Top Ten Records 2010:
1. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
What can I say about this album or this man that has not already been said?
That is perhaps the question that keeps critics and fans declaring My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy their favorite record of the year, the feeling that with the release of this late-in-the-year monster , Kanye West has indeed said it all himself. A mighty feat for such a divisive figure in American Pop Culture: A complete transformation from the communal whipping boy to the meta-man with the see-through brain and a heart of gold.
And all before our own eyes…
Was it the twitter feed? Was it the stunts, the prologue to his mighty (but all together artificially planned) comeback? Was it the confidence? The arrogance? The seemingly obsessive quest towards becoming a super HOVA, the best dressed and most recognizable brand in the entire game?
Well, maybe it was all of it, but after listening to Kanye’s newest release a few dozen times (I’m not joking), I have to admit that MBDTF’s style, with each track falling somewhere between careless swagger and calculated flair, is admirably effective at redefining the conversation about his life choices, his public image, and even his own musical journey. In other words, this album fulfills the old sports stereotype of making the opposing team play your game. He takes the ball and never lets up, “Triple double, no assists…”
Perhaps the most important part of my experience as a listener, specifically one fascinated by the creative process, is Kanye’s baffling musical transparency. If you listen to MBDTF, you know exactly what he likes and you know exactly what’s within his immediate musical and compositional periphery. He’d been listening to a lot of La Roux, so he put her on the record. He’s notorious for sampling licks from Elton John songs, so why not just have him lay down original piano and vocals too?
It seems like everything Kanye was doing during the production of this record was coming easily to him and the completed ended up sounding like an untouched representation of his constantly occurring musical singularities. That sounds like an oxymoron, plural singularity, but it’s not. Moments like the big thundering resolve in Lost in the World (featuring Justin Vernon, who will be the it-boy of the next five years I guarantee) give me such vivid close-ups on Kanye West’s mental process, a process that has thus far delivered an obscene amount of brain-to-tape material and demonstrated dexterity that other heavy hitters like Weezy only have in their rhyme, not in their overall presentation.
And especially in an overall presentation that feels as natural as Kanye’s newest attempt. It is fresh, but also old and familiar too. It has the excitement of a spontaneous virgin experience but the confidence of a deliberate set of choreographed moves. Basically, what I’m trying to show is how this record set itself apart from other projects even in its aim and purpose. Before Kanye West even got around to putting down his verses, the songs were already there. The most exciting major hip hop artists (See young guys like Freddie Gibbs, Cory Gunz, Drake and older guys like Raekwon) have a nice flow, but a huge overarching and indulgent macro-structure like the one present in my #1 favorite album of the year would crumble under its own weight with anyone at the helm other than Mr. West himself.
Here’s how it ends: the only thing that can stop Kanye is an Outkast record. Please 2011…
