My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
| Kanye West
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by American rapper Kanye West, released on November 22, 2010, by Roc-A-Fella Records. - Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye's man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic.
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Rolling Stone
Being crazy is this guy’s job, and judging from the sound of his music, business is booming. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus.
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Consequence of Sound
It’s Kanye West’s greatest work and not only does it prove that his name deserves to be in any greatest-of-all-time discussions, but it changes the way we have these conversations.
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Slant Magazine
Kanye embracing his singular pop-star/super-villain persona while struggling to connect with the creative potential that made him worth our attention to begin with.
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The Independent (UK)
Like Picasso, he acknowledges that the chief enemy of creativity is good taste - which is just as well, since it's not a quality with which he seems over-burdened on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. For which we should all be thankful.
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Beats Per Minute
It’s not enough that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a masterful synthesis of the best bits of Yeezy’s earlier albums, or that every song packs in twice its length in ideas—Kanye’s pushing creative boundaries like this while operating decidedly on the LeBron/Obama/Michael Jackson level of fame.
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NOW Magazine
An ornately orchestrated pop epic built on a classic hip-hop foundation, Twisted Fantasy is his best since his debut.
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Entertainment Weekly
He samples atmospheric noodling from Aphex Twin and bombastic nuggets from Black Sabbath and King Crimson, and he gets help from some of the biggest names in pop, rap, and indie rock. West crafts these influences into a fever dream with a crescendo around every corner - the Beautiful Fantasy of the album's title.
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The Boston Phoenix
Fantasy is the sound of an artist who is so far from shunning the spotlight that the firepower of the wattage pointed at him is a full-on supernova.
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PopMatters
Six years later, Kanye is undoubtedly the most openly self-aware MC. And the music world should be grateful to have him. I know I am.
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Okayplayer
Yeezy’s Fantasy is a musical milestone monumental for its refusal to trim back its noisy excesses.
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Prefix Magazine
A lushly orchestrated, regal gala of an album that is every bit as outsized and jumbled as its adjective-engorged title.
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Paste Magazine
It is profoundly imperfect pop music, yet it is magnificent pop music.
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AV Music
A rock album in spirit (and sometimes sound) with an unimpeachable commitment to sex, drugs, and electric guitars.
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HipHopDX
He’s not forcing his hand, just reminding us that the biggest star we appointed in the last five years can still recognize our own fantasies, insecurities and desire for colorful music from his spaceship.
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BBC Music
In fact, this record's only flaw is that its scale is so awe-inspiring it tends to paper over any weaker cracks.
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SputnikMusic
Not the voice of a generation; the voice of Kanye West, which is so much better.
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SPIN
Fantasy’s production is loud and proud, but also poignant and gripping, always hinting at some looming danger.
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Village Voice
Kanye is rapping and singing better and with more tenacity than he ever has on Fantasy, but also less often, wisely allowing others to speak for him-every single guest artist on this album senses the moment and rises to the occasion.
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The Boston Globe
West’s fifth album is a fun house of styles and sentiments, as self-involved and overstuffed as you’d expect from him but also progressive and universal in its themes.
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Tiny Mix Tapes
The past few years have shown West first-hand what happens when the populace turns against its demagogues, and with Fantasy, he’s letting us know that he’s ready for our scorn and adulation.
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Drowned in Sound
He's had it rough (or as rough as can be for one with his level of talent and success anyway), but once again he's managed to take his adversity and turn it into perhaps the album of the year.
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Clash Music
This is not just West’s best album, it’s a keen contender for the most ambitious LP in hip-hop history. West side story!
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NME
It’s an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man that is by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking.
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American Songwriter
And if you’re not a fan, well…you’re entitled to your own opinion. Sadly, you’ll be missing out on this year’s most compelling and progressive pieces of popular music.
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Austin Chronicle
Through thick and thin, Kanye West proves the ultimate curator and host, the master of his domain.
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Chicago Tribune
Because of West's let-it-blurt bluntness, he is definitely not getting a Christmas card this year from either Taylor Swift or former President George W. Bush.
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The Telegraph (UK)
It’s certainly good to have West’s unique talent back in music, but this ambitious behemoth may be easier to admire than to listen to.
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No Ripcord
A little editing would have gone a long way to bring the vainglory down a notch, away from the ridiculous and squarely into the revolutionary. On the other hand, who am I -- who is ANYONE -- to criticize the greatest artist of our generation?
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The Guardian
Boasting a Greek chorus of pop-star cameos, West's herculean fifth effort is a flawed near-masterpiece
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musicOMH
Musically, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a nice blend of Kanye’s older and newer styles.
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Hot Press
High prince of bad taste delivers unexpected meisterwork.
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AllMusic
As fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an extraordinarily complex 70-minute set of songs.
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Soul in Stereo
The album’s most impressive trait is how it’s able to meld contrasting genres into one package.
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Common Sense Media
Parents need to know that this album is chock full of adult content, including lots of profanity, graphic sexual references, and allusions to substance use.
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Genius
It tests a lot of uncharted waters that I’ve never heard before.
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Pretty Much Amazing
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is brilliant.
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Under the Radar
This album feels like a culmination of the direction West has been going over the last ten years.
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Amino
This album really is overrated. I understand why people love it. It is a solid project but I don't think its that great.
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True Too
An album rooted in darkness, vengeful thoughts, and exquisite art.
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GQ
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’s mouthful of a title perfectly suits the album’s maximalist, grandiose sound.
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All Hip Hop
The amount of work put into this album is almost immeasurable only the music can quantify what we already know - Kanye West is back.
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Spectrum Culture
Never before has a hip-hop album been so decadent, yet so beatific and inspiringly adventurous – an explosive synthesis of everything Kanye has learned after four albums.
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billboard
Needless to say, West has proved once again that he is most on point in the face of adversity.
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cokemachineglow
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the most cohesive and assured record in mainstream hip-hop since Jay-Z sketched his Blueprint (2001).
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FACT Magazine
It’s one of the grandest hip-hop records of all time – not counting interludes, its shortest track is 4:17 – full of vocoder, guitar, narration and overheard betrayals, and it’s frequently torn between whether it wants to be a rugged, raw rap record or a grandiose pop opera.
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DIY Magazine
Tasteless? Absolutely. ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ leaves the idea of good taste behind.
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The 405
Whether you are his biggest fan or gritting your teeth determined not to acknowledge his presence, Kanye West is big in his game.
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The Skinny
Sit back, give in, and accept that for all its pomp and excess, the thrill of the ride is a greater distraction.
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The Quietus
Fantasy, in its sprawling, no-stone-unturned scope, its audacity, its braveness, its sheer magnitude, comes across as the work of a man with nothing to lose.
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Hip Hop Passion
MBDTF is listed as the best rap album ever made on many lists and the best album ever made on others.
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The New Zealand Herald
Is Mr. West crazy? Yes! Dumb? No!
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Under the Influence of Music
Sometimes you hear an album and suddenly everything you thought you knew about music goes out the window.
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The Current
He dares to be odd and challenging in a world where pop music can easily repeat itself.
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Giant Bomb
Are we really that surprised anymore by a great Kanye record?
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UPROXX
This album, West's fifth, is sickly honest, and any lesser artist couldn't pull it off. The man continues taking chances and just keeps winning.
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ourvinyl
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a must-hear, groundbreaking event in hip-hop, that will hopefully inspire the rest of the industry to follow suit and introduce a little more music to the world of hip-hop – something that has been forgotten since the genre developed so many years ago.
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Noisey
Kanye West's glorious racket shifted the way we talk about black music.
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We Got This Covered
It’s a landmark and Mr. West should be damn proud of himself.
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News Press Now
Kanye West is one of only a few artists whose creative choices serve as a barometer for the direction of hip-hop and, to an extent, popular music.
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The Line of Best Fit
It’s a lyrical masterstroke that results in the listener being left in a bewildered state throughout the LP, trying to guess if he’s truly sorry for his past actions, or if he still thinks he’s the musical genius many claim him to be.
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Focus Hip Hop
Even if you don’t think this album is that good, there’s no way you could think that it’s bad.
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The Bridge
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is as far from subtlety as one would expect, often for the best.
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Sound Opinions
What Kanye West achieves on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is nothing short of amazing.
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The National Student
On 22nd November 2010 outspoken and controversial rapper Kanye West released not only one of the greatest hip-hop albums, but one of the greatest albums of the decade so far.
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Express (UK)
Maybe West is as great a genius as he claims.
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SPICYWTR
All in all I love this album so much. I will be playing it when I’m 74.
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The Seattle Times
It doesn't have one weak song, so you could say Kanye's bringing back quality.
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Plugged In
Kanye is on a very short list of artists in this genre who's willing to pull back the curtain on his insecurities and fears—which is one of the reasons critics have been so enthralled by him.
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WBEZ
Like Lennon, Reed, Morrison, and Reznor, West is a signature artist for his age. And he has given us another landmark work of art.
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antiquiet
A rampantly evolving talent, ambitious orchestral production, unabashed grandiosity and full-throttle confidence has just upstaged & ante-upped the entire rap scene in one fell swoop. Check mate.
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SoulCulture
Kanye’s fifth album is the amalgamation of six years of tantrums, tears, liasions, lyrical growth and musical expansion, resulting in his a beautiful nightmare which will be remembered for years to come.
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Slate Magazine
As big as he fancies himself, his best music is bigger.
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Contact Music
It's not quite the masterpiece that some are claiming, but it's an impressive set of songs nonetheless.
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The Washington Post
Dark and twisted, but very much a thing of beauty.
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Blare Magazine
As a man, he’s living in the 21st century and if you haven’t noticed by now, he’s doing something mean to it.
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The Scotsman
For all his self-inflicted trials, West is looking out over modern, fragmented, unsteady-on-its-feet America and daring it to cast the first stone.
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Vivascene
Kanye West‘s 2010 record Fantasy is a seductive and thrilling ride from beginning to end.
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3-mob
This is a defined movement. Hip Hop is lucky to have Kanye.
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USD Student Media
“Dark Fantasy” does a good job of setting up the rest of the album, which on the whole is pretty epic.
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Financial Times
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: the product of a colossal ego making good on the extravagant claims he makes for himself.
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Westword
Everything about it is huge and grandiose, but it's also a surprisingly risky album.
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The Cascade
Unlikely to make new fans out of those put off by his famously inflated ego, but it is undeniably the fullest expression of his artistic vision to date.
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UWire
In a great year for hip-hop and music in general, West’s release is in a league of its own.
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The Rickey Smiley Morning Show
By the end of listening to it, I feel Kanye asking all his peers to step up their game and save Rap from this bubble gum, ringtone phase.
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TNT Magazine
This veritable ‘hip-hopera’ mashes rap and rock while drawing on a dizzying array of samples and guest artists.
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popstache
Above the darkness and his desire to seem awash in women, money and fame, West skillfully elevated the sum of his parts into a stratosphere rap rarely comes close to — great art.
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RUKUS Magazine
From the cover art, to the instrumentation, to the poetic rap, this album is a museum, an intriguing accomplishment.
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York Vision
By embracing his contradictions and presenting them, without apology, on this album, and accompanying them with the most advanced musical sound of his career, Kanye West has made a masterpiece.
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Not Your Dads Vinyl
Part of me believes it was a self-indulgent choice by Kanye to have the fattest record on the shelf…but maybe I’m being cynical.
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The National
Kanye West's new album is both a symptom of and an anthem to his towering ego.
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Butter Yo Bread
This album is pretty good, one of my favorites from him, this one probably has the best flow from start to finish than his other records did.
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Black Youth Project
West shatters stylistic and conceptual boundaries at every turn, painting a fascinatingly complex portrait of rock stardom in all of its glory and dissonance, categorically crushing just about everything else in pop music right now.
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Knight News
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy may very well be the defining moment of hip-hop’s most divisive superstar, but I’d be reluctant to call it merely a hip-hop album.
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Exclaim!
No rapper/producer has consistently ― and that's the operative word ― generated acclaimed record after acclaimed record (808s & Heartbreak included), each time giving us something completely different, each time revealing another layer of his incredibly human persona.
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Bomani Jones
And now? I’m gonna listen to it again.
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nj
The president may have cursed him, and Middle America may have tisked at him in self-righteous unison, but they didn’t take him out. This dark star is undimmed, and still on the ascent.
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IGN Entertainment
West has been a polarizing figure the last few years, but on his fifth album it is nearly impossible not to love him.
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The Little Hawk
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy shows that Kanye is once again comfortable leading the hip-hop world.
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Faded Glamour
An album that deserves all of the attention and all of the praise lavished upon it so far
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The Mercury News
You get women, ego, fame, evil, power, pain, even sex and religion as unholy bedfellows — all delivered in defiant rhymes laden with multiple meanings and punch lines.
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Rhombus Magazine
Where he goes from here is unknown, but this latest album represents the zenith of all his past works, with influences showing from all four previous albums. “
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stuff
It's not his best album ever - it's not the best hip-hop album ever - it's not game-changing or life-changing. That's absurd.
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Rap Ireland
Love or hate Kanye, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is off-the-hook and charming in every way possible.
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SF Gate
The record's highlight is "Runaway," the track he premiered at the VMAs. No matter how much you want to, West makes it nearly impossible.
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The Music Hoarder
Has there ever been a more hyped album? I can’t think of one in recent memory.
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Treble
Unsurprisingly, Fantasy is a sonic wonderland, loaded with a massive arsenal of audible treats and ear candy.
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Oredigger
Even if hip-hop isn’t your style, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy may change your mind.
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JSays
Although I prefer previous Kanye albums, this one is a great piece of music.
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Entertainment Junkie
There is no other album conceived in the twenty-first century as progressive, dazzling, emotional and brilliant as this.
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Longenhagen
The album was originally supposed to be called “Good Ass Job”, which I like much more, this title is an accurate description of the music that lies within.
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The New C.R.a.C
This album is amazing. Kanye has fully umped out the window with this one, musically this is definitely his best album.
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WRMC
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is not just an album, it’s a raucous musical event.
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Reviler
If nothing else, it’s an album that invites active, thoughtful listening; these days, that’s a pretty big triumph.
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The Couch Sessions
As long as Ye has at least one of his nine lives left, he’s gonna give you every drop of his soul that he has left to give.
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stereoboard
This album proves many things but among them being that Kanye West is not just a talented rapper, but he has ability when within the studio in terms of producing, something that is not yet something associated with the US rapper.
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vibeRANT
Released in November of 2010, it proved to the world that Kanye was untouchable, he was an artist to end all artists and the king of kings in the music business.
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Las Vegas Sun
The transcendent production is sonically luxuriant and orchestral in scope, making My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy an excellent way to spend an hour. You won’t want to wake up.
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The AU Review
Ye wanted us to open our minds, that didn’t happen, so he did it for us by shoving his dark, twisted fantasy in our faces – and we are glad he did.
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BellasBiz
Kanye’s rapping is also almost as good as his production but he still needs to work on delivery.
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