Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West Award for Kanye West Album of the Year and Special Achievment in the Field of Guest Spots

Look at that ridiculous cover. It’s Kanye fucking a phoenix, at least that’s what the artist says it is. The album cover I have is a ballerina looking embarrassed. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rap album that has a cover like this. It almost looks like some kind of indie rock record: the absence of text, the bizarre picture on the cover that seems to be apropos of nothing. You could probably slap that Deerhunter cover on this album and nobody would really even notice. Then again, Kanye certainly understands what one major component of his audience is: indie dorks that are beside themselves in pants shitting glee when he samples Kraftwerk or Can. So far, this album has topped two different Album of the Year lists at Pitchfork and the Onion A.V. Club. The Onion’s best of 2010 list actually seems to get it spot on: part of the reason this album succeeds is because Kanye is some sort of idiot savant. He’s far too dumb and/or self-absorbed to ever worry about falling flat on his face, so he’ll take chances nobody else would even think were good ideas. I think 808s and Heartbreak was that moment when he did fall flat on his face, but most critics didn’t even notice because it was so insane for a rap artist to make an entire album ”singing” via autotune about having his heart broken, that they heaped praise on it anyway.

Is that a good thing? I’m not sure–Yo Brendan I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the best albums of all time, OF ALL TIME!!!–I don’t care really. It seems hip hop is finally starting to get really fucking weird and experimental and you have to thank Kanye for that at some point. Leading up to the release I was expecting another uneven Kanye album full of highs and lows that would have the critics spurting all over it. I won’t deny that I love some of his tracks, primarily “We Don’t Care” the anthem from College Dropout, but I wasn’t exactly a big fan of that entire album, or Graduation for that matter. I didn’t fuck with 808s at all. Although he gets a few hilarious lines out but for the most part the guy really can’t rap at all.

I’ve always played the Kanye skeptic, I’ve always said that he is a great producer but a shitty MC and tends to indulge himself too much on his own albums preferring left field non-music to actually making something that is good. I can’t hate on this album though, its not that he has changed all that much, it’s just more cohesive and his crazy shit sounds better than it has before. I will say his skills with the mic are improving but he’s still at sub-Dre levels. The most you can really say about his skills on the mic is that he may go between good rhymes and bad ones in the same verse at least he’s not generically rapping about guns and drugs, like most horrible MCs. He’s still doing weird things and still making hilarious jokes: “You got too many Urkels on your team that’s why your wins low,” so far is my favorite. He still blunders into horrible rhymes and just lets them stay there because he’s so full of himself. There’s one in particular where he rhymes “asshole” with “asshole” not once but twice in the span of two bars, as well as the line on “Gorgeous” where he says “People who try to black ball me forget about two things: my black balls.” That’s an awful line that doesn’t even rhyme or make a whole lot of sense and then to compound it, the legendary and nearly untouchable Raekwon pops up right after that to throw Kanye’s amateur raps into more dramatic relief. But even when Nicki Manaj is owning the shit out of “Monster” it doesn’t feel like they’re showing him up;  they’re part of his insanity. He really does not give a fuck about it at all. I’m not sure if he should, he’s probably the most famous, influential, and critically acclaimed figure in the whole game (with all due respect to Jay-Z). But saying he’s “a Chi-town nigga with a Nas flow,” which he says in “Dark Fantasy”, is more than a little delusional.

The album is tremendous, the first four tracks will easily hook most anyone. Currently I’ve listened to “All of the Lights” featuring Rhianna and Drake (apparently) about 15 times in the last two days. Once you get to “Runaway” I don’t know if you can deny how relevant he is as an artist. “Runaway” is a self-aware admission of self: the hook starts with “Let’s have a toast for the douchebags, let’s have a toast for the assholes.” The track is an admission that the reason his relationship failed (the one he “sang” about on 808s) was mainly his own fault, and is a warning to other women that he is a huge asshole/douchebag/jerkoff. Only Kanye West can combine egomania and humility in one strange contradictory package. This self-conscious confession is further continued on “Blame Game,” featuring the wonderful John Legend is one of his best songs in years. That’s more honesty and emotional openness than you’re likely to ever find from a mainstream rap artist, and indeed probably from anyone in the hip hop game at all.

Shit, these things are supposed to be between 250 and 300 words. We’ll stop here at nearly a thousand.

Rating: Kanye West’s opinion of himself.

By the way, while searching for this video there’s an ad for the new Dr. Dre track on all these Kanye vids. I wonder if the old man is feeling a little challenged…Chronic 2011?

And lastly, I just have to include this.