Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

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"

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.

― Joe Wasp (DJP), Saturday, November 27, 2010 11:24 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think i was the one who said this (throw "Monster" in with those too), but i dont think the album is cliched or boring as a general rule, or i think its inaccurate to characterize it that way before all the other words i used to describe it (original, interesting, etc) although i do think it is also boring fairly frequently.

this is why i keep agreeing w/ parts of what somedude & lex are saying but disagree with others -- i think a lot of their criticisms are right, but in the big picture that stuff is also competing w/ a lot of interesting parts

& i resist this kind of consensus to THIS ALBUM SUCKS!!! because i dont think it does or that its 'obviously' not an 'important record'

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.

see, but thats like trying to measure gasoline with a ruler

& i resist this kind of consensus to THIS ALBUM SUCKS!!! because i dont think it does or that its 'obviously' not an 'important record'

― challop and a muff (deej), Saturday, November 27, 2010 12:41 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there's not even remotely a consensus that this album sucks on this thread

my guess is the lovers and the haters are about half and half, or the haters are a vocal minority

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

― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Saturday, November 27, 2010 12:31 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah agreed

"monster" would be much better if there was more rick ross

"less jay-z" and "less bon iver" should take priority over that

and also no, less rick ross too

BITCH I'M A MONSTER NO GOOD BLOODSUCKER

gotta say rick ross might make the least convincing vampire out of any currently active rapper

why do people think lines like that and "eat your brains" are so great and mindblowing and Jay-Z listing monsters is so eye-rollingly horrible? they're all just staying on theme and not being especially creative about it.

personally it's because jay-z recites them like he's swotting up for an exam, no life in that list at all. ross sounds asthmatic AS EVER. nicki actually injects some menace into her line.

At first, I thought Jay-Z sounded like he'd just sprinted into the studio to recite his verse. Now I get that he was going for rushed, breathless energy, but it still kinda sounds like he'd just sprinted into the studio to recite his verse.

why do people think lines like that and "eat your brains" are so great and mindblowing and Jay-Z listing monsters is so eye-rollingly horrible? they're all just staying on theme and not being especially creative about it.

― some dude, Saturday, November 27, 2010 12:02 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah its just that it fits her persona better, jay seems like he's acting

i think what DJP is describing is the sound of jay-z trying to sound 'vital' & instead he sounds winded

This album is presently on sale on amazon mp3 for $3.99, so I picked it up---now I just gotta work up the nerve to give it a listen. If it's as exhausting as you all are saying, I'm not sure I want to build my Saturday afternoon around it.

The new Big Boi album is on sale for $1.99 there, picked that up also & I'm thinking it'll work better today.

If it's as exhausting as you all are saying, I'm not sure I want to build my Saturday afternoon around it.

see i guess the thing that remains the sticking point for me is that i hear nothing here that merits building an afternoon/evening around it, nor demanding any "close listening" like at all.

yeah its just that it fits her persona better, jay seems like he's acting

― challop and a muff (deej), Saturday, November 27, 2010 1:19 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah this is right - not that he's the only old dude to bite new trends but jay chameleonically mimicking some of the worser rappers out there is particularly distressing and embarassing

just put the album on -- you're not going into surgery or something

agreed, it's really not that exhausting anyway

ok fuck it, digging in

i was gonna put on this EXHAUSTING ALBUM but i don't really feel like RUNNING 10 MILES in my bedroom right now

lol

so far (halfway through) this is pretty good! don't get the exhausting thing at all, but then I don't have to review this. dumb lyrics for sure.

make sure you stay hydrated, euler

pretty sure there's a lyric about Dasani here somewhere

yeah its just that it fits her persona better, jay seems like he's acting

― challop and a muff (deej), Saturday, November 27, 2010 1:19 PM (1 hour ago)

yeah this is right - not that he's the only old dude to bite new trends but jay chameleonically mimicking some of the worser rappers out there is particularly distressing and embarassing

― overtheseas aeroplanes I have flown (k3vin k.), Saturday, November 27, 2010 2:28 PM (54 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i for one am very excited about Jay Chameleonically signing to Roc Nation

Jay Chameleonica

can we talk about the album instead of ourselves

new board description ^^

wish this album would arrive sooner from amazon so i could join in the discussion, i feel so left out ;_;

wish jay would run an 800 meter dash tbh, might get his breath control back

In regards to the fuss over the perfect 10 this got, didn't Discovery by Daft Punk receive like 6.7 back in the day? Metascore of 70 or so? These numbers don't really count for much a huge chunk of the time. I feel like some people need this to be an event album...it sorta completes a narritive and bitches crave resolution.

otm

this album is very sonically interesting at times but also EXTREMELY horrible at others. overall it was a difficult record that i will never listen to again.