Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

idk, I'm just curious by what metrics does this sound ambitious, and the evidence you presented only make it sound ambitious within the landscape of rap

except it is rap. so, wouldnt it be more ambitious than a non-rap artist doing the same things, but without u know rza beats & john legend cameos & groupie poems?

In a Lil B world this doesn't seem to say AMBITIOUS, YO. Hell who didn't just rtde at seeing Elton John on here? How long ago was it he did the Grammys with Em? Yo Kanye our minds are blown you worked with a guy dead 2pac made it with first.

well, i think theres something to be said for making something ambitious that lots of ppl want to hear vs. making something ambitious that a niche fanbase will put up with in small doses

idg that last point you made deej

im talking about lil b ambitious vs. kanye ambitious. you're as ambitious as your audience can let you be. in a merzbow world, how is kanye ambitious??

lil b is ambitious in a totally different way

oh I meant the one before that one, about "so, wouldnt it be more ambitious than a non-rap artist doing the same things, but without u know rza beats & john legend cameos & groupie poems?"

i think he means: its more ambitious for a rapper to make a prog album than for a prog band to make a prog album

lil b is ambitious in terms of work ethic & promotion & conceptualizing a persona (obv) but i mean straight music qua music, lil b is not on a 'twisted fantasy' level

Way to wimp out and even pixelate the image inside the CD booklet Kanye.

But I'm not sure Kanye has ever given a flying fuck what his audience thinks?

Way to wimp out and even pixelate the image inside the CD booklet Kanye.

― "I am a fairly respected poster." (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol record labels -- ask nas about this

for real?? there are really high profile interview quotes w/ him reflecting on the nature of being popular & keeping / losing an audience that i havent even gone out of my way to find but seem to have floated up at me since the hype cycle for this thing started xp

anyway, all I'm asking is what's musically ambitious about this album, i.e. ambitious about the music in and of itself. like if you took a music fan and made him listen to this w/o presenting any of the backstory, the Kanye narrative, the football team that he assembled for all of the lights, would he walk away being like "this is the most ambitious album I've ever heard! 10.0!"

think the closest we've come to that is DJP liveblogging itt

like my problem with this album is that for all the music crit adulation, the album itself just isn't all that interesting to listen to, and the extra-musical ambitions and drama don't really translate into interesting musical compositions

lol record labels -- ask nas about this

Well, that was a little different, but I'm surprised Cudi can get away with topless girls in his booklet but someone like Kanye can't get away with a fucked-up cartoon.

anyway, all I'm asking is what's musically ambitious about this album, i.e. ambitious about the music in and of itself. like if you took a music fan and made him listen to this w/o presenting any of the backstory, the Kanye narrative, the football team that he assembled for all of the lights, would he walk away being like "this is the most ambitious album I've ever heard! 10.0!"

think the closest we've come to that is DJP liveblogging itt

like my problem with this album is that for all the music crit adulation, the album itself just isn't all that interesting to listen to, and the extra-musical ambitions and drama don't really translate into interesting musical compositions

― ＿|￣|○|￣|○|￣|○ (dayo), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:14 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i think there are some moments on here for sure, although i dont imagine playing this record very often, but a lot of this stuff def feels new or un-covered by other artists. i think its a fairly novel album, expensively so, so i see 'ambitious'

Way to wimp out and even pixelate the image inside the CD booklet Kanye.

― "I am a fairly respected poster." (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lol record labels -- ask nas about this

― J0rdan S., Monday, November 22, 2010 10:13 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

What are you talking about... my version has it non-pixelated. Sucks to be Amurrican, I guess.

yes its ambitious for rap music but is it ambitious for 'music' as a collective whole?

― ＿|￣|○|￣|○|￣|○ (dayo), Monday, November 22, 2010 8:56 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

this isn't a dumb question. different genres of music are conservative and/or ambitious in different ways. MBTDF seem ambitious in a way that's consistent with a lot of 70s prog and pop: deeply personal to the point of being obsessed with the self as subject, drawing from wildly disparate sources, unafraid of looking a little (a lot) ridiculous. but these qualities are, or have been, less common in rap. don't think the comparison takes anything away from this record, kanye or rap in general.

Way to wimp out and even pixelate the image inside the CD booklet Kanye.

yes, sincerely, FUCK THIS

so disappointed

i don't think it's necessary to find it interesting in a good way to acknowledge that it's ambitious, dayo

I kinda think it's do if you're gonna give it a perfect score, samosa

like 'ambitious' should not be the only metric involved here

wtf "it's do" "it is necessary" obv

Way to wimp out and even pixelate the image inside the CD booklet Kanye.

yes, sincerely, FUCK THIS

so disappointed

― phish in your sleazebag (contenderizer), Monday, November 22, 2010 10:20 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT... it`s not pixelated.

now yr sounding like al, so im going to point out the obvious that i think most of pfork's writers probably also like the record

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT... it`s not pixelated.

― altered boners (rennavate), Monday, November 22, 2010 11:23 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

hey chill out i'm pretty sure that they know whether or not their booklets are pixelated

so wait whats your point dayo? that it's not ambitious, or that its not perfect, or that its neither?

oh man thanks rennavate, turns out I just had this blurry spot in my eyes every time I looked at this one particular page in the book

you wouldn't know it from reading the reviews xp to deej

right right i`m just being snarky but i mean that`s weird... maybe a decision for american markets? or maybe certain outlets?

didnt mean to get snide, also, for the record.

that it's not an interrsting album in and of itself samosa

Could be, I suppose, although hard for me to imagine going through the pain of altering one page from the INSIDE of a booklet for different outlets. I could totally see if it was the cover or whatever.

especially bummed cuz i bought it at a local shoppe, not some monster chain store. considering swapping it in for an unfucked version somewhere else, but money's tight...

Well contenderizer blows my theory right there, figured mine was because it came from a big chain. Sorry to derail the serious talk guys.

i'd venture that it's probably a thing about US/canada & not where you bought the album

wait my version was all pixelated too -- you can buy non-pixelated ones??

Anyway, going to bed now so I can listen to this on the train tomorrow so I can really have something worthwhile to say (theres a first time for everything I suppose).

Weird. Maybe it`s just us Canadians who get the uncensored version.

Here`s picture for proof: http://24.media.tumblr.com/preview.xe2JF5bKl0D7NY1x_500.jpg

While I dig the different covers, especially the one with Kanye's misshapen face and the crown, part of me wishes that this was actually one of them.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7RHnmlEM6P4/TNb9uuEPkkI/AAAAAAAAAvo/Oq5UqTaD41c/s1600/MyBeautiful+DarkTwistedFantasy.JPG

Hearing it for the first time. The thing that thrills me the most is how he seems to be striving for an overtly ambitious visual/musical/lyrical universe of bourgeoisie decadence.... neo-baroque visuals in his videos and shows, megalomaniac drama lyrics, progressive rock and symphonic samples... It's hard for the overall concept not to sound monumental and Kanye has the ego and the tools to pull it off succesfully.

Don't think it's the most perfect execution of the concept - I'd personally would have loved more baroquesque/african references in the music samples- and certainly not deserving of all the perfect 10 scores it's getting but I am honestly glad that such an ambitious vision is being rewarded by the music media.

xp: yeah, the monster bear's great and should have been included in the insert

u know before this even came out i had a pre-assembled stoner riff abt kanye cycling thru western art--college dropout is his high renaissance, late registration is his mannerist period, graduation his baroque, and now this is on some rococo ish, in a good way

I am honestly glad that such an ambitious vision is being rewarded by the music media.

― Moka, Tuesday, November 23, 2010 12:09 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

ha im honestly not surprised by it

lol are those the "thought @ work" drums at the end of "that's my bitch"?

jordan where are u ... get on im

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bat-signal.jpg

thnx dayo

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/bat-signal_2.jpg

I will try listening to this again when I get home on Friday, I usually like pfork enough for that. Or Carles.