Kanye West "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" (2010)
Kanye shut himself away following a few high profile bits of bad
publicity, including his decision to crash the stage during the Video
Music Awards to interrupt Taylor Swift as she went to accept an award
for best music video. West cited overwork and stress on his erratic
behaviour, though it has since become clear that he has some reasonably
serious, legitimate mental health issues.
This album is almost an insight into what is going on in his head, a
huge busy mix of sounds tinged with paranoia, narcissism and
brilliance. I've always taken a passing interest in Kanye's music, yet
weirdly (given its renown) I've never checked this one out. It is actually a brilliant
album. Varied, unconventional, and fairly honest.
The first few tracks move between a vaguely churchy/gospel feel, which
kind of signposted where Kanye was going to go next, and the synth-and-beat sound his previous album "808s and Heartbreak". "Devil in a New Dress"
displays a bit of old-school Kanye with the pitch-shifted soul vocal
backing track, but from there there are big pulsing beats that brings
the later West track "Black Skinhead" to mind. Pitch-dropped vocals
provide a vaguely nightmarish, unhinged sound.
The album is a solid block of music, with far less of the skits and
interludes that usually populate hip-hop albums (including previous West
outings). Kanye had assembled teams of producers and performers and
more or less lived in the studio, having 3 different studios going at
once so he could work on whichever track he felt inspired to attack that day.
He also ran his ideas past his collaborators on a regular basis to
refine and change the tracks. Q-Tip described the approach as 'music
by committee', but that Kanye was able to use parts of everyone's input
while still doing his own thing.
