My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

I used to think this was a 10/10 album but I just can’t listen to it anymore. Why are Nazis still a thing…

Safe to say, there's a lot going on. This is basically radio-pop from the post-genre hip hop hegemony era. But it's also a concept album that asks an important question: what if an extremely famous guy was also extremely horny? The defining feature here is the maximalist production. There's some incredibly lush gospel stuff, some funny appropriations of black sabbath and king crimson, some dumb skits, some annoying choruses, some tiresome mediations on fame and celebrity (yawn), some attention grabbing verses, some spaced out deep beats, a lot of propulsive forward energy, and oh shit, is that RZA?! Nicki?! Raekwon!? Kanye is a tedious bore and a mid rapper, but also a masterful producer, beat-maker, hook-writer and creator of interesting audio-collages.

Es la primera vez que oigo de motu propio no solo un disco, sino una mísera canción de Kanye. Sé que es un payaso histórico. No tengo un especial interés en el hip hop.

Pero... Joder, que buena es esta mierda. Me ha entrado genial todo el álbum. Nada se ha sentido largo y nada se me ha hecho pesado.

Gracias a esta página he descubierto un álbum que me ha gustado mucho y que casi seguramente no habría oído en la vida si no me hubieran obligado, así que ya solo por este descubrimiento puedo perdonar la cantidad de mierda que tengo pendiente en la lista.

His voice is whiny

Fuck this douche

1/5

ye

This is one of the ones I was most excited to get to. Modern-day Kanye is unquestionably A Mess, but 13 years ago the conversation around him was more "well he's an egomaniac, but *he delivers*", which I assumed could be true, but I didn't listen to his music back then.

But yeah this album fucking delivers. I'd drawn "College Dropout" already for this project and liked it, but that didn't fill in a whole lot of context for me. But this one's Post-MTV awards incident, pre-explicit-nazi-shit, and extremely fascinating to listen back to, knowing that his introspection and seeming self-awareness about megalomania and self-destruction in this weren't enough to save him.

Fin nok. Pre-full-retard-Ye, men meget lang.... Og slap lige af - så god er du sgu nok heller ikke til at kneppe.

Ugh, not listening to this.

One of the absolute best albums of all time. A looot of 10/10 songs like Runaway, Power, Monster and so on... Nicki Minaj's best performance and I could go on and on. Everybody should listen to this one.

I don't like rap, but at least this has some actual musical elements to it and not just a generic backing track. There's actually some decent stuff on here. Favorite tracks were All Of The Lights (Interlude) and Runaway. Parts of Monster, Gorgeous, and Blame Game were ok too.

I can understand why this is being seen as such a pivotal album in HipHop history and Kanye's career.
This is his Magnum Opus and it has all gone downhill from here, music and sanity wise. I think the balance was found here.

Hard pass. No streaming revenue for bigots.

Possibly his best work, which is saying something! Very varied, with features and guest verses all over the shop. Wonderful, even if it should probably lose a star for him going so fully insane in the time since.
But, my rules, and I've decided it would have been six if he had stayed sane!

This is about where I get off the train with Kanye, but man, what a sound. Some of the most intricately structured hip hop you'll ever hear. He omnivorously draws from everything he can get his hands on to make something beyond genres. And yet, despite its complexity, which might come across as the hip hop equivalent of showboating prog rock, the album has an irresistible manic energy that just sweeps you up in its audacious scope. Powerful stuff. Perfect balance of id and ego. Yes, Kanye is insane, but you have to be to have this type of boundaryless vision.

I have no clue how to feel about this album. First off, Ye, or Kanye West, is a certified crazy asshole. He always has been, and looking up to him for his personality, is questionable. That being said, after listening to this, I understand why this is some big event in rap and even in other genres. This album definitely sounds different than anything releasing at the time, and the sampling is easily the best part of the whole album in my opinion, which is actually one of my gripes with songs like Stronger from his earlier album. It has an energy to it where even songs I'm not liking get me enjoying it, it knows how to be a good album, and I cannot deny that. I do think it comes off a little egotistical, however. Both in the lyrics, which is expected, but also in the sound. A nine minute song where the beginning is single piano keys for the first bit? That doesn't come off as musically impressive, it comes off as full of yourself and thinking you can do whatever and people will call it art, and that's ehat people did. It's just so many pros and cons I gotta but it right down the middle. I will say the idea people found King Crimson through this album makes me happy.

Better than I remember it being. I have always felt this was overrated (still do) but maybe appreciated it more this listen. 4/5

still like earlier Kanye better

Fuck Kanye in 2023 but this is an all-timer. 5-stars just for Minaj's verse on Monster

Let me start this off by saying that the 'Blame Game' backing track is a straight ripoff from Aphex Twin's 'Avril 14th'. Aphex deserves all of the recognition he can get, so shame on Kanye for not doing right by him.

There is a lot to enjoy about this album, and I agree that it is the pinnacle of Kanye's career. There are some great rhymes and techniques at play, Kayne's production skills are on full display, and the collaborations are fantastic (especially Nicki Minaj and JAY-Z on 'Monster').

There are also stark contrasts between and even within tracks that seem to mirror Kanye's continuously tortured state. You've got a track like 'POWER' throwing bravado every direction it can but then culminating in contemplations of suicide. You've also got loads of lines about how they're "f'in B's" and then a seemingly apologetic track like 'Runaway'.

It's been sad to see the steady decline of Kayne (at least in the public eye) and this album seems to do a decent job of encapsulating the conflicts that were at play within the man at the time. It is simultaneously resplendent, self-congratulating, chaotic and introspective.

I still struggle to separate the artist from the art, so I'm sure that is pulling my rating down here, but the album was much better that I figured it would be, and certainly far superior to anything that Kayne has made since.