My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by the American rapper and producer Kanye West. It was released by Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records on November 22, 2010. Retreating to a self-imposed exile in Hawaii after a period of controversy in 2009, following his interruption of Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards, he recorded the album at Honolulu's Avex Recording Studio in a communal environment involving numerous musicians. Additional recording sessions took place at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California, along with the New York City studios Electric Lady and Platinum Sound.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
November 22, 2010
2009–2010
- Avex Recording (Honolulu)
- Electric Lady and Platinum Sound (New York City)
- Glenwood Place (Burbank)
68:39
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was mainly produced by West, alongside a variety of high-profile producers such as Mike Dean, No I.D., Jeff Bhasker, RZA, Bink, and DJ Frank E. Critics noted the music's maximalist aesthetic and opulent production style that utilizes various elements from West's previous work, including soul, pop, baroque, electro, and symphonic sounds, as well as progressive rock influences. The album's lyrics explore themes such as West's celebrity status, consumer culture, self-aggrandizement, and the idealism of the American Dream. Guest vocalists include Nicki Minaj, Rihanna, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, John Legend, Bon Iver, and Elton John.
Alongside several free songs released through his weekly GOOD Fridays series, West supported My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with four US Billboard Hot 100 top-40 singles, including "Power" and "All of the Lights". West also released an accompanying musical short film, Runaway (2010). The album was an immediate and widespread critical success, with music critics lauding the maximalism, and was listed as the best album of 2010 in many publications' year-end lists. It was awarded Best Rap Album at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards, alongside winning CD of the Year at the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, while reaching the top 10 in five other countries, including also topping the Canadian Albums Chart. It eventually achieved a triple platinum certification in the United States from the Recording Industry Association of America, alongside sales certifications in a few other territories. It has been ranked in lists as the best album of the 2010s and among the greatest of all time by several publications, including Pitchfork and Rolling Stone.
Musical style[edit]
The music was described as maximalist by Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, who further noted East Coast hip hop elements,[24] and Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield, who observed "hip-hop epics, R&B ballads, alien electronics, [and] prog-rock samples".[25] Various writers also noticed elements from West's previous four albums.[a] Simon Vozick-Levinson of Entertainment Weekly (EW) believed these elements appear throughout, like the lush soul of 2004's The College Dropout, "the symphonic pomp of [2005's] Late Registration, the gloss of 2007's Graduation", and the "emotionally exhausted" electro of 808s & Heartbreak.[27] The Village Voice's Sean Fennessey wrote that West had adopted the skills of his collaborators from the five years before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and utilizes them, sometimes to a heightened degree, "arranging orchestral majesty" as Jon Brion did for Late Registration, "adapt[ing] DJ Toomp's oozing menace" from Graduation, and deploying "Kid Cudi's moaning melodies" that were a key aspect of 808s & Heartbreak.[29]
Numerous critics have made comparison between the album's style and West's earlier records. Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal wrote that it is mostly a continuation of Graduation with a maximalist hip hop style, incorporating "The College Dropout's comfort-food sampling and Late Registration's baroque instrumentation" seamlessly.[28] AllMusic's Andy Kellman echoed this sentiment, but added My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy not only takes influences from all the albums, noting the tracks "sometimes fuse them together simultaneously"; he found the result to be that "the sonic and emotional layers are often difficult to pry apart and enumerate".[26] Kellman felt "All of the Lights" denotes the album's varied elements and "maniacal extravagance".[26] David Amidon of PopMatters compared the "underscore as ambitious as the beats upfront" on the songs to West's previous work with Brion, while noting the pop sound of Graduation and 808s & Heartbreak.[30] Conversely, veteran critic Robert Christgau commented that the music abandons the "grace" of West's first two studio albums in favor of lushness.[31]
The album was described as "the world's first" prog-rap album by Carl Williott of Idolator.[32] Rolling Stone's Christopher R. Weingarten called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a "prog-rap behemoth" in the time of lower album budgets, noting that it evokes Pink Floyd.[33] Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times observed that the album draws elements from incomparable genres like progressive rock, soul, and old-school rap, resulting in a continuous shift towards a new sound, while Time's David Browne felt reassured that not many acts have West's ability to blend different genres.[34][35] On a similar note, Al Horner from NME called it a rap opera.[36] Author Kirk Walker Graves thinks West mastered being a collagist, who makes a bold and vulnerable work of art from "scattered pop shards and indelible beats".[37]
Lyrics and themes[edit]
Throughout the album, West's lyrics explore themes of excess, celebrity,[38][39] grandiosity, self-aggrandizement, self-doubt,[31][40] romance,[28] escapism, decadence,[30][41] and sex.[34] My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also openly acknowledges alcohol and drug usage more than West's previous albums.[29] Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club described it as "darkly funny" and typically obsessive about fame, noting the heavy introspection alongside "manic highs and depressive lows" from an emotional standpoint.[39] On a similar note, Graves summarizes that the album is West's "spiritual anatomy" where the true conflict consists of "a child-emperor and his irrational fear of oblivion", seeing his skill as held back by ambition, frustration, and insecurity.[37] He thinks West embraced his narcissism in contrast to the chipmunk soul on The College Dropout, focusing on "the transformative decadence" of a permissive ego.[37] Philosopher Julius Bailey offers that West maintains links with neoliberalism through his goal of wealth and "continued power", noticing a product of his artistic "self-reflexivity and growth".[6] Christgau found the themes of insecurity and uncertainty to be West's heart and message, making him "so major" and he noted the tracks "Hell of a Life" and "Runaway" as examples.[31] Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, said West is transparent and "almost pathological[ly] allegian[t]" to letting out his emotions.[42] In the eyes of author Bernadette Marie Calafell, West used My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to celebrate monstrosity after his troubled year.[4]
According to Dombal, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a self-indulgent venture "into a rich and famous American id".[28] Chris Martins of Spin said it is an eloquent and largely grandiose production that is reliant on West's "self-aggrandizing ego [and] the voracious id" it would be ruined by in public.[40] Powers interpreted the predominant theme on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to be "the crisis of the jet-lagged cosmopolitan" and emotional exhaustion from West feeling new to town, going after any goal or girl he can and driven by "consumer culture's relentless buzz", though ultimately being unsatisfied.[34] He depicted the songs as "pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceived West as being unsure about the purpose of his presence due to the discussion of race, stating that his rootlessness resembles that of someone who never feels welcome. Powers elaborated that rather than an issue for West, it is "the curse of what [American author] Michael Eric Dyson has called 'the exceptional black man'", whose talents are welcomed, but he is excluded for his skin color.[34] According to Sheffield, the album serves as "a rock-star manifesto" in a shrinking world.[25]
Songs[edit]
Tracks 1–7[edit]
The album begins with "Dark Fantasy", opened by rapper Nicki Minaj narrating a rework of Roald Dahl's 1982 poem Cinderella,[34] followed by a chorus including Auto-Tuned "oohs" and "ah-ah-ah-aahs".[37] The song introduces the themes of decadence and hedonism,[42] with West musing how it had been planned "to drink until the pain was over/But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?"[43] The track's lyrics contain musical and popular culture references, including fellow rapper Nas, the 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", British singer Leona Lewis, and the song "Sex on Fire" by Tennessee rock band Kings of Leon.[44] "Gorgeous" is an uplifting blues-styled track,[38] relying on a guitar riff juxtaposed with melodic piano.[37] The track is seen by Graves as West's "scattershot mission statement" and it sees him tackling racial injustices, including comparing himself to black rights activist Malcolm X with the title "Malcolm West".[37][38][45] "Power" features a dark production that relies on a sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" (1969), which Fennessey found to be "apocalyptic".[29] West delves into escapism on the song, mentioning his struggles with the public and narrating his vision of a career suicide.[42][46]
"All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass breaks, energetic percussion, and horn instruments.[43][47] The opening lines mention the death of Michael Jackson and present the narrative of a man who goes through multiple issues including abusing his lover and serving prison time.[47] West enlisted 11 guest vocalists for the song, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Tony Williams, and Elly Jackson; Rihanna sings the hook.[48] In an interview with MTV, Jackson said of the vocal arrangement, "He got me to layer up all these vocals with other people, and he just basically wanted to use his favorite vocalists from around the world to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out".[49] "Monster" is a posse cut,[29][41] which features staccato strings that invoke paranoia and it was described by Calafell as addressing critics through exploration of their "monstrous construction" of West.[4][25] West raps about using inappropriate methods to drown his pain and Nicki Minaj asserts her queen status on the song.[31][43] The fellow posse cut "So Appalled" is built around piano and strings,[35][41] with the performers delivering their odes to success and affirming that "this shit is/fucking ridiculous".[37][50][51]
Commercial performance[edit]
In its first week of release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 496,000 copies. The entry blocked Nicki Minaj's debut album Pink Friday from the top spot with 375,000 sales; the week marked the first time in two years that the chart had two albums bow with over 300,000 units. It also gave West his fourth consecutive US number-one album and surpassed the 450,000 first-week sales of 808s & Heartbreak, with the debut becoming the fourth-best sales week of 2010.[104] The album's first-week digital sales of 224,000 units accounted for 45% of the total and stood as the fourth-highest digital copies for an album in a week.[105]
In its second week on the Billboard 200, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy descended six places to number seven with 108,000 copies sold, marking a 78% sales decline, while remaining above Pink Friday by one place.[106] As of July 2013, it had sold 1,300,000 copies in the United States, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan.[107] By June 2011, the album had sold 483,000 digital copies, ranking as the second best-selling digital rap album ever.[108] On November 23, 2020, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for pushing 3,000,000 certified units in the US.[109] According to Billboard, as of 2022, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is one of the 15 best-performing 21st-century albums without any of its singles being chart-toppers on the Hot 100.[110]
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy became West's fourth number one album on the Canadian Albums Chart.[111] It reached number four on the Danish Albums chart,[112] and in March 2021, was certified double platinum by IFPI Danmark for shipments of 40,000.[113] My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy opened at number six on the ARIA Albums chart and on September 10, 2021, it was awarded a double platinum certification from the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for over 140,000 copies shipped in Australia.[114][115] The album charted within the top 10 in Norway,[116] South Korea,[117] New Zealand,[118] and Switzerland.[119] In 2018, it was reported that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been streamed a billion times on Spotify.[3]