Kanye West - Dark Twisted Fantasy

Escobar305 · Post by **Escobar305** » Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:13 pm

Eye's Closed

http://hulkshare.com/v5kes4fgm35g

Doc_Holliday · Post by **Doc_Holliday** » Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:35 pm

Jaz wrote: have you seen Gregg and Thun's comments or are you just putting the blame on me?

Just putting MOST of the blame on you. Please proceed

Thun · Post by **Thun** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 3:56 pm

Backpedaling begins; backlash soon to follow?

Borks and simps: Read the article. It doesn't support your hysterical anti-Kanye faggotry even though you'd like to believe so.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_b ... backs.html

Itגs only the third workday of 2011, but are pop fans already regretting whom they went home with for last yearגs consensus pick for album of the year?

Three prominent music writers have recently penned pieces that to one degree or another find some new unsettling or underwhelming notes in Kanye Westגs גMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasyג that went unremarked upon during the deluge of hyperbole that first greeted it. Each agrees on the album's importance, but implies that גFantasyגsג ambition and bombast may have covered up some troubling undercurrents in Kanyeגs vision, and underlined pop's need to crown consensus heroes.

The most cutting take is from the Atlanticגs Ta-Nehisi Coates, who finds that Kanyeגs color-coded value system for women in גFantasyגsג lyrics is גincredibly, almost casually, racist.ג Lines such as גChampagne wishes/30 white ....ג seem to simultaneously embrace and demean white women as aura-building possessions for West, and Coates also notes that גI'm less amazed, but pretty depressed, that colorism is back -- גRolling with some light-skin chicks and some Kelly Rowlandsג is little more than גyou're pretty for a dark-skin girlג in this postracial era.ג He closes with one of the most withering criticisms of a rap album in ages: גI'm tired of rappers who deploy slut-shame to smoke-screen their near total fear of (women).ג

At the New York Times, Jon Caramanica has a less barbed but still considered re-assessment of what it meant that one potent album so uniformly topped the zeitgeist. גMaybe Mr. West was a titan in an off year,ג he surmises. גThese ratings and rankings make a statement about not only the presumed quality of the album, but also about institutional decisions regarding an artistגs worthiness, and about those institutionsג desire to be seen acknowledging an artistגs worthiness.ג He admits that, even if this is Kanye's best record (and he says it isn't), then what do all these perfect scores mean for his next one? A sixth star or 11.0 rating? Or did we set Kanye up for an inevitable fall that's more or less divorced from the actual quality of his work?

Caramanica ends on a particularly sad note, finding the grim leaked clips from Kanyeגs גMonsterג video as גempty provocation and clumsy art, the move of someone who, in a climate of unchecked glorification, has been given too much rope to play with.ג Maybe we didnגt like what Kanye actually did as much as we needed what Kanye seems to represent in pop -- one of the few instances of one of the most famous people in music simultaneously being one of the best.

And over at New York Magazine, Nitsuh Abebe makes maybe the most bomb-chucking claim about גFantasy.ג He (more or less genuinely) posits that Diddy Dirty Moneyגs Europhile trance-pop record גLast Train to Parisג may have been a better album. גNow (Diddyגs) turned some of these trappings -- dance music, high fashion, European rail travel, dirty divas, moody synth pads -- into a shiny action movie of a record. The problem is that there's no series of ridiculous tweets Diddy could have deployed to get us to pay quite as much attention to this album as we did to Kanye West's similarly ridiculous showstopper,ג he says.

Itגs a weird claim to make of one of the richest men in rap, but Diddy may have been the underdog in this comparison, which implicitly evokes the 2007 chart beef between Ye and 50 Cent when one arrogant artist lost his chart and critical crown to hubris. Abebe implies that maybe we underestimate Diddy (and overestimate Kanye) because he doesn't have George Condo and Vanessa Beecroft in the wings to underscore his claims to High Art. And גwhen ("Train") hits its mood right, though -- gray skies, Eurorail, and drama -- it's excellent stuff. The hectic format fades away, and the music actually becomes the hypnotic cruise it aspires to be.ג

-- August Brown

Photo: Kanye West. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images

drizzle · Post by **drizzle** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:09 pm

backlash/backpedaling or first actual honest stabs at critically engaging this retarded circus of unchecked ego?

Thun · Post by **Thun** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:13 pm

drizzle wrote:backlash/backpedaling or first actual honest stabs at critically engaging this retarded circus of unchecked ego?

That was kind of implied, but thanks. There's a famous Simpsons exchange between Homer and Lisa that applies here, but I can't remember the wording.

Anyways - has anyone attempted to write about MTDBF and Inception together?

Icesickle · Post by **Icesickle** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:16 pm

I agree wholeheartedly with that one critic's reading of the Monster video and most of that article actually.

It's still a top 3 album of the year and Kanye's underrated as an MC (on here at least).

drizzle · Post by **drizzle** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:19 pm

Thun wrote:
drizzle wrote:backlash/backpedaling or first actual honest stabs at critically engaging this retarded circus of unchecked ego?
That was kind of implied, but thanks. There's a famous Simpsons exchange between Homer and Lisa that applies here, but I can't remember the wording.

- Let the bears pay the bear tax, I already pay the Homer tax

- That's the home-owner tax Dad

Thun · Post by **Thun** » Wed Jan 05, 2011 4:21 pm

drizzle wrote:
Thun wrote:
drizzle wrote:backlash/backpedaling or first actual honest stabs at critically engaging this retarded circus of unchecked ego?
That was kind of implied, but thanks. There's a famous Simpsons exchange between Homer and Lisa that applies here, but I can't remember the wording.
- Let the bears pay the bear tax, I already pay the Homer tax

- That's the home-owner tax Dad

LOL, no. It was towards the end of an episode and Lisa makes some pithy statement about the moral learned, and Homer says "(word Lisa uses) orrrrr (similar word with relevant implicaton)" and Lisa responds with something to the effect of "That was implied" and Homer of course says "Implied orrrrrr .... IMPLODE?" or some such nonsense.

Edit: Found it

Lisa: Look at the wonders of modern technology now.
Homer: Wonders, Lisa, or blunders?
Lisa: I think that was implied by what i just said.
Homer: Implied or implode?
Lisa: Mom, make him stop!

djjeffresh · Post by **djjeffresh** » Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:41 pm

The Onion wrote:Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa

'I Got All The Approval I Needed,' Content Former Pop Star Says

http://www.theonion.com/articles/fully- ... rm-i,18724

DJ Primate · Post by **DJ Primate** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:39 am

djjeffresh wrote:
The Onion wrote:Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa

'I Got All The Approval I Needed,' Content Former Pop Star Says
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fully- ... rm-i,18724

Website · Post by **Random Sample** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:20 am

Kid That's Lifeless wrote:Stop gaying up the thread, faggot.

I don't think you can gay up a thread that is already gay.

The Afronaut · Post by **The Afronaut** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:40 am

djjeffresh wrote:
The Onion wrote:Fully Validated Kanye West Retires To Quiet Farm In Iowa

'I Got All The Approval I Needed,' Content Former Pop Star Says
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fully- ... rm-i,18724

Escobar305 · Post by **Escobar305** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:10 pm

New Yeezy album! I cannot be mad at that.

multsanta · Post by **multsanta** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:31 am

Thun wrote:And over at New York Magazine, Nitsuh Abebe makes maybe the most bomb-chucking claim about גFantasy.ג He (more or less genuinely) posits that Diddy Dirty Moneyגs Europhile trance-pop record גLast Train to Parisג may have been a better album.

"More or less genuinely"? WTF? It was a pretty straightforward article from a reputable critic, not a fucking Vice blog post.

Mindbender Futurama · Post by **Mindbender Futurama** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:11 am

Thun wrote:Backpedaling begins; backlash soon to follow?

Borks and simps: Read the article. It doesn't support your hysterical anti-Kanye faggotry even though you'd like to believe so.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_b ... backs.html

Itגs only the third workday of 2011, but are pop fans already regretting whom they went home with for last yearגs consensus pick for album of the year?

Three prominent music writers have recently penned pieces that to one degree or another find some new unsettling or underwhelming notes in Kanye Westגs גMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasyג that went unremarked upon during the deluge of hyperbole that first greeted it. Each agrees on the album's importance, but implies that גFantasyגsג ambition and bombast may have covered up some troubling undercurrents in Kanyeגs vision, and underlined pop's need to crown consensus heroes.

The most cutting take is from the Atlanticגs Ta-Nehisi Coates, who finds that Kanyeגs color-coded value system for women in גFantasyגsג lyrics is גincredibly, almost casually, racist.ג Lines such as גChampagne wishes/30 white ....ג seem to simultaneously embrace and demean white women as aura-building possessions for West, and Coates also notes that גI'm less amazed, but pretty depressed, that colorism is back -- גRolling with some light-skin chicks and some Kelly Rowlandsג is little more than גyou're pretty for a dark-skin girlג in this postracial era.ג He closes with one of the most withering criticisms of a rap album in ages: גI'm tired of rappers who deploy slut-shame to smoke-screen their near total fear of (women).ג

At the New York Times, Jon Caramanica has a less barbed but still considered re-assessment of what it meant that one potent album so uniformly topped the zeitgeist. גMaybe Mr. West was a titan in an off year,ג he surmises. גThese ratings and rankings make a statement about not only the presumed quality of the album, but also about institutional decisions regarding an artistגs worthiness, and about those institutionsג desire to be seen acknowledging an artistגs worthiness.ג He admits that, even if this is Kanye's best record (and he says it isn't), then what do all these perfect scores mean for his next one? A sixth star or 11.0 rating? Or did we set Kanye up for an inevitable fall that's more or less divorced from the actual quality of his work?

Caramanica ends on a particularly sad note, finding the grim leaked clips from Kanyeגs גMonsterג video as גempty provocation and clumsy art, the move of someone who, in a climate of unchecked glorification, has been given too much rope to play with.ג Maybe we didnגt like what Kanye actually did as much as we needed what Kanye seems to represent in pop -- one of the few instances of one of the most famous people in music simultaneously being one of the best.

And over at New York Magazine, Nitsuh Abebe makes maybe the most bomb-chucking claim about גFantasy.ג He (more or less genuinely) posits that Diddy Dirty Moneyגs Europhile trance-pop record גLast Train to Parisג may have been a better album. גNow (Diddyגs) turned some of these trappings -- dance music, high fashion, European rail travel, dirty divas, moody synth pads -- into a shiny action movie of a record. The problem is that there's no series of ridiculous tweets Diddy could have deployed to get us to pay quite as much attention to this album as we did to Kanye West's similarly ridiculous showstopper,ג he says.

Itגs a weird claim to make of one of the richest men in rap, but Diddy may have been the underdog in this comparison, which implicitly evokes the 2007 chart beef between Ye and 50 Cent when one arrogant artist lost his chart and critical crown to hubris. Abebe implies that maybe we underestimate Diddy (and overestimate Kanye) because he doesn't have George Condo and Vanessa Beecroft in the wings to underscore his claims to High Art. And גwhen ("Train") hits its mood right, though -- gray skies, Eurorail, and drama -- it's excellent stuff. The hectic format fades away, and the music actually becomes the hypnotic cruise it aspires to be.ג

-- August Brown

Photo: Kanye West. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images

the reason the album is already floating in meh-ville is because most of the fucking lyrics are so god damn mediocre. the music remains stunning, and actually raised the bar for a new millenium rap album, enough that he might have topped the standard Dr. Dre set.

The first verse of 'Power' is actually borderline infantile. the second verse is phenomenal, and the third one lingers between both levels. If Kanye was rapping on the album with the fierce (ha) focus he did on 'Gorgeous', this shit would be pretty much a modern day masterpiece. Instead, every diversion in the book is used to hide the fact that his beautiful twisted dark fantasy exists more in his soundscape than in his storytelling.

I'm a huge Kanye fan and I'm playing Late Registration shit more when I want to hear him, cause that songwriting stands the test of time better than this new shit does.

Dark Fantasy is already fading which is why he's dropping a new album so fast. If this shit was the fucking perfect record everyone said it was, then he'd be able to push it until next summer, and make 5 more videos off it. That just dosn't seem smart. The album is gracefully bowing out, already, because it was better than we expected him to bring after Taylorgate, but it just isn't as solid in its core as College Dropout or LR. It's a frantic, paranoid version of Graduation-level Kanye with more guests and bigger, better beats.

and 'Watch The Throne' may not be the godsend anyone thinks. these guys are a little too gassed right now, even though they run the music biz.

dude fucked up royal when he took off 'Chain Heavy' and 'Mama's Boyfriend'. Dark Fantasy is cotton candy.

truthaddict · Post by **truthaddict** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:25 pm

Portland Cello Project Covering Kanye West "All of the Lights"

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYWCTlBUGZo?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYWCTlBUGZo?fs ... n_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

Rick Ross ג גDevil In A New Dressג

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EMCEE DARTH MALEK · Post by **EMCEE DARTH MALEK** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:47 pm

The most cutting take is from the Atlanticגs Ta-Nehisi Coates, who finds that Kanyeגs color-coded value system for women in גFantasyגsג lyrics is גincredibly, almost casually, racist.ג Lines such as גChampagne wishes/30 white ....ג seem to simultaneously embrace and demean white women as aura-building possessions for West, and Coates also notes that גI'm less amazed, but pretty depressed, that colorism is back -- גRolling with some light-skin chicks and some Kelly Rowlandsג is little more than גyou're pretty for a dark-skin girlג in this postracial era.ג He closes with one of the most withering criticisms of a rap album in ages: גI'm tired of rappers who deploy slut-shame to smoke-screen their near total fear of (women).ג

this isn't a criticism of the music. the writer is just upset that kanye won't play along with her imaginary colourblind utopia.

PopeyeJones · Post by **PopeyeJones** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 5:26 pm

EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:
The most cutting take is from the Atlanticגs Ta-Nehisi Coates, who finds that Kanyeגs color-coded value system for women in גFantasyגsג lyrics is גincredibly, almost casually, racist.ג Lines such as גChampagne wishes/30 white ....ג seem to simultaneously embrace and demean white women as aura-building possessions for West, and Coates also notes that גI'm less amazed, but pretty depressed, that colorism is back -- גRolling with some light-skin chicks and some Kelly Rowlandsג is little more than גyou're pretty for a dark-skin girlג in this postracial era.ג He closes with one of the most withering criticisms of a rap album in ages: גI'm tired of rappers who deploy slut-shame to smoke-screen their near total fear of (women).ג
this isn't a criticism of the music. the writer is just upset that kanye won't play along with her imaginary colourblind utopia.

Couple things:

1) Coates is a guy, not a girl, which actually matters (see #2).

2) Not to invalidate this part of the review, but I think it makes more sense in context: When writing this Coates was fresh off getting a round of shit from (mostly) black female bloggers for being wack on gender issues and not using his stage at The Atlantic to aggressively talk about racism and gender issues (in a way they thought he should -- I'm just giving context, not cosigning any discussion of what he "should" be doing).

This is just to say that I don't think this review of the album was just about the album, and instead, it was about the album and some other non-album related things that were going on in the left-of-huffpo blogosphere.

Also, as for Abebe, saying Diddy's full-circuit pastiche of Kanye-isms (from music, to dress, to staging...even to body movement --- watch his SNL performance) is a better or more interesting effort than MBDTF is just as reactionary and ridiculous as the people declaring Kanye made the best album of all time.

I think good criticism is coming, I just don't think these second drafts are quite there yet.

aeokq · Post by **aeokq** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:20 pm

Still haven't heard this album. Should I?

When I first heard College Dropout I thought it sucked horribly. "Get Em High" was the only song I liked. Seven years later it is much better, although I wouldn't proclaim it a great album or anything.

Thun · Post by **Thun** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:30 pm

I don't remember if I posted it here, but Brandon from the No Trivia blog posted a series of exhaustive essays about MBDTF:

http://no-trivia.com/2010/12/my-beautif ... d-fantasy/

I don't remember whether or not I agreed with any of the pieces, and I honestly read them pretty quickly and need to reread, but Brandon is a pretty good writer and takes the task of analysis more serious than your average blogger. He does have a general tendency to overthink the significance of lyrics and imagery, though, so the appeal of his writing on Kanye is probably going to be lost for those who do not think Kanye is a worthy subject of analysis.

I'm not very impressed with this album, though (again, I need to revisit it, never listened too closely) and I enjoyed the essays, so give it a shot if you have an above-Twitter attention span.

Req · Post by **Req** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:14 pm

lol, when reading these I can't help but be reminded of mainstream rock critics thoughts on albums like "Straight Outta Compton" years ago - 'yes it's groundbreaking and the wall of sound Dre creates is impressive but it's homophobic, racist and sexist..... so 1/5!"

it's a piece of art, I could give a a fuck how he references women in it.

Gregg Popabitch · Post by **Gregg Popabitch** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 10:48 am

truthaddict wrote:Portland Cello Project Covering Kanye West "All of the Lights"

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYWCTlBUGZo?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GYWCTlBUGZo?fs ... n_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

that's pretty dope. stealing this.

Reason · Post by **Reason** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:29 pm

Philaflava wrote:
Combo7 wrote:

One of the 1000 best rap albums of all time.

Escobar305 · Post by **Escobar305** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 9:01 pm

Kobe x Kanye
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EMCEE DARTH MALEK · Post by **EMCEE DARTH MALEK** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 11:08 pm

black mamba looks dope........ at one point he will dunk w/ a zombie's head

hessbz12 · Post by **hessbz12** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:52 pm

How's everyone feeling about this after its been out for a while? Still in rotation? I still listen to it a ton.

Deviant283 · Post by **Deviant283** » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:53 pm

listened to it twice and never returned to it. never got the hype.

clark bent · Post by **clark bent** » Tue Feb 22, 2011 5:24 pm

hessbz12 wrote:How's everyone feeling about this after its been out for a while? Still in rotation? I still listen to it a ton.

its got a few skippable songs in the middle but the first three or four songs and the last three or four are all great

i still listen to it quite a bit and i dont listen to ANYTHING new

aeokq · Post by **aeokq** » Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:39 pm

Finally heard this album. I'm not gonna say it is the worst shit ever, but I am not impressed. Way too synthy, very annoying. Songs like "Lost In The World" are hard to listen to. And if it wasn't reverb it was some piano with a woman's voice crooning in the background. It makes for a few chill songs like "Runaway," but there are zero bangers on this album. And Kanye's voice is still aggravating. I don't get the praise for this shit in the least.

indianaJ0nes · Post by **indianaJ0nes** » Sun Mar 06, 2011 3:20 am

great beats, great rhymes

haters gonna hate