015: What's Playing - Kanye West

Kanye West (January 1 2010)

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Hip-hop / pop / genre-bending

1 hr 8 min

★★★½

Tags describing the album: Ambitious, creative, bold, contradictory, rhythmic, genre-bending

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Listen to: For an album blending lines and genres, consistent top hits, loud and proud production, and a good list of features.

Personal favorite songs: Gorgeous, POWER, Devil In A New Dress

Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy might be one of his most ambitious and challenging projects he has ever put out. After a year riddled in hardship and controversy, Kanye culminates what seems to a declaration of contradiction, power, style, and his inner workings. I really enjoyed listening to the piece start to finish because of how diverse and layered it is. Kanye brings together talent, hard work, passion, anger, and everything else he's got to make a genuinely great album. Some of the greatest hits on Twisted Fantasy put this piece as the most talked about and highly-rated album of 2010. He boasts a fantastic line of features as well including Kid Cudi, Raekwon, JAY Z, Rick Ross, Nicki, CyHi the Prynce, Pusha T, John Legend, and Bon Iver.

Twisted Fantasy starts with the grand entrance you could expect from Kanye and quickly flows into its third song, POWER. He makes it clear off the bat, "screams from the haters got a nice ring to it / I guess every superhero need his theme music". It's clear he knows he's making this piece from his own mountain top, he's killing the game he invented and plans to give an his view of it through some timeless songs. Almost every song on this album is recognizable and a greatest hit whether you listen to Kanye or not. But the flow and dynamics and workings of Twisted Fantasy really begin to shine when you listen to it without interruption. Strong and consistent beats, dynamic melodies, and a pure raw sound categorize most of the songs. A villainous role is definitely taken by Kanye throughout the theme of the songs and it's funny because he does it in a way you can relate to and understand. The entire album is a contradiction of itself in many different ways, and he plays different roles in each song/sound/verse. You can't quite put your finger on one phrase to describe Twisted Fantasy besides good music. He's a savior and sinner, hero and villain, manic yet human, off-the-wall yet technically sound, and all of the above.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a gift to the game, a story of adversity and triumph, a winding road of creativity, and overflowing with life.