smashing limitations", and making "the Sgt Pepper of hip-hop". The album's current score on review aggregator Metacritic is a whopping 98% at the time of writing. West recently profiled himself for XXL magazine; now it reads as if he is reviewing himself as well. He says he's the best; ergo, he is the best.
It's always worth pausing for breath when hyperbolic music spawns hyperbolic prose. Because West is, depending on what Lady Gaga's up to that week, the most interesting pop star in the world; because his ego is as big as the Death Star; because his first two albums were hip-hop landmarks; because Twisted Fantasy is so overstuffed and overwhelming, it almost forces an awestruck response. If it walks like a masterpiece and it quacks like a masterpiece ...
But it feels like many people are applauding the idea of the album, rather than the reality (or even just the idea of West – one review spent as much time discussing his Twitter feed as his music). Sure, in a field of hedged bets and half-measures, lunatic excess is to be welcomed, but there are too many lazy lyrics, too many unnecessary guests (All of the Lights seems to feature everyone bar Brandon Flowers, Willie Nelson and MC Skat Kat), too many foot-dragging codas, too much dead-end self-absorption for this to live up to its billing.
It's not even a creative breakthrough. West's already done contradiction on The College Dropout, triumphalism on Late Registration, celebrity angst (and unexpected sampling) on Graduation, and moping on 808s & Heartbreak. Now he's just doing them all at once, louder. And the creeping sense that he's had nothing new to say since 2005 becomes undeniable when, at the end of an album about West's adventures in celebrityland, he has to turn to a 1970 spoken-word piece by Gil Scott-Heron for some big-picture gravitas.
The album's intended message is clear: I AM A COMPLEX GENIUS. And sometimes he is. Songs such as Power and Lost in the World make West's glitzy, paranoid melodrama sound as exciting as anything in pop. But at more than 68 minutes, it feels tiring, bludgeoning, blockbusterish: an album that seeks nothing from the listener beyond stunned awe. It reminds me of a medieval banquet where, just as you're starting to feel stuffed and nauseous, they wheel out the roast hog.
Maybe the current glowing consensus is down to the late release of promo copies, forcing critics to write reviews based on initial impressions – grandiosity tends to impress quickly but date badly (in the past I've overrated certain albums under deadline pressure). But maybe it's a more profound longing, in a fragmented, long-tail, death-of-the-megastar era, for a Thriller: a record by the biggest, most compelling man in pop that just happens to be an all-time classic on which everyone can agree. Wouldn't that be something?
But wanting it won't make it so. Rolling Stone wrote that "West wants us to demand more". I think we (and Kanye) should instead demand better. As anyone who bought Be Here Now will tell you, more and better are not the same at all.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2010/nov/23/kanye-west-fantasy-critics-hype
LOL says the one of 2 critics that gave it a bad score, the reviewer who wrote it said she didn't like how the album portrayed "women as ruthless money-grabbers". Thats what most of hip hop's subject matter is about lol. Then she went and called it "herculean... a flawed near-masterpiece".
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