Album Review: Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Let's get this out of the way: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is not perfect. Devil in a New Dress is boring. Runaway goes on for way to long. The drums at the end of Hell of a Life are a little bit behind. The cellist and the pianist in the interlude for All of the Lights aren't in sync with each other. Spend enough time and you can extend this list of defects as long as you'd like.

That being said, perfection is not a reasonable criterion for an album – or for any human endeavor. The album is, without question, a work of genius. The production is impeccable, with beats that are rich, creative, and full of painstaking detail. The lyrics are witty, thoughtful, and tragic – sometimes all at the same time. The album features two of the greatest guest verses ever (Nicki Minaj on Monster, Pusha T on So Appalled), the finest lyrical performance of Kanye's career (Gorgeous), and the best song of 2010 (Power). The range on the album is astonishing, from the triumph of All of the Lights to the mournfulness of So Appalled, the dignity of Gorgeous to grotesqueness of Monster, and the sorrow of Blame Game to the dementedness of Hell of a Life. At the same time, each track feels logically connected to the next one, and the entire album forms a unified, cohesive whole.

Here’s a track by track breakdown.

Dark Fantasy. The album opens in stunning fashion. Nicki Minaj welcomes the listener into Kanye’s twisted world by paraphrasing, of all things, a poem written by Roald Dahl (see http://www.kanyetothe.com/forum/index.php?topic=24858.0). The rest of the song alternates between a slick, hard-nosed beat and an a cappella vocal melody. Somehow it all works, and Kanye’s lyrics are sharp and on time.

Gorgeous. The finest lyrical performance of Kanye’s career. He muses on the nature of hip hop, the exploitation of women within the fashion industry, and fish sticks. His cadence is virtually flawless. “This week has been a bad massage. I need a happy ending – and a new beginning.” Kid Cudi is excellent on the chorus.

Power. This song, the natural descendent of Stronger, is just badass. A powerful vocal sample (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-dtwySzcQc) is repeated throughout the song, but the underlying chords change at the 2:50 mark, giving the beat new depth and dimension. West’s lyrics are uniquely his own, especially at the song’s opening. “Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it – I guess every superhero need his theme music.”

All of the Lights. The production of this song is almost symphonic. French horns open the song gloriously, and continue throughout the entire track. Rihanna’s hook soars above the heavy percussion, which admittedly is a bit over the top. Neither Kid Cudi nor Elton John adds much, and Fergie’s verse is just terrible. Kanye’s verses are memorable, however, and the tremendous ambition of this track is at least partially realized.

Monster. Everyone is down on Jay-Z for his verse on this song, and I don’t quite see why. Drug dealing and self-promotion, delivered with an interesting, reliable cadence – that’s a standard Jay-Z verse. At the same time, everyone is high on Nicki Minaj’s verse, and deservedly so. She kills it. By the time she unleashes the British accent and asks, “So let me get this straight, wait, I’m the rookie?” it’s all over. This is and will always be the song of her career.

So Appalled. Not to be outdone by Nicki Minaj, however, is the most underrated MC in the game: Pusha T. His verse on So Appalled is an instant classic. The rhymes are beautifully constructed, and the rhythm of their delivery is flawlessly precise. His defiant tone meshes perfectly with the cold, soulless beat. One of the most underrated songs on the album.

Devil in a New Dress. This one is a bit of a head scratcher. It’s the only song on the album not produced by Kanye, which needlessly precludes him from having both produced and rapped on every song in the album. The beat is fine, but it lacks the same energy as the rest of the album. Rick Ross’s verse is not particularly memorable.

Runaway. Also a bit of a curiosity. Kanye has a habit of picking the weakest songs on his albums as his singles. On Graduation, it was Can’t Tell Me Nothing, allegedly because 50 Cent told him to. On this album, it’s Runaway, which is a decent enough song, and certainly very Kanye, but far beneath the best of this album. Kanye gets far too carried away at the end, reverting to his tendency from 808s and Heartbreak to extend songs for two or three minutes longer than apporopriate. This track, along with Devil, represents the only rough patch on the album.

Hell of a Life. This song is demented, perverted, and just kind of fucked up. It’s also one of the best songs on the album. The baseline, seething with reverb, meshes perfectly with the unhinged nature of Kanye’s flow. The lyrics emanate from a primitive region within the depths of Kanye’s brain. Quite simply, no one else in the industry is making music like this.

Blame Game. A truly beautiful melody, sang with grace by John Legend. The beat is simple and elegant. The song gets a little weird when Kanye starts distorting his voice, and the Chris Rock bit gets stale after the first few listens. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful song, and a perfectly anticlimactic follow up to Hell of a Life.

Lost in the World. Kanye’s sole verse in this song – “You’re my devil you’re my angel, you’re my heaven you’re my hell” – is powerful. The use of vocals throughout the song is reminiscent of the album’s other bookend, Dark Fantasy, though the harmonies around the 2:20 mark take this song to another level altogether. The momentum carries over into the album's final track, Who Will Survive in America, which features an intense vocal sample – similar to that of Power – beneath a passionate monologue by Gil Scott-Heron. An incredible end to an incredible album.

Kanye the Producer

Kanye West is many things. Rapper, diva, designer. Icon, author, activist. Award show crasher, paparazzi thrasher, George Bush basher. But, above all, Kanye West is a producer. Through his dynamic and innovative beats, Kanye has shown again and again that hip hop is always capable of evolving in new directions. So, in honor of tomorrow’s release of his latest album, 808s and Heartbreak, this post will examine this video clip of Kanye making a beat in his studio.

Kanye begins making the beat by playing the song from which he will ultimately pull samples. But, as this video makes abundantly clear, Kanye doesn’t just listen. He sings along. He dances. He enjoys the song on its own terms, not simply as vessel for the sample he is looking for.

In this case, the song is Shirley Murdock’s “Go On Without You.” Murdock is a real crooner – she sings her heart out right from the beginning and never tones it down. Though certainly a remarkable feat of endurance, Murdock’s song does not scream out to be sampled by a famous hip hop producer. It is slow, sad, and written in a 6:8 time signature, rather than hip hop’s essentially universal 4:4.

Nevertheless, Kanye senses something about “Go On Without You.” Murdock has great lyrical moments in the song, Kanye feels, and it’s his job to pull those moments together into a brand new beat. Indeed, one of Kanye’s unique contributions to hip hop has been his uncanny ability to incorporate the human voice into the fabric of his songs (see: Heart of the City, Stronger, and basically every song on Late Registration).

Kanye slices Murdock’s song into many little pieces. (Interestingly, at the 0:50 mark, Kanye notes that he deliberately uses equipment that makes this slicing process more efficient). Though we only catch a brief glimpse of it, Kanye begins experimenting with various ways of piecing together his samples. At the 1:04 mark, Kanye struggles to match a metronome to the tempo of Murdock’s original song, and we can start to see how difficult, time-consuming, and frustrating hip hop production can be. There is serious music being made here, and that requires serious work. Thankfully, Kanye assures us at 1:30 that he’ll come through: “No matter how much work, no matter ... how many hit records … this motha’ fucka’s from the Chi, [and] we gonna figure something out.”

Then, at 2:13 we suddenly hear the product of Kanye’s efforts. From Murdock’s sad, doleful ballade, Kanye has created an upbeat, eminently danceable party song. The emotional devastation of Murdock’s vocals has been rechanneled into a soulful, suave sexiness. The beat is absolutely seductive. As Kanye dances along to his new creation – and, perhaps, you do, too – it’s easy to forget that all Kanye did was chop up a song from the 80s and give it a drum beat. The final product feels like so much more – and that, in a sense, is the magic of hip hop production.