After several weeks with Kanye’s new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, I’m finally comfortable writing a couple words on it. As South Park put it, the self-proclaimed “mothafuckin’ lyrical wordsmith mothafuckin’ genius” is back with arguably the most hyped album of the year. I’m just gonna cut to the chase here and tell you that I don’t care how much of a egocentric dickhead Kanye’s perceived to be (or actually is). From the opening sequence of “Dark Fantasy” to the closing segments of “Who Will Survive In America”, his fifth studio album blows everything out of the water, and in my mind is easily his greatest achievement thus far.
I’m not comfortable even calling this a rap album, it just doesn’t make sense to try to put a genre label on it. A pop album? Nope that doesn’t work either. Kanye fuses together so many different types of music, it’s borderline absurd. “All of the Lights”, which will undoubtedly be a global phenomenon in about two to three weeks, is the perfect example. First he grabbed Rihanna for the hook, and then added Alicia Keys, Drake, and Elly Jackson (of La Roux) for a little backup vocals. For an entire album, all of those features would be over the top…but this is for one SONG. I can imagine him sitting in the studio messing around and being like “Alright, I like what we got so far…but we need more…let’s get Elton John in the studio and see what happens”. So naturally he gets Elton John to bust out a piano solo for the record…just because he can. Sprinkle in a little Kid Cudi, John Legend, Charlie Wilson, Tony Williams, The Dream, and Fergie, and he was satisfied with the final result. Generally when tons of artists come together like this, the song is some lame cover of “We Are The World” in an effort to raise money to save our planet. But Kanye is able to take just the right amount of talent from all of these superstars, without being overwhelming, and create one of the best records of the year.
Additionally, Mr. West’s use of Justin Vernon (from Bon Iver) shows how far he’s pushing the limits, and how he appreciates music as a whole. Bon Iver (as you know, For Emma, Forever Ago is a favorite album of mine) just shouldn’t be working with Kanye West. There’s nobody that would listen to For Emma, Forever Ago and say, “Shit, Kanye’s gotta get in the studio with this guy”; it just wouldn’t happen. Bon Iver created an unbelievable album, and it’s great to see an artist from an entirely different playing field recognize this and reach out to him to create something great together. Apparently, Kanye flew Justin Vernon down to his studio in Hawaii (which had to be an eye-opener for a guy who recorded his album in a shed in the middle of Wisconsin), and the duo recorded over 10 songs together. “Lost in the World” is one of the results, and it’s mind-blowing.
You can tell that Kanye really went into this with the purpose of creating something that pushes the boundaries in all shapes and forms. If you’re familiar with his previous shit (which most of the world is), you can really see how he’s blended all of his styles and phases into one album. You have the soulful samples from The College Dropout, you have the attitude of Late Registration, the stadium singles of Graduation, mixed with the auto-tune of 808s and Heartbreak. Everything’s there. There’s one bit at the end of “Runaway” where you think the song’s about to end…but Kanye goes on this 3 minute auto-tune rampage, and there’s absolutely no reason that it should work. At all. I hate autotune, I hate everything about it. But for some reason he pulls this off, and I cant’ really explain why.
It’s funny, when listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, you often hear Kanye explaining to his audience that he knows he’s an egomaniac, he knows he’s made some stupid decisions. Firstly, I can’t think of another artist that confronts the fact that he/she is a douchebag through their music. Secondly, as a listener, I’ve found that I tend to entirely forget his actions as I’m blasting his album. As long as he keeps delivering like this, he can do whatever the hell he wants.
