Kanye West

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

In its many contradictions, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy—perhaps this century’s definitive portrait of torment, vanity, self-delusion, and pathos—has given way to stirring new possibilities.

Kanye’s best album since The College Dropout, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy finds its creator in complete control of the chaos swirling inside his vivid imagination.

For rap fans it's both a testament to the versatility of the genre and Kanye's own brilliance that he can make something so refreshingly different which still fits comfortably in the rap canon.

Fantasy is hardly as difficult or artsy as it wants to think it is, but its emotional complexity more than compensates for bulging song lengths and near-constant pomposity.

It’s the best thing he’s done since his game-changing debut, and heartening evidence to suggest the self-professed Louis Vuitton don is in a good place right now.

It's a sinister, orchestral, hugely grandiose affair that owes as much to the artist's self-aggrandizing ego as to the voracious id that would destroy it publicly. 

It’s a sprawling monument to wholeness towering over an artistically and emotionally fragmented landscape. It’s Kanye, like we said, doing him: a circuit at last complete.

It’s one of the grandest hip-hop records of all time ... full of vocoder, guitar, narration and overheard betrayals, and it’s frequently torn between whether it wants to be a rugged, raw rap record or a grandiose pop opera. 

From nine-minute douchebag manifestos, to enlisting an A-list Grammy ensemble to piece-mealing his album out to the masses every Friday, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy defies logic and it ignores convention. 

There is no weak link; there is not a single misstep (and this is a 68-minute-long album). This may very well be his masterpiece.

Fantasy is Kanye West's best album yet, and if that wasn't enough, it's also a shining example of what mainstream hip-hop can and should be: dynamic, focused, revealing, personable, and most important - the passion!

Fantasy will stand as an album that dared to push the entire medium of recorded music forward, for better or worse.

This is not just West's best album, it's a keen contender for the most ambitious LP in hip-hop history.

After a goofy intro on Dark Fantasy, ‘Ye takes it all back to his fantasies in Chicago, when he was producing beats and managing artists with a dream of making it big.

Whether loved or loathed, fully enjoyed or merely admired, this album should be regarded as a deeply fascinating accomplishment.

Kanye West’s Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a sprawling, ambitious, orchestral fuck-you of an album, and he wants you to know it.

This album, then, shows West pushing out from basic formulae, experimenting and not just trying new things but carrying ideas right through until they are fully formed and flourishing.

Here he balances pastiche and drama with such glorious levity that to stick a fork in any part of his rich palette would be a cruelty of Dickensian proportions.

My Dark Twisted Fantasy – a flawed near-masterpiece – doesn't impress just by dint of numbers.

It’s certainly good to have West’s unique talent back in music, but this ambitious behemoth may be easier to admire than to listen to.

Kanye's fifth studio album is easily his most ambitious effort yet. The production is extremely stunning. To be honest, this album sounds like a really huge undertaking with all of it's extra instrumentation, studio tricks, and samples.