If you were to ask me if I liked Kanye West I'd probably tell you no. I think his ego is overinflated. I think he has absolutely no filter in terms of what he's willing to say. I think his level of media exposure is much too high for what he does. If you've been lucky enough to read his blog, follow his twitter feed, or view his antics (either at award shows, or on live telethons) then you'd be hard pressed not to agree with me.
So given my, now very public, opinion of "Yeezy" why am I choosing his album as my first review? I'm glad you asked. The thing is that Richard Kingsmill named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as his top album of 2010. Kingsmill usually has pretty good taste in these things, so I had to know what made this album better in his eyes than all of my favourite albums from last year.
Full disclosure: This isn't even the first Kanye album I've bought. I also obtained 808s and Heartbreak largely on the strength of Love Lockdown, which I still think is a great song. I also thought Gold Digger was a killer track, but it didn't tempt me to buy the album.
So you're wondering what I thought of MBDTF?
It's really good. Yes it's a modern hip-hop album, but I'm quite fond of good hip-hop, and it seems that in his music (perhaps the one arena where it's unwarranted) Kanye is capable of modesty and self deprecation. Everything on this album comes together. The hooks, the guests, the constant pop culture references and product placement. Everything glistens with some absolutely phenomenal production.
To accompany the release of the album Kanye made a half hour long video to accompany the track Runaway which was the lead single and is the album's centre of gravity. The video featured snippets of all the tracks on the album, but I tried to watch it and I found it to be unwatchable self indulgent tripe.
Listening to the album is like having a deep conversation. You really feel like you get to see deep into the true self of Kanye West, but when he knows he's being watched and he plays up to the audience, and that's when the douchebag Kanye comes out to play. There's still masses of ego on the record, some of the tracks practically ooze with it. But they're tempered and balanced by the tracks where he seems a little more broken and human.
Kanye knows his away around a hook, and after a couple of listens I often found myself humming a line or repeating a line. Even when he uses other songs that I know and love he manages to make the music sound like it was always meant to be used like that.
Do I think it's the best album of 2010? Not even close, but I still think it's a hell of an accomplishment, and I'll certainly keep listening to it. Would I recommend it? Not to everyone, but if you think you might like it, then you probably will.
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