[Intro]
Kanye West.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

[Review]
Hi everyone, Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of an album review, an album that everyone has been begging for, begging for, hey. Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Before listening to this album, I had all this stuff just running through my head, things I would say to kind of preface this review, stuff like "Hey, you know, stuff at the VMA's, the Today Show interviеw, the Katrina/Bush debacle, all thе media gaffes, and all that stuff" that's just context, man, it's not important. This is music. Pay attention to the music. Leave your hate at the door.

It's a very similar argument I made when I reviewed M.I.A's last album. But the more I listen to Twisted Fantasy, the more I kind of came to realize that that position is total and utter bullshit, not because Kanye's gaffes are so unforgivable that we need to scrutinize this album, using everything he says, that's not the case. The reason it's hard to ignore context on this LP is because Kanye's favorite thing to rap about is... himself.

On here, he puts both his strengths and his flaws on display, and it kind of makes me wonder what his beautiful dark twisted fantasy is. Is it himself? Is it his life? Is it an album about his life? Basically, the music here and Kanye West's personal life are pretty inseparable on this album.

The lyrics reference everything to the fish sticks joke on South Park to the dude's very emotionally damaged love life. Rhyme wise, flow wise, I feel like Kanye's really creative here, very much on the ball, like the opener Dark Fantasy, there's a point where I laughed my ass off, when he said: "Too many Urkels on your team, that's why your wins low". DAAAAAAAAMN.

I'm loving a lot of the rhymes here, and even when I don't like a certain track, they are a little bit of a saving grace for me, and I think that track is a particularly awesome start to this album, just kind of paints Kanye's rise to the top, and it's a little exciting.

But Kanye does not just think of himself as a rapper, he also feels he is a singer, and... I will say, singing is not the strongest tool in Kanye's toolbox. Sometimes his singing is a little off, but it basically gets the job done. But the best thing this LP has going for, for me is the beats, the production. Just great sounds, interesting samples, I remember when watching live performances of the song Power, I didn't exactly know how to feel about the King Crimson sample in that track, but I'm really loving the studio version. The song clips flow together really well in that song, and makes something that's really, really cinematic. It's just kind of a brave new world for sampling, in my opinion. I've always been a fan of sampling, always been an advocate, always felt like there's so much more potential for it, but copyright is kind of standing in the way of that. I would say the song "Power" is a great example of the artistry that sampling music can offer if the artist is freely allowed to do so.

And there are other tracks that, surprisingly enough, do a lot with a little, like the song "Monster". Just has not really lush sounds, but very kind of stripped down and simple: primal drums, minimal synthesizers, but still sounds really dramatic and kind of eerie. The track "Blame Game" kind of fits that bill too. Very dramatic, but not overdoing it.

They're soul samples on here, a really firing classic spoken word piece delivered by Gil Scott-Heron, crowd sounds, just a lot of clips flying by every moment on this album. Whether you like Kanye or not, this thing is ambitious as hell, especially from a sonic perspective.

All the tracks flow together really well, it's very cohesive, Kanye takes most of his guests MC spots and relegates them to a few posse tracks that come together really well, and even though I'm not the biggest Nicki Minaj fan, the biggest Rick Ross fan, they contribute some pretty good stuff to the album.

But... gripes, gripes, gripes, because there are gripes that I have and sort of the first one, maybe an appetizer, are the hooks. A lot of the hooks on this thing either (to me, anyway, just an opinion) kind of come off a little corny or a little generic. I'm thinking of tracks like "Hell of a Life", "So Appalled", "All Of The Lights", maybe something that I could just kind of come across on any new rap song in the mainstream on the radio.

And that kind of lets me down, because most of this album doesn't really strike me as being that type of music. I'm going to say something that may spark a lot of angry comments, but at least half of what I'm hearing here feels very artful to me for a mainstream hip hop album.

But my biggest gripe with this LP is something that I mentioned earlier in the review, and that's how essential it is, to me, to be a fan or at least to be interested in Kanye on a personal level to enjoy this. I think even someone who hates Kanye can get into some of the storylines on this album, at least a little. The position that I'm in is that I don't care.

There's fantastic production here, there's great rhymes, but I'm not so interested in hearing about Kanye West's fucked up social life so much that I'll just be sitting on the edge of my seat through eight minutes of the Blame Game or nine minutes of Runaway.

I get kind of bored, what do you want me to do?

But people love the sick little details, people love dirty laundry, and I could see this album appealing in a big way because of that, especially with how expensive and impressive the music sounds. I enjoyed a lot of what I heard here. I just didn't like a lot of the drama that this thing served up because it just doesn't feel all that relevant.
I'm feeling a light to decent 6 on this thing but that's just my opinion. You guys, you were asking for this, let me know what you think of this album. Is it Kanye's greatest work yet? Should we even be taking context into consideration when enjoying this album? And what should I review next?

Anthony Fantano, Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, forever.