As a result, the record comes off like a culmination and an instant greatest hits, the ultimate realization of his strongest talents and divisive public persona.
But it is the heart, soul, and humanity of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy that ultimately marks it as the defining pop moment of 2010.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is hands-down the most ambitious mainstream rap album ever made.
A frequently astonishing, no-holds-barred tour de force that not only eclipses his previous four albums in scope and creativity (no small feat), but also makes everything else on the radio sound positively amateurish by comparison.
It’s his best album, but it’s more than that — it’s also a rock-star manifesto for a downsizing world.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a true testament to Kanyes magnificent ability to craft and create music.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fanstasy is Kanye’s long-awaited opus, a work of art that sees him finally reach the potential that was clear for all to see in College Dropout.
No rap album I've heard can boast better production than this one. The music is exhilarating, often abrasive, never predictable, at times stunningly gorgeous. These are the finest tracks that any group of rappers has yet to rhyme over.
An ornately orchestrated pop epic built on a classic hip-hop foundation, Twisted Fantasy is his best since his debut.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza in which any notion of good taste is abandoned at the door.
Kanye’s genius extends way past just constructing a track. The order in which each song is listed is perfect.
Never before has a hip-hop album been so decadent, yet so beatific and inspiringly adventurous – an explosive synthesis of everything Kanye has learned after four albums.
This album is a benchmark, a high water point for mainstream conceptual rap. It’s Kanye’s most complex and complete release and one of the most consistently impressive hip hop albums in recent years.
With My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye West has lurched to the vanguard of modern mainstream music.
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.
Whether loved or loathed, fully enjoyed or merely admired, this album should be regarded as a deeply fascinating accomplishment.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is eclectic but never offhand; it's hip-hop where every deviation serves the song's texture, every boast contrasts with slyly lacerating self-appraisal.
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.
#1 | / | A.V. Club |
#1 | / | Billboard |
#1 | / | Cokemachineglow |
#1 | / | Complex |
#1 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
#1 | / | NOW Magazine |
#1 | / | One Thirty BPM |
#1 | / | Pitchfork |
#1 | / | Prefix |
#1 | / | Rolling Stone |