By Casey Zirbel
Opinion Editor
“My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” brings listeners into Kanye West’s world by detailing the rapper’s obsessive relationship with music and lucidly, conveying his deepest struggles in life. The album sets the bar at a new high for what an album can accomplish with flawless production, impassioned content and premium lyrical quality.
Made up of 12 tracks (including an iTunes-exclusive bonus track “See Me Now”), the album delivers a consistently well-developed progression of songs that cover a variety of themes.
The pace and development of the album complement each individual song while also forming a beautiful collage of ideas and sound, or as West might put it, a beautiful dark twisted musical fantasy.
On the opening track “Dark Fantasy,” West sets the pace of the album, delivering sharp lyrics over a mercurial beat featuring a chorus of emotional chanting. West’s crisp lyrics remind the listener of how far he has come in life since his “College Dropout” days while also bringing his signature bravado.
“Gorgeous” immediately follows, hitting the listener with some of the best lyrics of West’s career. The clever rhymes of this song, laced with sharp criticisms of American society and declarations of overall supremacy as a musician, establish the central themes of other songs such as “Power,” “Hell Of A Life,” and “So Appalled.”
West aggressively reminds the listener of the pressures that affect him and the ills of the world which both disgust and inspire him.
The album features many artists including Kid Cudi, Charlie Wilson, Bon Iver, Jay-Z, Pusha-T, Nicki Minaj, John Legend, Rihanna, Rick Ross, Fergie, Raekwon, Swizz Beatz, Alicia Keys and Elton John.
“All Of The Lights,” which features 11 artists beside West, is one of the best songs on the album. The song utilizes intricate rhythmic patterns and clean, dynamic drums in order to create one of the best beats in recent hip-hop history.
The extent of West’s masterpiece encompasses very different regions of hip-hop music. Not only does he master the sleazy rockstar style on the blunt “Runaway,” but he also delves into the more introspective and passionate realm of broken relationships on the song “Blame Game.”
A shameless and brilliant self-promoter, West has adopted an eye-catching aesthetic involving copious amounts of heavy gold jewelry that contradicts the rough, disturbing images gracing his album covers.
Regardless of the topic, West always connects to listeners by forming extremely personal and revealing narratives which detail his mistakes as well as his insecurities. His stories seem ludicrous in their excess while also mangaging to capture some simple human humility.
West is one of the most talented musicians to debut in the past few decades due to his ability to blend great music with raw human emotion. “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” is one of the premier masterpieces of the 21st century so far.
It is very difficult to find any flaws with the album even under the strictest scrutiny. Those who haven’t heard it in its entirety are missing out on an incredible piece of music.
Kanye West has again proven himself as one of the most talented artists of his generation with “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” which is arguably West’s finest album yet.
The 12-track epic is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and at all other major music retailers.
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