Taylor Swift.
Now that that’s out of the way, Kanye West has a new album out, and it’s pretty darn good. Not as good as all the other critics are managing to say once their spit glands dry up, but pretty darn good. Entitled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, aka “The Kanye album with the naked armless chick,” which everyone will call it in 6 months cuz that title is just truly dumb, West’s latest work is, as always, an ode to himself, his career, and how much his success invalidates the people who hate him. That’s narcissistic, you may say, and you’re right. West’s music has always been about the tension between his pride and vulnerability, the brief flickers of soul and morality from his Christian upbringing vs. the pleasures and temptations brought on by his considerable skill.
The latter has caused him a ton of personal trouble, from simultaneously dealing with a broken engagement and seeing his mother die from cosmetic surgery complications to becoming Public Enemy #1 after his VMA rant launched the “I’mma let you finish” meme. And for how admittedly flawed he is, this latest album further cements how skilled he is, working as both producer and vocalist– quite a rarity in the hip-hop world. He claims to “do the rap and the track– triple, double, no assist” on “Monster,” but in reality, he often does concede the mic to guests, acting more as an emcee or ringmaster than a spotlight hog. More contradictions– one of the biggest egos in rap is also one of the most generous collaborators.
The primary theme of the album is the value of expression and the human voice itself, with West fusing together the roles of vocalist and producer. Opener “Dark Fantasy” prominently features a heavily-layered chorus with strong pitch straightening and octave shifting, and the use of multi-layered and sampled choruses continue through “Power,” “All of the Lights,” the intro and outro of “Monster,” and the penultimate track “Lost in the World,” which gloriously expands a vocal sample from Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. Vernon describes his collaboration with West, claiming “some of the stuff I was doing with my voice was more weird and instrumental– basically building what would sound like a synth part with vocals.” That experimentation shows up with West himself, who concludes the ballad “Runaway” with a heavily distorted, auto-tuned vocal track, shattering the distinction between singer and instrument. It’s obviously nothing incredibly novel, but it’s an affecting expression of his view of his role in the music world.
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While his songcraft has progressed well, West also shows he can still rap after singing his way through 2008’s 808s & Heartbreak, cycling through bravado, arrogance, humor, and soulfulness. The first released track “Power” shows West discussing the ups and downs of his celebrity– an unapologetic ode to his pride that somehow culminates in him contemplating suicide. In “Monster,” West riffs on his bad reputation, bringing in Jay-Z and song stealer Nicki Minaj, who obviously relish the goofy old-school monster movie imagery they present (the song was first released right before Halloween). The song builds and builds through the dynamic performances of each guest, bolstered by some no-frills pounding drums to create a song that’s so full of pure fun, you don’t even notice it’s almost 7 minutes long.
However, some songs are still unable to overcome weaknesses in the rap genre. “Gorgeous” and “So Appalled” repeat a single ho-hum, mid-tempo loop through their entire runs, which would be fine if their vocal performances were dynamic enough to keep our attention. The Kanye-to-mumbly-singers-and-back structure of “Gorgeous” turns it into a snoozefest, and unlike “Monster,” we lose interest as more and more guests show up on “So Appalled.” Take away these songs, and the album loses nothing; it becomes tighter, less unwieldy. To find a good metaphor for the album as a whole, I only need to look to “Devil in a New Dress:” a near-perfect exercise in experimental soul gets dragged down by totally unnecessary content (in “Devil”‘s case, a mood-crushing guest verse by Rick Ross). Even the hype magnet “Runaway,” to clinch its cloying sentimentality, is bogged down by an extended instrumental coda that virtually doubles the length of the track.
And aside from the musical missteps, there are some moments of lyrical facepalms. There’s the dopey assertion that the government intentionally spreads AIDS among blacks. There’s a sampled monologue where Gil Scott-Heron calls America the result of Freedom raping Africa and giving it VD… or something. There’s West’s (and virtually all of rap’s) trademark lasciviousness that presents itself in new and even more perverted ways, which further undercuts his professed Christianity (“pussy and religion is all I need,” he crows on “Hell of a Life” while delving into the juvenile fantasy that porn stars really like getting raped all the time and want their marriages exactly like their careers).
It’s kind of disappointing to see, after the introspection of 808s, West has swung back the other way to a level of prurience he hasn’t indulged in before. That said, he does conjure some genuinely emotionally compelling moments: “Lost in the World” responds to malaise with optimism, “All of the Lights” oddly fuses a memorial for Michael Jackson with the career-long pathos West has maintained for the issues working-class people experience, and “Blame Game” takes a filthy Chris Rock comedy monologue and makes it a poignant bookend to a song about the profound pain of a breakup.
I’ve gained a healthy respect for Kanye West as an artist and a person, revisiting his earlier catalog around the time he began releasing weekly tracks from his “Dark Fantasy” sessions. The man has used his microphone to talk about whatever he thinks is important as honestly and as skillfully as he can. His “George Bush hates black people” crack wasn’t a poseur move made to get “in” with the establishment media; it was a genuine moment of uninformed, misguided rage (which I’m sure none of us have ever succumbed to… ever). More importantly, he was able to empathize with Bush, admit he was wrong, and defend the man’s humanity when the majority of West’s audience probably isn’t satisfied unless W. is portrayed with both a Hitler mustache and a noose around his neck.
Between these sorts of in-concert rants and his Twitter feed, West’s quick rebound in public esteem can be chalked up to his PR-bypassing connection with fans, where his self-effacing genuineness charmed us into forgetting “I’mma let you finish.” I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’ll embrace a disgraced honest screw-up rather than a disgraced fake, calculated goody-goody.
But personal issues aside, West is still on his top game, making great music by taking chances and expanding his musical palette. Despite falling into the common foibles of rap and leaving in too much filler, he’s doing his best to transcend the genre and make, in his own words, “pop art”– experimental music with universal appeal. It’s worth a listen, if you don’t believe that rap is a musical genre with no artistic merit. If you do, how have you made it this far?