Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

There are two types of people in the world. Those who love My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and those who hate Kanye West. I know that's a bit of an ultimatum, but really, everyone I've talked to that has looked down on this album have included the words, "I hate Kanye West" in their justification. I try not to tell people that their beliefs towards music are wrong, but these people are blinding themselves to one of the greatest rap albums I've ever heard on a pretty ridiculous basis. MBDTF (I'm not typing that again) isn't nearly as beautiful without a douche-bag behind the wheel anyways.

As most everyone in the world realizes, Kanye West is no saint. In fact, let me help you with a timeline of Kanye's life, starting with a little Hurricane Katrina Benefit program.

September 2005 - Kanye West appears alongside Mike Myers on very national T.V. for a Hurricane Katrina Benefit program. Kanye wisely decides to trash his family friendly lines in favor of his own insight to the situation stating, "George Bush does not care about black people." Mike Myers doesn't know what to do.

January 2006- Kanye appears on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing a crown of thorns. The world rolls it's eye.

December 2006 - Robert "Evel" Knievel sues Kanye for trademark infringement in Kanye's "Touch The Sky" video. Knievel settles November 2007, days before his death.

September 2007 - Kanye moves the release of his third studio album, Graduation,a week and a half earlier, the same day as rapper 50 Cent's album Curtis. 50 announces that if Kanye outsells him, he will never make a solo album again. 50 Cent did not outsell. 50's fourth album came out a year later, and another one is coming this coming year. Graduation goes double platinum.

November 2007 - Kanye West's mother dies suddenly after plastic surgery.

September 2008 - Kanye and his bodyguard Don Crowley are arrested are arrested at LAX on counts of felony vandalism after an altercation with the paparazzi.

November 2008 - Kanye is arrested again outside of a club in Newcastle for fighting a photographer. Kanye's fourth album, 808's and Heartbreaks, is released ten days later.

June 2008 - Kanye is two hours late for his headlining slot at Bonnaroo, starting at 4:30 in the morning, which in effect ruins most of his elaborate light show, due to the sun. Kanye later rants in ALL CAPS on his blog, blaming Pearl Jam, Ashely Capps, The fans, and everyone else in the world besides him for the awful show. (When people got bored at 'Roo this year(two years later), veterans would yell "F@#^ KANYE", much to the crowds chagrin.)

September 2009 - Kanye interupts Taylor Swift, mid-acceptance speech for her "You Belong With Me" video, and yells the words heard around the world. "Yo Taylor. I love you, and I'mma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best video of all time!" The internet has a field day with meme's, and anyone who has ever heard of Taylor Swift acts like the world has ended.

Those are the high points. Believe it or not, there are plenty of other instances that have peppered Kanye's life the last few years. After the Taylor Swift incident, Kanye dropped off the map and stayed there for quite a while, taking a long hard look in the mirror. The public was hoping this would be cathartic, and that Kanye would go back to just making pretty good, innovative rap music, like he did on his first two albums. That didn't happen. Kanye took his mirror image and completely delivered it into the studio. After almost a year of relative silence, Kanye emerged on smash-hit collaborations "Forever", and "Run This Town", with a fluidity that had been missing since Late Registration. Lines such as, "I'd trade my grammy's back/ Just to have my grammy back." and, "I used to want this s%!^ forever, ya'll can have it back.", provide a stark opposing view to songs like "Good Life" and "Champion", released just a year earlier. This new dark side of Kanye was intriguing, if not a little confusing.

So, to wrap up our time line.


September 2010 - Kanye publicly debuts his newest hit "Runaway" at the VMA's. He finishes the song, and walks off stage, without bothering anyone all night.

A whole night where no one had reason to be mad. So, where did the crazy go?

MBTDF is Kanye West's greatest album, if not one of the best hip hop albums of all time. I stand firmly behind that. Kanye has framed the last few years of his tumultuous life into a fantastically orchestrated diary that violently swerves between egotistical bombast and depressing self-revelation. Kanye has learned to channel his antics into musical form, a mutually enriching experience for Kanye as well as the audience. For the most part, the lyrics are cutting and concise, creatively elaborating a point of view the public tends to ignore; the accused. That's not to say that Kanye is pointing fingers. Mr. West has matured enough to realize he is steering his mistakes, and he expresses this sentiment especially in the song "Runaway". The song starts with a single repeating note from a slightly out of tune piano, symbolic of Kanye's own life. After the piano finishes dancing around a few bars like an old music box, the song explodes into a barrage of bass, back-beat drums, and a sample of someone screaming "Look at ya!" literally moving around the sound spectrum, as if encompassing the deflated Mr. West. This "toast to the douche-bags" hits all the right buttons to form an interesting emotionally driven ballad, ending in a Mr. West ripping variations of the chorus into a vocoder while the song breaks down around him.

"Dark Fantasy", the albums first track, starts with Nicki Minaj setting this album apart form the get go.

"You might think you've peeped the scene
you haven't
The real ones far to mean
The watered down one
The one you know
Was made up centuries ago
It made it sound all wack and corny
Yes, it's awful, blasted boring
Twisted fiction
Sick addiction
Well gather round children
Zip it listen!"

This is followed by a huge gospel choir repeatedly questioning, "Can we get much Higher?", before the song falls out of it's fairy tale charm, and hit's the ground running with a creeping beat that is the perfect canvas for Kanye to show off both his creativity both lyrically and rhythmically. The song is one of the few on the MBDTF that doesn't really revolve around a central idea, instead taking the time for Kanye to simply clear his mind, and tease the elements that will later come into play. The song grabs you from the moment it stops for Ye's grand entrance and keeps your attention with lyrics like "We drown sorrow in the Diablo/ We found bravery in my bravado" through to the end. It's one of the better intro's in all of the rap albums I've heard, simply because it isn't a simple 40 second teaser to the rappers ego; a move that happens far too much.

Three songs in, Kanye lays down what could arguably be his best song ever. POWER has one of the most epic sounding beats of all time. The chant clap that feels equally pre-historic and futuristic is driven with an overpowering bass to create this huge aura around the listener. It' like hip-hop that craves Michael Bay to shoot an explosion to. Kanye takes this larger than life music, and uses it as the background to his eternal struggle with his fames pros and cons, all the while leaving room to just say "till then, f$%^ that/The World's ours." This balance is not just a microcosm of the album, but Kanye's life as a whole.

Other songs on the album take up the bad-guy image Kanye has projected over the last few years, and simply embraces it. The aptly titled "Hell Of A Life", with it's intro uncanilly reminiscent of Darth Vader's theme music, finds West in a materealistic cannon ball where he marries a porn star and embraces the sensual euphoria that comes with it, not for his own sexual pleasure, but the pleasure of knowing that so many people will snarl their noses at him before they find a single fault in themselves.

"Lost in the World", the album's closer (sort of) utilizes the same tool Arcade Fire used recently in The Suburbs. The song represents it's idea as powerfully in it's music as it does in it's lyrics. As the title suggests, the song finds Kanye looking in every direction (religion, sex, drugs, ego) for something to hold on to as he is buried in confusion and fame. Kanye has little to no hope in his voice when he suddenly drops from the track, leaving a few a few minutes for the demons around him to simply be. Eventually, the album ends with a very scared Gil Scott-Heron reading excerpts from his incredible poem "Comment #1", words that really tie the bow around this absolutely outstanding piece of art. If anything, these last two tracks are worth listening to a hundred times over, for both those who hate, love, or tolerate Kanye West.

Controversy will always follow Kanye's name. He may not realize that he is at fault for it, but at this point who cares. With My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye has taken both his talent and his life and blended them seamlessly into a hip-hop opus for the ages. The album truly is a gem amid the ever growing face of popular hip-hop. Kanye is tragic hero that we can all examine, and learn more about the nature of human beings through, all the while dancing until we hurt. So thank you Taylor Swift. Thank you George Bush. Thank you cast of SNL, and thank you every rapper who tries so hard to sound like everyone else. You have created a beautifully intriguing disaster, and I would rather hear him than my radio anyday.