Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Kanye West’s much anticipated and now celebrated new album actually lives up to the hype. ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ is an extremely well-written and well-produced body of work. Each song has its own individual ‘oomph’ and uniqueness, with distinctly original beats, clever and beautifully-composed lyrics and most importantly, each song tells a powerful story about Kanye’s life, career, controversies, dreams, nightmares, fantasies, and views on the world. Whereas other artists’ albums contain a handful of good songs and a whole bunch of fillers, making it easy to pick out the good ones, Kanye’s entire record is exceptional, making it almost impossible to ‘choose’ a favourite. This is due in part to the very meticulous production, care, and obvious, and no doubt obsessive, detail that is apparent in each individual song. This album really is a purely creative product of Kanye’s rich and ‘beautiful, dark, twisted fantasy’ world.

Of course the artist’s trademark, and notorious, narcissism pervades the entire record. After a one-year hiatus, the lead track from the album ‘Power’ explains that “I just needed time alone, with my own thoughts/Got treasures in my mind but couldn’t open up my own vault”, and then confidently and aggressively announces that “I was the obamanation of Obama’s nation.”

The record’s zenith is ‘Runaway’, a nine-minute peice which begins with a few simple notes on the piano. Here, Kanye delves into his complex and contradictory relationships and attitudes towards women, and then raises a toast to the ‘douchebags, scumbags, assholes, and jerkoffs’, all labels which he has been given at one time or another. The song ends in an epic guitar riff and then abruptly cuts to ‘Hell of a Life’ which begins with, ‘I think I just fell in love with a porn star.’

Indeed, nothing in this record is subtle or half-hearted. From its controversial original cover (pictured here), to the belligerently poetic honesty of the lyrics, to the tribal undertones of the drums, and finally to the intensely vibrant short film which accompanies the album. All these elements combine to declare to the world that Kanye West is back and better than ever. The film, which Kanye directed, features ex-Victoria’s Secret model Selita E. Banks as an otherworldly phoenix who must die in order to rise and return to her planet, a shallow metaphor for the artist’s fleetingly-stalled career. Nevertheless, and despite Kanye’s terrible acting (he should stick to his day job), it is a visual masterpiece. The most memorable scene contains a group of black-tutued ballerinas performing a beautifully-choreographed dance to the climactic riff of the ‘Runaway’ song against the backdrop of vibrantly green wooden doors. Artistically directed by Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft, the whole film, with its beautiful natural scenery, is shot in ultra colour to accentuate every hue to an artificial and epically-photoshopped palette, thus creating that ‘dark, twisted fantasy’ aura.

Having given an extremely positive review, I am now going to take the unpopular stance and declare that this album is not as good as ‘Heartbreak and 808s’, Kanye West’s previous album. To me, this album lacked the emotional intensity of the last, which was so fraught with pain, passion, angst and outright grittiness. However, both records are, without a doubt, great in their own right, with this latest one further cementing Kanye West’s position as one of the great musicians of this era. [Image from http://kanyewest.com/]