Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

good thing there's more than one song on the album, then

which track would you describe as his implosion then?

...

you are smarter than this, at least I would like to think you are

The implosion is chronicled over multiple tracks on the album, starting with the pining-for-a-fantasy-love on on "Say You Will", continuing with the woe-is-me discounting of fame and success on "Welcome To Heartbreak", the bitter acrimony in "Heartless", the self-loathing in "Amazing", the lamentation of lost love in "Love Lockdown", the last-ditch manipulation attempt in "Paranoid", the bitter dismissals in "Robocop", the mournful beginnings of acceptance in "Street Lights", the wounded betrayal of "Bad News", the vituperative kiss-off of "See You In My Nightmares" and the desperate dwelling on the past and future in "Coldest Winter". The entire album is a set piece about the dissolution and deflation of someone who looks to be on top of the world but feels like he is on the bottom.

dude you wanna calm down on the invective? sorry i don't like the album!

I don't really see it as "dissolution and deflation" so much as sulking self-pity from a guy I don't feel much pity for. Dude lashes out at the girl repeatedly, then cries "i will never love again." He may feel like he's on the bottom, but I don't think he ever really pushes himself off his pedestal.

doesn't help that his poor-me metaphors are either painfully cliche or "robocop" ridiculous

oh god i'd forgotten about robocop

Sulking self-pity is often a clear sign of the dissolution and deflation of a massive ego, is the thing

Also, you have known me long enough to know that I am going to come down like a ton of bricks on any line of thought/reasoning/argument that even has faint hallmarks of not being thought out; saying "show me the one song where he falls apart" in response to a claim about the mood of an entire album is, at best, facile. If you don't like that, don't come at me with half-assed rhetoric.

I don't think it's a great catchphrase at all. If someone called me a Robocop as we were on the verge of breaking up that would be the dealbreaker

― let's get high off our own supply (The Brainwasher), Friday, February 13, 2009 9:51 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^worth remembering about robocop because it means i remember this amazing post

Sulking self-pity is often a clear sign of the dissolution and deflation of a massive ego, is the thing

i think time has proven this wasn't what was happening with kanye

you've known anthony long enough that you should be more accepting of his insightful but often reductive quips! (xpost)

i think time has proven this wasn't what was happening with kanye

Kanye the person is not the album 808s and Heartbreaks.

I don't always advocate the "divorce the performer from the music" line of argument but I don't really have a problem doing it here, largely because I think I was maybe one of the few people around here who successfully avoided learning about the minutiae of Kanye's personal life and therefore had no baggage re: the dissolution of his real-life relationship influencing my digestion of the album.

btw, the first post was a total joke and I apologize if it was over the line

even if i didn't know he split up with his real long-suffering girlfriend, an album where the character passingly references his own cheating while shrieking about her own crimes before moaning about how cold it is now would still sound like douche central. I wouldn't buy his thrashing around before huffing "I will never love again" meant his ego had actually diminished, let alone dissolve.

let alone dissolved, I mean. Though my intent in comparing my stance to Alan Alda was to suck some of the piety out of it. I just find it unrewardingly unpleasant, which is a shame cuz a lot of tracks are musically appealing.

I don't think he has to demonstrate remorse or end up as a sympathetic character to come across as totally falling apart, which seems to be where we diverge in how we see the album.

Kanye too Punk for Anthony!

yeah that's it, it's too punk rock

Sulking self-pity is often a clear sign of the dissolution and deflation of a massive ego, is the thing

― Indolence Mission (DJP), Thursday, January 13, 2011 8:52 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

disagree, sort of. skulking self-pity (and cheap-shot invective) is what egotistical assholes retreat to, temporarily, when others would reflect, accept and hopefully learn something from the whole ordeal before moving on.

but maybe you're defining "dissolution and deflation" differently than i would...

I'm not defining it as "learns a lesson and becomes a better person", no

then what you call "the implosion", i'd call "the embittered whining."

try listening to the Seeds sometime, dude.

xps

I don't know why the narrator has to come out of the other side a better person in order for 808s to have an appealing story.

oh man it's like late december 2008 all over again!

corny rawk dudes luv happy endings.

In fairness, the 808s arguments were more interesting than the MBDTF arguments because they were more often about the music than each other.

Disney damage!

In fairness, the 808s arguments were more interesting than the MBDTF arguments because they were more often about the music than each other 808s was actually an interesting album.

otm

corny rawk dudes luv happy endings.

― a special freak who falls outside of all (Ioannis), Thursday, January 13, 2011 9:39 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

hey, i am a corny (fuck that retarded, self-regarding bullshit) rock dude, and i like 808s just fine. but it's really just kanye whining about shit.

^^^ feeling crotchety this morning, apparently

I would like to reiterate that I am sorry for being unnecessarily nasty towards da croup; I thought it was obvious I wasn't being serious.

i figured you were joking about "douche" (though it was still pretty gratuitous after "wimpy sensitive" - alan's not a douche!), but i'm pretty sure you were being serious about chest puffing like "You're smarter than this, at least I would like to think you are" when you followed it with "don't come at me with half-assed rhetoric" and preceded it with a dramatic ellipsis.

i mean, yeah, I should have said "can you elaborate on what makes this album an 'implosion'?" rather than "which track?" but still

that was half-serious; I thought it was a stupid thing to say and intended to communicate that I thought it was a stupid thing to say, but I did so in a manner harsher than I actually felt

y'all i would like to propose the bold hypothesis that ilm rap threads have been leading to lots of fights lately b/c the poster base is mostly americans and we've all been stuck in our houses thanks to terrible snowstorms. what do u guys think?

because seriously I did not see the DJP/da croup beef coming

is it still beef if you've acknowledged you did something wrong and apologized for it?

YES DAN IT IS BEEF FROM THE MOMENT YOU EXCHANGE UNFRIENDLY WORDS ON THE INTERNET UNTIL THE DAY ONE OF YOU KILLS THE OTHER

no I dunno

but like you know what I mean — everyone seems to be taking things personally lately?

fuck you

holy shit dude not you too!

sbangin so hard

y'all i would like to propose the bold hypothesis that ilm rap threads have been leading to lots of fights lately b/c the poster base is mostly americans and we've all been stuck in our houses thanks to terrible snowstorms. what do u guys think?

― bernard snowy, Thursday, January 13, 2011 1:15 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nah...goon cru's been sniping at each other like our menstrual cycles are lined up for a while now, and a Kanye clusterfuck thread was inevitable

i dunno i'm kinda having a great day. gonna get cable TV hooked up in like an hour.

i'm having a good day too but that doesn't mean i don't wanna rumble on the internet

^^^ liar

you totally want a cuddlestein mountain party, just admit it

am looking forward to catching up on hell of family guy reruns so i can complain more accurately

worst ilx beef evah!