Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

ok, i love the beat to monster & nicki's verse, i like the epic-ness of the opening leading into the RZA beat, like the mood switchup when it goes into that all of the lights song, really like the bink beat although i did find the extended instrumental transitions between verses to be tiring, not bad while they're happening but in a way that limits replayability. what is interesting about it to me is how ambitious it seems in a way that is kind of late 90s puffy-esque, but in a more art school, rather than blockbuster-commercial way, like he's the mainstreaming-of-indie generation's Bad Boy Records. I think his willingness to take rap & put it in a Album Art presentation context is kind of interesting. It's obviously not something that almost any other rapper's can pull off. i like on monster how he limits rick ross' verse to an opening carnival barker kind of thing. love the way certain role players are used -- the cameos, the all-star feel of it. its the kind of ambitiousness that is missing from pop rap in these 'hard economic times'

i dunno, theres something about event-ness than can appeal to me too. I do enjoy the instrumental outro w/ gil scott heron, a lot. although i think its really interesting what has been cut from it.

i sit alone in my four cornered room staring at mountain goats

btw it was pretty hilarious how i described a totally paranoid conceited POV and you just matter-of-factly went "yup, that's me"

― some dude, Friday, November 26, 2010 8:19 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think theres anything 'paranoid' about it, he basically has been following me into threads & just disagreeing w me to the extent that he even made jokes about it. & i specifically said that i didnt know what his motives were, maybe he just thought he was helping me out or whatever, nice of you to cut that out in order to make it seem like im saying he has a 'grudge'

yeah he's very much a child of Bad Boy -- i often think about how Kanye was so eager to get on that if some other label besides Roc signed him he probably would've tailored his style to them and eventually had them tailor their style to him the same way -- like think about if Diddy was his big brother/mentor figure all these years instead of Jay

i dont see whats so 'paranoid' & 'conceited' about observing that dude often seems to pick fights with me simply because its me & not because he necessarily cares that much about the issue at hand. i mean you even did it the other day, where dan had to pt out that if someone else had said something you would have just ignored it!

sorry for responding to al's continued trolling

dozens of people are clicking on New Answers all the time -- how do you know who's "following you" into threads? i'm sorry but it just sounds crazy to say something like that.

got an eye on both of u

i dunno dude i just noticed that every time i seemed to disagree w/ someone he would jump in & take their side

i mean i told aerosmith upthread straight up that all his posts in this thread were kind of saying nothing and it felt like he was just chiming in because this thread is where the action is and he saw some easy zings -- we all do that sometimes and it's fine to call people on it. but you fight with LOTS of people here OFTEN and it's kind of hilarious for you to decide one person who you provoke a lot or who likes to provoke you is literally following you into threads and starting shit on purpose.

he def seems more interested in arguing w/ me than others -- dont know what else to say here

that if nobody else notices it it's entirely possible it's all in your head?

you would say the same things about me & whiney except that we would work in equal opportunity ways -- i never start picking fights w/ john though, which is why its weird that we have a similar beef thing

exception for politics thread, though -- thats the one place where i tend to take particular issue w/ him first

which is part of what made it seem out of the usual -- like, is he really bringing our disagreement across into other threads now? our worldviews are apparently opposed in every aspect of ilx discussion

i never said that about you and whiney -- you guys totally troll each other deliberately (but of course you don't follow each other into threads -- virtually nobody does that, get real)

aero banned himself today so this is a bit of a moot discussion.

yeah i know -- my fault for bringing it up again

deej is getting a bad rap itt

i think his posts make sense

he's made good points, i'm not saying he's off his rocker -- i just think it's funny how he's filibustering in defense of something he only kinda sorta likes

yeah it is

towing the company line and all, lol

TOEing

yeah it took me a long time to figure out that deej's stance was actually just 'meh' on this

haha yeah i was just alluding to how it was spelled the first time

can we talk about the album instead of ourselves

or at least talk about ourselves in relationship to the album, since the thread is about the album

If you took "Dark Fantasy", "Gorgeous" and "Devil In A New Dress" off of this, I would have no qualms with the near-unanimous positive reviews this is getting. ("So Appalled" isn't that great either but is more tolerable than the other three.) There is a lot going on that I really, really dig, and it's probably for the best that I'm not really a lyrics guy because Kanye is still kind of amazingly stupid.

damn those three songs might be my favorite three & "so appalled" unequivocally should not be on this

the one thing about this album is that i think "hell of a life" -> "blame game" -> "lost in the world" is the best closing of any ye album since CD

if you take out the chris rock part of "hell of a life"

er, "blame game"

I agree with that. I've even come around on the Chris Rock skit (I think the first time I heard it, I was so annoyed that I completely missed "Kanye reupholsted my pussy").

I also don't mind that Jay-Z sounds like he ran a hard 800 meter dash before recording his verse on "Monster" now

i think it's pretty funny but i just don't need to hear it every single time through

and yes that applies to the jay-z verse on "monster"

i probably like the end of the album and "Lost In The World" the most too, although i hate Kanye for tricking me into thinking Bon Iver sings like Charlie Wilson

I listened to this again twice while at work tonight and will go into more detail as to why I detest it.

The production: It's kind of shit. There are nice bits (the piano for Runaway; Power and Monster sound BIG) but the fuzzy nothingness of things like Gorgeous don't go with the 'hey heres a sample, remember when i used to do interesting things with beats like this?' Devil in a New Dress. None of the layers of voice added to the breaks seem to work in a way that actually brings anything to the table. I only listened to it an hour ago and I can barely remember how any of it goes and considering 'Ye has always been about the beats with me then I just don't get it. It may not be my favourite record but even 808 had a distinctive and exciting sound. Oh and everything is 20 minutes too long.

The lyrics: Oh fucking brother. I don't even care about spalding balls, we already established 'Ye's place in bad rap lyric history. Never stopped me loving the first two and some of Graduation. No, the big fucking problem is that I disagree with nabisco's review. Most of the time you only ever see the polish. It is a record where Kanye looks in the mirror and admires himself. None of the problems are really addressed and this wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the moments where Kanye finally starts acting human. Blame Game is the best insight into the life of Kanye here and not just Kanye the image. The story stops being stolen from a shitty episode of Entourage fucking with nameless and faceless pornstars and becomes about another human and a human relationship. Considering we have been there with him through stealing at jobs, dropping out of school, being in the hospital with his gran and seeing his mother die - it feels like a slap in the face to have most of the record ignore the personal details of his life until Blame Game and then...

there is a skit treating the girl as a mindless Kanye programmed robot. Oh and then the woman he made a teenage girl cry for has his personality projected onto her instead of given space to express herself. I just don't think I care enough about the image of Kanye to listen to this again but I care enough about him to carry on following his career and interviews and whatnot. But if his celebrity and his actual being are to be seperated between interviews and music...

The cameos: What is the point of half of them? Bon Ivor could have been such an inspired choice. Kanye spent the post-Swift time trying to stay out of the press, spent his post-tragedy-as-detailed-on-808 wandering aimlessly working with a guy who is a famous recluse? Instead of being kindred souls he is there to follow Minaj going batshit. The RAWSE and Rae verses are aiight but only appear as you are already thinking the songs have gone on too long and so they end up feeling a drag. Why get RZA and give him only enough space for like 2 lines? Jay-z's achilles heel is LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURVE. Chris Rock skit is just downright creepy.

If you took "Dark Fantasy", "Gorgeous" and "Devil In A New Dress" off of this, I would have no qualms with the near-unanimous positive reviews this is getting. ("So Appalled" isn't that great either but is more tolerable than the other three.) There is a lot going on that I really, really dig, and it's probably for the best that I'm not really a lyrics guy because Kanye is still kind of amazingly stupid.

― Joe Wasp (DJP), Saturday, 27 November 2010 03:49 (4 hours ago)

Yeah, those three tracks are good to great (the only thing I don't like about "Dark Fantasy" is that chick they got to sing over that great, great sample. It didn't need another melody on top of that. I think "Gorgeous" might be Kanye's best lyrical performance on the whole album.

twaddle isn't a phrase

If you took "Dark Fantasy", "Gorgeous" and "Devil In A New Dress" off of this, I would have no qualms with the near-unanimous positive reviews this is getting. ("So Appalled" isn't that great either but is more tolerable than the other three.) There is a lot going on that I really, really dig, and it's probably for the best that I'm not really a lyrics guy because Kanye is still kind of amazingly stupid.

― Joe Wasp (DJP), Saturday, 27 November 2010 03:49 (4 hours ago)

best non-monster songs on the album wtf

It is a record where Kanye looks in the mirror and admires himself. None of the problems are really addressed and this wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the moments where Kanye finally starts acting human. Blame Game is the best insight into the life of Kanye here and not just Kanye the image. The story stops being stolen from a shitty episode of Entourage fucking with nameless and faceless pornstars and becomes about another human and a human relationship. Considering we have been there with him through stealing at jobs, dropping out of school, being in the hospital with his gran and seeing his mother die - it feels like a slap in the face to have most of the record ignore the personal details of his life until Blame Game and then...

there is a skit treating the girl as a mindless Kanye programmed robot. Oh and then the woman he made a teenage girl cry for has his personality projected onto her instead of given space to express herself. I just don't think I care enough about the image of Kanye to listen to this again but I care enough about him to carry on following his career and interviews and whatnot. But if his celebrity and his actual being are to be seperated between interviews and music...

love a hoy hoy's whole post but especially this part. this is a guy who used to make the simple details of his personal life really relatable and funny and even heartwarming in his music. now he's on a predictable superstar ego trip and everyone's telling me that's supposed to be "fascinating," but generally speaking i don't think it is and in specific i don't think Kanye is breathing much new life into the cliches he's living.

that's my position exactly - i really take issue w/deej's assertion that this album is Big and Important regardless of whether you like the music that much, because that's the cruz of why both the praise and the album itself seem so hollow to me - as i said when i first heard it there was nothing that leaped out at me.

i'd totally accept that argument re: 808s actually - regardless of whether you thought it succeeded/failed/mixture of both, just making a record with that sonic palette was a bold and totally unexpected move. this? there are no surprises at all. it's kanye doing exactly what you expect kanye to do in 2010. there are no no "holy shit wtf" moments (except when his lyrics get particularly bad, lol).

it actually sounds more like he's trying to go back to safe ground after 808s tbh: i'll admit there's a sense of mania about his attention-seeking public behaviour, even if you have to roll your eyes at it, but i don't hear any of that on record - when "records about being a celebrity" succeed it's usually cuz they have a sense of madness about them, or just some sort of life - this kind of sets out its stall as though this is the case, but it's just not present in the music.

also the fucking TITLE, i kind of feel that it's not being mocked enough, and it really encapsulates what a cliché this album is. beauty may be in the ear of the beholder, but what on earth is especially "dark" or "twisted" about any of its contents? how is it a "fantasy"? does kanye actually know what any of those words mean, or does he just know that they are words that Genius Artists use?

feel like Alfred is a little otm w the gaucho comparison. like I imagine the way I feel when I listen to mbdtf is the way people feel when they listen to gaucho. except Steely Dan were much more oblique about telling us how they gave girls swallowships.

that's my position exactly - i really take issue w/deej's assertion that this album is Big and Important regardless of whether you like the music that much, because that's the cruz of why both the praise and the album itself seem so hollow to me - as i said when i first heard it there was nothing that leaped out at me.

yeah this - maybe it's that i've been a lot more insulated from the music world hype cycle recently than in recent years, but i have no idea why this is supposed to be an Important Album, other than because kanye and some critics want it to be. i've only gotten through about half of this but god is this draining, and not in a particularly rewarding way - i actually dig a lot of the production and "dark fantasy" i like a lot, but a good amount of the rapping is pretty inexcusable (except when kanye gets back on his old shit on what was it, "gorgeous"?) and besides minaj (you guys weren't kidding) the guests are pretty snoopheadshake.gif
of course lol who cares about the rapping on a rap album when there's so much extradiegetic nonsense to bullshit about

yall making a lot of sense

like I imagine the way I feel when I listen to mbdtf is the way people feel when they listen to gaucho

should clarify and say, people who hate gaucho feel when they listen to gaucho

I fucking love gaucho

i'm one of Gaucho's bigger detractors among ilm's SD stans, but i wish this album had something as good as "Babylon Sisters"

I don't get how you can dismiss this album as clichéd and boring but think that the best songs on it are "Dark Fantasy", "Gorgeous" and "Devil In A New Dress", which to my ears are the laziest, most boring and clichéd tracks on the album.

Like, what were you actually looking for when you played this album and how did those three songs fit the bill and "Power", "Runaway" and "Hell of a Life" didn't?

i think the best songs on this are "monster" and "hell of a life"