Kanye West is the perfect subject for people who write about music.
The man makes everyone's job easier. He is talented, arrogant, narcissistic, needing attention and dramatic and he writes pretty catchy songs that at times have great production. He is a better than average rapper; at times, great. His presence allows music journalists the ease to constantly report on his latest sound-byte. He's great material and great copy and the best possible person for some reviewer to wax poetically over hundreds of words about "what it all means." It is a cottage industry and Kanye supplies writers with tons of material to write about. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the perfect album for what I have described. Everyone is gushing over Kanye’s latest; it's getting perfect reviews, but does it really hold up to the praise?
The problem Kanye has sometimes is that he often has a grandiose concept his lyrics cannot deliver on. Case in point: On the opening song "Dark Fantasy", Kanye decides to take a real negative dissection of himself. A sample line: "The plan was to drink until the pain is over/But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?" Good line right? Very blunt, very to the point on how he makes pain catchy. Here is the follow up line: "Too many Urkels on your team, that's why your Wins-low." Kanye is the type of person who will in one second reveal something very deep, then brush off all the seriousness with some corny follow-up line.
"Monster" is one of the two group tracks (the other one is "So Appalled" and it's basically blah blah OMG THE RZA!!! blah blah) and when this happens in hip-hop the fun thing to do is to try and figure out if the guests sound cooler than the lead rapper. Sadly for Kanye, he gets outclassed by Rick Ross (who comes off as harder), Niki Minaj (who comes off as more creative and weirder and is the star of the song by miles) and Jay-Z, who bounces in for a few bars and reminds everyone when Kanye was just a producer. It's the best straight-ahead rap song on the album and it's the guests who make it that way.
“Gorgeous” comes off like some last second, almost tired rant; maybe Kanye is tired of his life as a musician "I'm on the edge/so why you playin" repeats the chorus and Kanye sounds like he is rapping his verses over a cell phone. Artistic metaphor (he's literally phoning it in!), or calculated move? You will never know with West, a man who seems comfortable to have pain, to feel real feelings but also carries the want to market that pain so you can follow along at home.
Shockingly "Runaway" is the standout track, which seems to never happen with a single these days. "Runaway" is actually really palatable, yet also undeniably unique as far as hip-hop goes. It's shockingly honest, with Kanye treating all of our ears as his own personal journal. It starts off seemingly sampling the "Eyes Wide Shut" creepy piano opening and manages to be a hit single that actually tells me something about the artist. It could all be him politicking and public relation, but if he means what he says it's one of the best songs of the year.
Some of these songs would come off much better when backed by the live setting. "POWER" for instance looked real good when bathed in white lights and weird dancers surrounding West on SNL but when its left alone it just sounds like Kanye saying Kanye-like things over an interesting chanting beat. Where the man is best is when he decides to just let his delivery go under some good production. "Devil in a New Dress" is one of these moments; just some piano, some R&B hooks and Kanye just speaking to the audience. It's not that he's saying something profound, but it's that he is opening a window into four minutes, forty-one seconds of his life at that very moment.
Supposedly people are saying that this is his masterpiece; his emotionally honest call out to everyone that would care about him. Is Dark Twisted Fantasy his masterpiece, perfect album? Not so much. It is however really good, really interesting but only in the sense that Kanye West is a person who needs us all to know how he is feeling 24/7 and he has a lot of money to bring his creativity to great production. It is ambitious, candid, scripted, well thought-out and catchy in parts, but I cannot buy this as nothing more than the man swinging for what he thinks is the fences with a supposed "true real album" and ending up with a few candid songs and a whole lot of hit-single minded efforts.
If people want to anoint him as a superstar, a top musician, even a top five rapper, it's a fine album, but the fact that the work is so much in the present tense makes for something that sounds really cool RIGHT NOW but maybe will not last the test of time. I'm totally cool with making this a top 10 album of 2010, I am very into the idea of an artist really pouring out his heart and trying to make the greatest album ever, but perfect scores are only given out when someone wants to make the artist happy so they can get said artist on the cover. Since In Your Speakers doesn’t even have a cover, I'm going to just call this a really, really good album that sounds like a few hit singles, a couple of throwaways and a lot of really good non single cuts.
Track List:
1. Dark Fantasy
2. Gorgeous
3. POWER
4. All of the Lights (interlude)
5. All of the Lights
6. Monster
7. So Appalled
8. Devil in a New Dress
9. Runaway
10. Hell of a Life
11. Blame Game
12. Lost in the World
13. Who Will Survive in America
