Why do we hate Kanye West? Why do we love him? I think that these two questions really come at the same answer from different perspectives. Kanye West makes music that we wish we could make; or that we conceivably could make given the opportunity. But even that only scrapes the surface of a deeper relationship with West. I am envious of Kanye West. The money, the fame, all that is the obvious stuff, but not the important ones. I am envious because I will never make an album as good as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, knowing that my knowledge of music would be inadequate to the task. I don't begrudge the man, just envy him. West's new album is the culmination of every album he's released since The College Dropout and he has improved on every imaginable facet of his previous work. When some of these songs began to leak/be released ahead of the official album, fans were clamoring to hear more, I know I was. "Power", "Runaway", and the juggling personas that comprise "Monster" were every bit as gargantuan as we'd hoped they'd be. And then we were really excited to hear the rest of the album. Had West released all the good stuff early hoping we'd buy the album solely on the backs of these songs, or had he merely given us a glimpse of the larger beast that would comprise MBDTF? With rumors of longer versions of released songs and the promise of dozens of guests, West worked hard to keep the momentum going, leading up the official release date. Opener, "Dark Fantasy", begins with a bit of spoken-word introduction from Nicki Minaj, and then jumps into gospel-inflected piano strikes and a chorus of backing vocals, all pretty pretentious stuff but goddamnit does it work perfectly. And then the album starts. And every songs builds and crescendos to a point where the listener is caught up and swept away, knowing that we've never seen anything like this before. This is a meticulously created album and West knows what we want and gives it us. And at the end of the day, a simple, honest thank you is the highest complement I can give to West. I couldn't do anything less.
Tracklisting:
01. Dark Fantasy
02. Gorgeous
03. Power (listen to the mp3 below)
04. All of the Lights (Interlude)
05. All of the Lights
06. Monster
07. So Appalled
08. Devil in a New Dress
09. Runaway
10. Hell of a Life
11. Blame Game
12. Lost in the World
13. Who Will Survive in America
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