Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

What are you trying to knock down the Metacritic score a few points?

i genuinely contemplated giving it one star just for this! but decided to be ~fair~ in the end, sigh

I don't really feel qualified/care to judge the "quality" of a review or whatever. Just glad not every single critic is calling this a masterpiece. Like some dude said on his twitter: how do we expect these guys to actually make genius albums if we give average albums like this 10/10?

can you honestly say that asa writer, you think this 'review' makes valid points, or even makes an interesting contribution to the 'kanye west debate'?

I've noticed a depressing trend in the comments on Lex's review and others - this assumption by people who don't seem to understand that the Guardian is also a NEWSPAPER that all contentious opinions are just craven attempts to optimise page views, as if the Gawker model is the only game in town.

"You're focusing on his persona, not the music" is one of the dumbest arguments I've seen in a while given his persona is inseparable from the music.

and given that the substance of the album is solely kanye's persona!

Just because Kanye's persona is all over his music doesn't mean that critiquing his persona is equivalent to critiquing the music. That would be like, I dunno, reviewing a Lady Gaga records by making fun of her outfits and not bothering to talk about the music.

by the same token, being impressed by kanye's persona isn't the equivalent of being impressed by his music (which is what seems to be happening with nearly all of the reviews so far)

Just because Kanye's persona is all over his music doesn't mean that critiquing his persona is equivalent to critiquing the music. That would be like, I dunno, reviewing a Lady Gaga records by making fun of her outfits and not bothering to talk about the music.

Not really, because Gaga's persona mostly doesn't bleed into her records, Bad Romance aside most of them could be by anyone. You could never say the same about Kanye.

Mentioned it somewhere else, but I think if someone like Lady Gaga is all glorious ego, than this album is all super ego struggling against Id. Personally, I like the conflict, especially since I'm not quite sure where Kanye stands on the divide. Perhaps that's why it comes off so dark: Kanye doesn't know, either.

Lady Gaga might not be the best example (she was first name that came to mind -- someone whose celebrity is tied up in her music/clothes/persona and you can't really understand the person by trying to break her down into those separate elements) but it's not like there's a shortage of musicians whose "personas" are all over their records. It's just that Kanye is a bigger star than 99.99% of those people, so there's more of a temptation to attack the persona instead of/as well as the music.

this might be a question of how much importance you place on lyrics - judging kanye's lyrics (esp here) IS to judge his persona.

how do we expect these guys to actually make genius albums if we give average albums like this 10/10?

this strikes me as an odd reading of the critic/artist relationship

Yeah it's not as if Kanye sat down in his studio and went "yeah, make an average album, Pitchfork will offer it 10.0 and my place in the pantheon will be assured forever".

can someone actually link lex's review?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/25/kanye-west-beautiful-dark-twisted-review

Hey Lex someone called you out for the 4/5 you gave to My Chemical Romance.

lol @ the url

lex's review otm, the comments are looooooooooool. if metacritic says its good, you must be a terrible person lex.

Weird reverence for Metacritic the most dispiriting part of the whole thing IMO.

on the plus side, apparently people still care what critics have to say!

it's amazing how MBDTF has so quickly become an album that just shouldn't be negatively criticised. as someone in the comments says, it's "being groomed for induction into the dreaded canon".

yeah - that's really indicative of the point that a lot of people, for whatever reason, just desperately want this to be a masterpiece.

baffling really - as i've written elsewhere today, when i first listened to this, before any reviews had been written (or i knew that i'd have to write about it), it was so underwhelming that i pretty much assumed critical reception would be lukewarm, or at best mixed.

^ If I had a dollar...

how do we expect these guys to actually make genius albums if we give average albums like this 10/10?

this strikes me as an odd reading of the critic/artist relationship

― questeon the answers (call all destroyer), Friday, November 26, 2010 9:09 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah it's not as if Kanye sat down in his studio and went "yeah, make an average album, Pitchfork will offer it 10.0 and my place in the pantheon will be assured forever".

― Matt DC, Friday, November 26, 2010 10:03 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you've got it backwards -- the guy who writes "I'm so appalled, spalding ball" and gets unanimously praised as the biggest genius in hip hop is never going to bother to step his rap game up

i mean i hate to be all Alex in NYC "RAISE YOUR STANDARDS" about this, but the reviews are basically saying that this album is as good as it gets, and that's just kind of sad. if Kanye is trying to be the greatest of all time, there's nothing wrong with saying uh, hey, this isn't really meeting your lofty goals, better luck next time.

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

duff11damien

26 November 2010 10:57AM

Alex = clueless, obviously not a true hip hop fan. 808's was prob the best album from Kwest

"I'm so appalled, spalding ball"

lol wait seriously?

at least once or twice a month i'll go to check my e-mail and there's a message from deej on gchat or AIM about him venting about some ilx beef, often on a thread i haven't even posted on or looked at, and i'm like "uh dude why do you need talk about this outside the board and why do you assume i'd have your back"

― the pussy re-upholstery gang (some dude), Thursday, November 25, 2010 8:02 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

when the hell did i last do that? i like how u imply that ive *just done this*

& yeah i dont know how u cant have noticed j0hn posting in every other thread these days disagreeing w/ me about everything but hes even made jokes about it in threads where he didnt know enough about whatever issue to actually disagree

shellac, gza, politics, currensy, kanye, im missing some obvious ones where dude just seems to follow me around to tell me im wrong

at least when al is a dishonest asshole it doesnt have the feel of a stalker-y vendetta

lol you're clinically insane

http://i55.tinypic.com/12677zp.png

it sucks because just yesterday my fifth deej-monitoring notebook filled up & I can't properly keep track til I get a new one but going to the store today is completely out of the question

lol

deej i'm not asking you to stop being a hardman AND a crybaby, but just pick one or another, it makes no sense to be both

I wish my review would be added to Metacritic, but I guess a newspaper that has a circulation of over 800,000 a day isn't good enough for them :p

Btw... I can't get over Rawse's verse. And people are actually complaining about how "bad it is". WTF?

deej i'm not asking you to stop being a hardman AND a crybaby, but just pick one or another, it makes no sense to be both

― some dude, Friday, November 26, 2010 1:54 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark

the fuck?? this isnt some persona game u dork. i dont get the big deal about me IMing you either -- its not like im going out of my way, i just ctrl-tab to gchat and look theres a member of the same discussion community online.

aerosmith has been basically arguing w/ me in a continuing series of threads no matter what the subject. he doesnt do this with other posters. he shows up, argues with me in a condescending way, whether he's wrong (usually) or its a genuine philosophical disagreement (maaaaybe the politics thread). obvi i dont think hes actually "stalking" me but its a way of suggesting that u know maybe his obsession w/ disagreeing w/ me might just be a little weird

i dont even get where hes accusing me of backpedaling on this thread ... all i did was bring up nitsuh's article a second time which you got all hardman about, i said u sounded butthurt. see what i mean? its just like, carrying old beefs from other threads into this one bcuz i happen to be confrontational w/ you in this one.

so basically, al, aerosmith, you guys are dicks.

and btw thats 'accurate' more than 'hardman' vs. 'crybaby'

aero's gonna till the spring if you didnt see the thread

gone, rather

great point, i recommend that everyone stfu until then

get rid of the "until then" and ill cosign

yeah my mistake

countdown to al's self-backpatting apology for being a catalyst for an argument with deej

hey, guys. what have i missed?

countdown to al's self-backpatting apology for being a catalyst for an argument with deej

― challop and a muff (deej), Friday, November 26, 2010 4:08 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

i can't even begin to figure out what this means or what i'm supposed to say. "i'm sorry, but i'm a better person for being able to say i'm sorry, and i'm glad i...was a catalyst for j0hn to argue with you"? talk normal, dude.

no its just a fun rhetorical trick u do where you make it seem like oops i accidently tripped the deej-wire instead of recognizing that u were straight up trolling me & have as much of a hand in this argument as i do

lots of 'board regulars' post on many threads and end up getting into different conversations and arguments with other 'board regulars.' occasionally there is a kind of running unpleasantness between 2 people, but honestly when someone says "you're following me from thread to thread and stalking me just to argue with me," it usually feels like they're actually saying "the only reason you can possibly be disagreeing with me on this thread is that you have a PERSONAL GRUDGE with me, there's no way you could actually honestly object to my post."