Kanye West returns to the full-length two years after the release of the cold-beat pity party 808s & Heartbreak, and there’s a maniacally inspired ambition to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (formerly Good Ass Job) that immediately sets it apart from not only the entirety of his previous catalogue but the current climate of Hip-Hop as a whole. Every boast we’ve heard, every ridiculous claim we’ve seen is rendered somehow, some way, justified, if only for the duration of the album’s 68 minutes.
Naturally, once the music ends the hyperbole remains, and on its own all of that still looks pretty silly. But for all the egomaniacal dementia, there’s substance of genre-eliminating grandeur that scoffs at the notion of minimality for safety’s sake or even the remotest hint of mediocrity. The robot lovesickness of 808s & Heartbreak is firmly in the rearview, in its place a maximized & star-studded rewriting of the artistic rulebook of pop culture – or at least Kanye’s vision of it.
After all the meltdowns and dagger volleys, Kanye has turned his creativity towards examining the darker, more sonically aggressive shades of his musical persona. He further embraces his tabloid celebrity while insisting on proper definition and, alternately, expressing a greater sense of confusion and ambivalence about the role of women in his life than ever before. This is, after all, a man whose infamous meltdowns and revivals have occurred on an unprecedented scale since the demise of his mother – but now he’s embracing the caricature and furthering it, morphing it to his own will and redefining it – or at least rounding off the edges with a blizzard of creative activity.
A high-reaching female choral introduction asks "Can we get much higher?" over optimistic piano chords, before our justifiably maligned narrator sets in on a straight delivery for Dark Fantasy that immediately catches attention not for quality of flow or lyrical prowess, but the fact that it's just his voice. No bullshit Autotune, no electro-fuzz, just straight Kanye dropping lines like "too many Urkels on your team, that's why you're Winslow" over shimmering chimes and creeping keys. A gentle introduction, a short-stack sampling of what's to come.
Over an electric guitar line and singing Cudi hook, West gets up close on "Gorgeous" with references to 30 Rock's Alec Baldwin, sentencing disparities along racial lines and not-so-random airport security searches before painting himself the redeemed savior and guide for a wayward nation. "Is Hip-Hop just a euphemism for a new religion? The soul music of the slaves that the youth is listenin' / But this is more than just my road to redemption / Malcolm West got the whole nation standin' at attention". I know, shocking.
Raekwon's appearance on the track is late-game icing that would border on redundant if it weren't so goddamned fantastic. He doesn't appear until four and a half minutes in, but the guitar solo under the verse, the amplified digi-drum snaps and piano loop take the track to a new level, a cushioned platform for the Wu-Tang legend.
Power's potency is given brighter luster by its associated context, the jetsetting egomaniac Summer soundtrack undiminished by months of existing familiarity. After a melodramatic minute-long piano interlude, "All of The Lights" sets in, Rihanna belting the hook over horns and frantic breakbeats that pushes everything too big, too bright, too aggressively active to keep the blood pressure in check. Get a kick on Kanye's growling going into the chorus before RiRi goes into a bizarre echo-effect impression of Fergie's more obnoxious-brat delivery technique. It's one misstep in a larger-than-life track that, despite the flaws, almost seems specifically intended to upstage all the starlet-collabs on the scene these days. It succeeds, boldly, with gorgeous production and a goddamned Elton John piano solo.
The early annoyance of the opening to "Monster" is immediately blotted out in gorilla-smash fashion with Rick Ross opening the door to a pulverizing track that cuts new paths in Hip-Hop production and songwriting. With multiple collaboration recruitment, Kanye constructs a track swing-slam track that’s equal parts jungle-staccato strings and reggae-derivative powerjam. Jay-Z drops a stellar aw snap verse that happily reminds us of the graceful swagger & wordplay of his early-2000s work, while Nicki Minaj shines with deftly ferocious versatility under the throbbing bass, a lyrical devastator one moment and silken reggae queen the next (turn up the headphones for the “Pink wig give ‘em whiplash” line).
Three G.O.O.D. Friday tracks follow in succession - "So Appalled" features the Jay-Z verse that sparked the ire of mini-mouse rapper MC Hamme, while "Devil In a New Dress" takes the slow-jam Smokey Robinson sample to Rick Ross' doorstep. The soulful track, boasts a slow-rolling beat with a dreamy vocal loop. “Hard to be humble when you’re stunting on a Jumbotron,” raps Kanye. “We ain’t married, but tonight I need some consummation.”
That brings us to "Runaway," the nine-minute self-immolating track birthed from the fallout of that notorious mic-grabbing moment, which has evolved considerably since its debut earlier this year at the VMAs. Between the endless parade of Taylor Swift controversy, the 35-minute accompanying short film and the dick pics (which he references in the track), it's tempting to decide for good that we've heard enough of this jam. It's become the de facto anthem for exactly the kind of people the song belongs to, and there's a good chance if you live near a concentration of the Ed Hardy contingent you'll be able to hear the song if you open your window and lean an ear. All the same, though, the contextual placement within My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy enhances the impact and, in turn, value of the track.
A high bass-buzz Rock riff lays the groundwork for the pornstar-love tale "Hell of a Life," which finds Kanye mimicking the lead melody/guitar riff for Sabbath's "Iron Man" in his chorus delivery. "Move downtown cop a suite space / Livin' life like we won a sweepstakes, what / We headed to hell for heaven's sakes / Well I'ma levitate, make the devil wait, yeah" The chorus rings closest to anything off 808s & Heartbreak that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has to offer, serving as an impressive reminder of just how much of an artistic leap our favorite Fishstick has taken in the past two years.
John Legend's keys and vocals grace "Blame Game," a sentimental left-turn from the preceding track's headbanger that takes soft bass lulls and a digital tambourine beat and builds a gentle momentum that sends Ye skyward in verse, allowing for minimal moments of delivery to seize & amplify momentum. The pitch-shifting final verse could've been omitted, but the poignant power of the effects-free singing on the repeated "I can't love you this much" line erases the impact. Then Chris Rock comes out of nowhere with a very strange little skit, completely disjointed from the impact of the previous movement in the song.
The previously-leaked, unfinished "Lost in the World" takes on a new life on record. It's an Autotune harmony-fest, a robot choir of synthetic sentimentality that bursts into a full Ibiza club-banger beat before fading and returning twofold, Kanye rising through the mania with a butter rhyme that again examines the polarities of love: "You're my devil you're my angel / you're my heaven, you're my hell / You're my now, you're my forever / You're my freedom, you're my jail / You're my lies, you're my truth / You're my questions, you're my proof / You're my stress and you're my masseuse. Ambivalence is a virtue.
The track sucks you in, moves your body, takes you into the thundering drums that rise in the final minute, pulling you farther from skeptical listening to actively participating, stomping feet, nodding head, tapping hands on tables until you realize you're already a full minute into album closer Who Will Survive In America. It's a hypnotic freefall of fantastic gravity, the beat closing in as Gil Scott-Heron asks, in damning fashion, "Who will survive in America?"
A rampantly evolving talent, ambitious orchestral production, unabashed grandiosity and full-throttle confidence has just upstaged & ante-upped the entire rap scene in one fell swoop. Check mate.
CraveOnline Rating: 10 out of 10
