Album Review: Kanye West- My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantesy

Average Rating: 8.2/10

    Overall Rating: 9.5/10

1. Dark Fantasy (10/10)
2. Gorgeous Ft. Kid Cudi & Reakwon (10/10)
3. Power (10/10)
4.  All of the Lights Introlude
5. All of the Lights Ft. Rihanna & Kid Cudi (10/10)
6. Monster Ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nikki Minaj & Bon Iver (10/10)
7. So Appalled Ft. Jay-Z, Pusha T, Prynce Cy Hi, Swizz Beats & RZA (8/10)
8. Devil in a New Dress Ft. Rick Ross (5/10)
9. Runaway Ft. Pusha T (5/10)10. Hell of a Life (8/10)
11. Blame Game Ft. John Legend (6/10)
12. Lost in the World Ft. Bon Iver (7/10)
13. Who Will Survive in America

      After an artist goes through a rough time in his or her career, it usually takes that artist a fairly long amount of time to redeem himself or herself, also it takes the artist a while to regain his or her fans, for example, after Eminem released Encore, he took a five year hiatus, then released Relapse, which was generally a poor attempt for Eminem to redeem himself, but the year after that, Eminem managed to redeem himself with Recovery, and he got even more fans while regaining his older ones, another example is 50 Cent, who after released Curtis, managed to redeem his skills, but not his fanbase with 'Before I Self Destruct', and the third, and most obvious example was Kanye West, who had a tough last two years making himself look like an arrogant asshole, making him really need to redeem himself with ‘My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy’.

     'My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy' had a great background in general, mainly because it indicates Kanye's return to the rap world, meaning that with this album, Kanye planned to redeem himself and regain his fanbase by doing what he’s familiar with, while not doing anything too experimental, and with his really strong production skills which just keep improving, My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy was a great album, why? Mainly due to experience, because Kanye was really successful in almost all his albums, and “My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy” just continued his streak of success.

     My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy was a lot deeper and generally a much better produced album than his last few album. The album’s best tracks had superb production, and at the same time the lyrical content that felt like it fit the song. The most notable songs with great lyrics and matching production, one of the greatest examples was the album’s first track “Dark Fantasy” which sounded like a gospel when it was on the hook, and it just completely switched into a strange, different styled beat during the verses, and honesty, the beat was one of the best I have ever heard, and lyrically I felt like the song deeply symbolized a person’s deepest fantasies and that they can be really crazy, and honestly Kanye symbolized that perfectly with his lyrics on this track.

     Another great track with great lyrics and outstanding tailor-made production was “Gorgeous”, a track which talks about Kanye and Rekowan’s current point in there carriers, there struggles, and more important how they turned that struggling point around, into something really successful, and what better way to rap like than with a really strong hook complemented by a voice like Cudi’s along with a guitar styled beat?

      Another great track with the same case was “All of The Lights” which felt like the most artistic track on the album. The song was mainly about mistrust, and Kanye used the idea of his girlfriend cheating on him when he came back from prison, It had a lot of style, a lot of style, substance, it was well made, and as a result that was a really good idea for a song in general. All of The Lights had a great for trumpet based beat, as usual it was really strong as a beat itself, and it really complimented the song’s theme, style and lyrical content.

    Runaway was one of the weaker tracks on the album; it had much calmer production and a much less interesting subject matter. Runaway was about Kanye warning a girl that she should run away from him and that he’s not really a good person, it was more of an emotional song, it was good, but when putting it next to the rest of the album, there was a huge group of much better songs that did a much better job than this ond.

     Blame Game was generally a good song; it was about what was exactly given in its name, it was about blame and how people just seem to blame each other, mostly in bad relationships. Blame Game wasn’t nearly the best on the album, but it was not by any means a bad song, but it was just flawed though, the production was a bit boring, the song was slow comparing to the rest of the album, and honestly the song just didn’t do it for me, it was a good enough song to be enjoyable, but it was one of those songs that are really easy to skip when listening to the album.

    Other than those few tracks there were other tracks that had a more serious subject matter, the only difference between the ones earlier mentioned and the other ones was that all the other ones had a much smaller and less complex concept. For example, “Lost in The World” was about confusion and really not knowing what’s going on, it was a great track, but not one of the best on the album, and “Power” which was a song about general corruption; it’s a stand out track on the album mainly because of its strong production and it’s more complex flow.

   Kanye did let loose on some tracks though, so not all the tracks here go deep into subject matters. There was “Devil in a New Dress” which was basically just Kanye and Rick Ross liking a girl and they were both debating whether they should get the girl or religion, it was a great concept, but probably was the weakest track on the album production wise. “Hell of a Life” was a story where he talks about falling in love with a porn star, he rapped it over an ACDC inspired beat which really made the difference for this track, and “Monster” which was basically a straight up rhyming game, it went from verse to verse from Ross, to Kanye, to Jigga then to Nikki, and to put them all together an excellent hook, it was truly it was one of the best tracks on the album, and was one of the best tracks of 2010.

    

     Overall I think Kanye proved he can easily win his fans back and that he is at his peak with this album without signs that he Is slowing down at all. The album was pure genius, it was something very artistic production wise and lyrically, it was something unique as a project in general, and it truly stood out not as just a great rap album, not just as a great album, but as a real piece of art with a lot of heart and soul put into it. “My Beautiful Twisted Dark Fantasy” really wasn’t perfect, but it still deserved a lot of props and a really loud applause for its strong lyricism, stand out production, and it’s really artistic feeling and theme as an album.