Random Music Review: Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Good God! What’s with all this praise Kanye West’s new album’s been getting? I mean, really: Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A”; Rolling Stone gave it five stars; Pitchfork Media gave it a 10 out of 10; and most recently Rolling Stone (them again) put it at the top of their “Best Albums” list this year, comparing the song “Runaway” to the Beatles’ “She Loves You”. Now, if that ain’t some praise, I don’t know what is!

But is it justified?

I bought the album the day it came out on Amazon.com for $4 (yes, folks, this is product placement), and it was certainly worth the money, but I still couldn’t help but feel a tad dissatisfied with how the album turned out. Maybe I just don’t like Kanye West; maybe his production style doesn’t rub me the right way (pause).

Here’s the thing: recently, I’ve been getting into instrumental versions of classic rap albums, such as Only Built for Cuban Linx, Supreme Clientele, 2001, and The Infamous. I’ve also been listening to instrumentals from hits or simply awesome songs by great hip-hop producers, like Just Blaze, Pharrell, Dr. Dre, DJ Premier, and Lil Jon. After listening to all of these instrumentals, one of the things that I learned was that a great song still sounds good without the vocals. For example, if you tune out the vocals on albums like David Bowie’s Low, Happy Mondays’ Pills n’ Thrills n’ Bellyaches, or even Nirvana’s Nevermind, the music is still plenty satisfying. I found this not to be the case with a lot of Kanye’s music.

When listening to Kanye’s beats by themselves, they sounded kind of flat, especially in the cases of Graduation and 808’s and Heartbreak. Even some of his older beats from the College Dropout days seem a bit lifeless without vocals. However, after applying the “tune out the vocals” formula to Late Registration, I learned something: Kanye is best when he’s at his most grandiose and epic. Just listen to “We Major” or “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” and tell me I’m wrong.

Thankfully, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is every bit as grandiose and epic as Late Registration, if not more so. Most of the music on this album is amazing, particularly “Runaway” with its simple piano striking and its pumping drumbeat. The highlight of the song, however, comes toward the end where, out of nowhere, Kanye starts incomprehensibly crooning in heavily-distorted auto-tune. I don’t know why, but it just sounds so damn cool. Another highlight is “All of the Lights” which is total excess in all its glory, from the horns and its drum pattern to the fact that the song features everyone but your grandfather.

There are a few duds here and there, like “Gorgeous” which features Kid Cudi and Raekwon, neither of which sound remotely interesting or interested, and the beat is weak too. Also, there’s “Devil in a New Dress”, which is not bad per se, but it sounds too much like “We Major”. Another one is “Blame Game”, which is not particularly interesting and has weak beat, but is only redeemed by a totally random, but hilarious Chris Rock skit at the end.

The vocals are not really interesting or memorable; it’s mainly everyone flexing their style and Kanye talking about his problems. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before. However, there are a few notable exceptions, including the singing from everyone on “All of the Lights” (and I’ll go ahead and throw in “Lost in the World”), a wonderfully boastful line in “So Appalled”: “If God had an iPod I’d be on his playlist”; and Nicki Minaj practically demolishing everyone on “Monster”.

So now, we come to my ultimate judgment: I really like this album.

Is it Kanye’s best album so far? Yes.

Is it one of the best albums of the year? Yes.

Is it THE best album of the year? Eh….Not really.

I mean, by default, since no rapper has made an album nearly as good as this, one could make the case that this is the best RAP album of the year. However, I’ve heard better albums this year in other genres (MGMT’s Congratulations, for example). Still, this is pretty much an essential purchase.

Tags: album, beautiful, dark, fantasy, kanye, my, random, reviews, twisted, west

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Comment by Daniel Ridgeway on December 27, 2010 at 8:52pm: @Polarvibez You're right about Kanye's drums; I just finished listening to "Lost in the World" and "Who Will Survive in America" and the drums on both tracks are insane! However, aside from my opinions on "Gorgeous" and "Blame Game", it sounds like we are both on the same page. So what exactly do you disagree with?

Comment by PolarVibez on December 19, 2010 at 4:17pm: I have to disagree with this review. For all of Ye's grandiosity and artifice the heart of all of his productions goes back to those drums. They are unmistakenly boom bap, hip-hop and African. No matter what he's trying out on top of the beat, whether it be neo classical, pop, prog, electro, Black Sabbath via synthisizer or whatever, it's all anchored by those dirty drums and samples. The DNA of primo, pete rock and rza are all over his shit if you know how to listen for it. Listen to all the polyryhtyms in "Monster". It's obvious that dude really knows his way around an MPC. It's quite amazing that an artist could bring that griminesss and still be so fucking pop at the same time. It's the most intersesting music in the urban mainstream today, Period. I think the music actually holds up pretty well without the witiness, self-reflection, assholery, self depreciation, humor and actual lyrical profiency(!) that occasionally shines through in his rhymes. Besides, his beats are almost a side note to why people are even interested in Ye' to begin with. You almost have to get the complete picture or you won't get it at all. Gorgeous is probably the best song on the album that showcases Ye's competence as an emcee. Cudi's cameo on that song is his best since 808's Welcome to Heartbreak and probably crushes anything he did on his own dissapointing second album. And as far as Raekwon's contribution to Gorgeous, I honestly don't know what the hell you're talking about. Rae kills it as usual. I mean he does what he does best. If the formula is perfect why tweak it?. Blame Game might be the second song on the album that makes the case for Ye' being a great emcee. Though I'm unimpressed with John Legend on the track the melodic keys of the sample and the rawness with which Ye' dissects the the science of a breakup make it one of the better joints on the album. The Chris Rock outro isn't bad either-"Kanye reupolstered my pussy.."....C'mon, that shit is classic! Jokes asisde, I won't say this is the best album of the year but out all the records I personally bought or pirated in any genre this year, I was most impressed with MBDTF.

Comment by Daniel Ridgeway on December 14, 2010 at 1:15am: You make a fair point about Blame Game. However, I'm not the type of person that likes hearing people talk candidly about their personal issues in their music, especially if it's something that people already know about. That's just me. Also, while it's good that Kanye's beats and the vocals mix well together, my opinion is that vocals and music should sound just as good separately as they do together, and I don't get that vibe with Kanye's music.

Comment by Dasan Broadnaux on December 13, 2010 at 4:49pm: Some of this was completely true. I definatly agree with you when you said the end of Runaway was the best part and I was thinking the same thing. I do think that what you said about Blame Game was completely wrong. First of all the Chris Rock skit at the end was not random at all. It was making fun of the fact that Kanye taught his old girlfriend(Amber Rose) all she knew about being all high class and knowing how to please a man. And I actually like Blame Game the most out of the album. It is a story about heart break and relationships. Hearing the song is like getting a first hand experience into Kanye's life. It really goes into alot of detail if you stop and listen to the song really. Also I am going to go on and say that the Chris Rock part wasn't just supposed to be funny. It was a real part of the instrumental. You cannot judge these songs at all just based upon their beats because the vocals on this album are a beat themselves. They naturally slick into the beat and just sound good. I understand where you are coming from but you I dont think you can judge like this with Kanye West.