Album: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Artist: Kanye West
Born: Atlanta, Georgia
Released: November 2010
Genre: Hip Hop
Debate over which is Kanye West's best album continue to rage on message boards and in the blogosphere, but for me there's no looking past My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I love his two early albums, especially Late Registration, which saw him move beyond the limits of hip hop into more experimental territory, a trajectory that led him to the more outlandish worlds of 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and Yeezus (2013). MBDTF sees Kanye balance this experimental approach with a more focused pop sensibility, and the result is his most perfect record. The run-up to the recording of this album was a chaotic one for Kanye, with controversy surrounding his every move (calling out the President in the wake of Katrina for not "caring about black people" and embarrassing Taylor Swift on stage at the Grammys). He escaped from the limelight to Hawaii in 2009, where most of this album was recorded, with Kanye flying in his favourite producers like Q-Tip, Madlib and RZA. This overabundance of talent is reflected in the album's dense, larger-than-life sound and songs that deal with the excesses of US consumer culture, as well as the lavishness of celebrity life and the pitfalls of drug abuse. An ingenious marketing campaign, GOOD Fridays, which involved weekly giveaways of songs, was used to raise the album's profile. This started in August 2010 and included several album singles, such as Power and Monster. On release, people were also given the choice between five different album covers (the one used above is also Kanye's Twitter profile pic).
Debate over which is Kanye West's best album continue to rage on message boards and in the blogosphere, but for me there's no looking past My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I love his two early albums, especially Late Registration, which saw him move beyond the limits of hip hop into more experimental territory, a trajectory that led him to the more outlandish worlds of 808s & Heartbreak (2008) and Yeezus (2013). MBDTF sees Kanye balance this experimental approach with a more focused pop sensibility, and the result is his most perfect record. The run-up to the recording of this album was a chaotic one for Kanye, with controversy surrounding his every move (calling out the President in the wake of Katrina for not "caring about black people" and embarrassing Taylor Swift on stage at the Grammys). He escaped from the limelight to Hawaii in 2009, where most of this album was recorded, with Kanye flying in his favourite producers like Q-Tip, Madlib and RZA. This overabundance of talent is reflected in the album's dense, larger-than-life sound and songs that deal with the excesses of US consumer culture, as well as the lavishness of celebrity life and the pitfalls of drug abuse. An ingenious marketing campaign, GOOD Fridays, which involved weekly giveaways of songs, was used to raise the album's profile. This started in August 2010 and included several album singles, such as Power and Monster. On release, people were also given the choice between five different album covers (the one used above is also Kanye's Twitter profile pic).
The album opens in bizarre fashion with Nicki Minaj reading (in a British accent) Kanye's rewritten version of the intro to Roald Dahl's Cinderella, including the line, "Yes, it's awful, blasted boring / twisted fiction, sick addiction / well gather round children / zip it, listen!". Dark Fantasy sets the unhinged tone of the entire album and is the first of many songs to feature Justin Vernon on vocals. The ominous guitar sound of Gorgeous maintains the dark mood, with Kanye again referencing the devil, while Power (the most perfect pop moment on the record) uses an inspired sample of King Crimson's 21st Century Schizoid Man to add to the sense of megalomania. There are quieter, more reflective moments too, such as the All Of The Lights interlude and Runaway, which showcases the soulful quality of Kanye's voice. I'm sure I'm alone in drawing this comparison, but Runaway reminds me a lot of the piano-driven ballads of Shawn Smith (he of Brad and Satchel -- I really recommend his 1996 LP, The Family). Runaway is one of my favourite tracks, but the album is not short of highlights or star turns (Rihanna on All Of The Lights, Jay-Z on Monster, Bon Iver on Lost In The World and John Legend on Blame Game). My favourite moment though is the transition from Lost In The World to Who Will Survive In America, an inspired treatise by Gil Scott-Heron on the death of the American Dream ("America was a bastard / the illegitimate daughter of the mother country / whose legs were then spread around the world / and a rapist known as freedom, FREEDOM!"). This album sees Kanye dancing with the devil and making beautiful music.
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