The Ticket Album Club: Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”
Jim Carroll
Once a month, The Ticket convenes the Album Club. A panel of guest critics air their views about one album and you, dear readers, get to air your views on what they have to say and, of course, the album in question.
The album up for review this time around is Kanye West’s fantastic (my view) “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”. It has been voted the album of 2010 by over 700 US music critics in the annual Pazz & Jop poll! It got a five star review from The Ticket! The Guardian got sniffy and gave it a snotty two star review but it was still one of their albums of the year! Strewth!
But let’s leave the pros to one side – what do the Album Club make of Yeezy’s latest? The reviewers are musicans Valerie Francis and Cloud Castle Lake’s Dan McAuley, best-selling novelist John Connolly and cystic fibrosis patients rights campaigner Orla Tinsley. The man keeping them all in check and buying the drinks: Daragh Downes
You can read what they have to say here. You can listen to the album on We7, Grooveshark and Spotify. And you can have your say on their views and the album below.
Its a good week for you to mention the Spotify crack & We7 becoming available in Ireland, it allows folks without the album in question to participate in these Album Clubs.
the most over rated album ever……shite
Mully – that’s a good point. It’s also on Grooveshark – http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/album/My+Beautiful+Dark+Twisted+Fantasy/5093475
johnny vanilla – and people say journalists are eejits who just call people names and leave it like that? Nothing like a well-considered, well-argued, well-reasoned point to get the ball rolling, is there?
“Some people won’t dance if they don’t know who’s singing
Why ask your head? It’s your hips that are swinging”
I have to say I’m a little staggered to hear people saying that there is something inherently inauthentic about being white and listening a Kanye West record.
It’s music. It’s for everyone.
Hip-hop is part of the great musical melange we have been bequeathed from the 20th century.
Throw up all the walls you want but the only rule should be is that if you like it, it’s good, if you don’t, it’s not.
Is liking Tinariwen equally ridiculous? They’re from a bloody desert experience.
Bruce Springsteen? His music is principally out the white urban New Jersey experience you know?
Should I throw What’s Goin’ On? in the bin? Or just listen to it when no one’s around?
What’s ‘fundamentally ridiculous’ to me is concern about how liking a band or a genre will look to your peers.
Stick hip-hop in a ghetto if you want. You’re only missing out.
Sorry to go on, that just hit a nerve with me.
For the record, I thought the Kanye album was great. Stuck it on the iPod as soon as it leaked and it held its ground as other releases piled up. Always a good sign.
A guaranteed head-bopper. And it was fun.
Principally out of the great-ear-for-a-tune-and-lyric experience if you ask me.
For me, it’s a fantastic album. For all the discussion of samples, the record sounds like something new to me.
The intensity West brings to life on this record is immediately arresting and occasionally overwhelming. From the opening salvo to Nicki Minaj’s jaw-dropping intervention on Monster… and then on to Gil Scott Heron’s ominous climax in Lost in the World, Twisted Fantasy is a beautiful brute of an album.
Any discussion of “Black Music” or “black music that white critics find easy to listen to” is misleading. Nice soundbite but completely irrelevant in this case. Great music is great music. It provokes an undeniable reaction in the listener – sometimes physical, sometimes cerebral, often emotional. In this case, colour and culture are merely ways to attempt to pigeon-hole and categorise something that I think can be universally enjoyed. You don’t need to be an 18th century Austrian aristocrat to enjoy Mozart. God knows what the cultural credentials for enjoying Enya are – but I suspect you’d have to be made of mist and Celtic twilight.
This is simply a thunderbolt of an album – coherent and triumphant, egocentric and eccentric, aggressive and vulnerable.
Looking forward to Cloud Castle Lake’s version of Lost in the World. That one was on the BPLO’s list of songs to cover – we may have to settle for Monster.
I’ve said it before (here) and I’ll say it again – I think there’s a touch of the Emperor’s New Clothes about this one. It is a very, very good album, no doubt. But it hasn’t connected with me in the way it seems to have with many of the critics. Good tunes, sure; great turns of phrase; yes, but a classic? Hardly.
I get the vibe that some want Kanye to be the saviour of mainstream hip-hop, buy into the ego (or the projected ego, the self-reflective ego or whatever navel gazing you want to engage in) and give his releases an inflated sense of importance.
Jim – Good to be here, and thank you.
Mully – Nice one for pointing that out about streaming, could really facilitate discussions alright. No bigger snooze than reading people talking about music you haven’t heard yourself.
Sean – Your point’s well taken. In fairness to John Connolly though – and I don’t want to go putting words in his mouth here (so correct me if you’re reading, John) – his argument was more that Kanye plays quite strategically & cynically to a constituency of people for whom “the black urban experience” is alien but who get a vicarious buzz from ‘exposing’ themselves to it. Kanye’s music, in other words, is dangerous and ‘street’ in the safest, most packaged, of ways. That’s why he’s so big.
Daragh – just in terms of streams. Aside from the Grooveshark one linked to above, there’s also Spotify – http://open.spotify.com/user/jimcarrollotr/playlist/68JedTH9sxMzAcAaOsu1X5 and We7 – http://www.we7.com/#/album/Kanye-West/My-Beautiful-Dark-Twisted-Fantasy-Explicit-Version
I’ll stick them in the main post now and let’s do that in future too
Gunterthebunter – Wish you’d been on our panel, sitting beside John. We always like a bit of blood on the carpet in our Album Club. Again in fairness to John, he was actually praising Kanye for *not* ghettoising black urban music – the fact alone of casting around for samples from all sorts of genres spoke to an open-mindedness that John found impressive. Plus anyone who invites Elton John in as guest vocalist…
Joe – Funny you should say that. The first four or five times I listened I was pretty blown away. But then it started to shrink on me somewhat, as though the novelty was wearing off. That said, it has grown right back on me over the past few visits. Can’t stop playing Monster at the moment. Am genuinely curious to see how this one’s going to hold up up a year from now.
Jim – Deadly idea, cheers.
for some reason the album actually got reviewed twice in the guardian jim.. kitty empire also gave it a ‘flawed masterpiece’ four-star review.. http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/19/kanye-west-review?INTCMP=SRCH
i’m really just checking in here about this from john connolly over on the album club page..
“And there is something fundamentally ridiculous about a whole lot of white people trying to connect with music that is principally out of the black urban experience.”
absolute, utter, unadulterated nonsense.. i remember as a kid learning how to play guitar, around the age of fourteen or fifteen, being inexplicably drawn to the rhythms and harmonies in twelve bar blues. i knew little of the history about the music, only learning about it over the course of a few years. i don’t remember ‘trying to connect’ with anything (maybe john might term the blues ‘black oppressive experience’?, i just loved the music for what it was. a similar thing happened when discovering gospel tunes here and there. and before long my musical ears were also opened up to soul, funk and various other forms of music of black origin. who can argue with the feel-good headspace of reggae and old-school dub?!
if connolly finds us ‘trying to connect with ‘black urban experience’ ridiculous, fine. his ego is obviously trying to find a way of explaining to himself why he personally doesn’t get it. but he’d do well to remember (i don’t wanna come across like bono here but f*ck it..), young people listening to music of predominantly other cultures will indirectly break down racial barriers. it builds respect for creatives of other cultures and colours and that’s no bad thing at all.
halandor – Kitty Empire’s review was in the Observer, not Guardian. I did think there were 2 Guardian reviews but I could only find the one above and the end of the year we’re-sorry-Yeezy one.
Ahem, you can hear Lost In The World by Cloud Castle Lake on the album stream:
http://www.nialler9.com/2011/01/irish/listen-quompilation-1-irish-artists-covering-favourite-songs-2010/
Has Grooveshark made any other deals with labels like with EMI? It’s still mostly technically illegal right?
Nialler – nice plug dude. Peeps can also hear it at http://soundcloud.com/quarter-inch-collective/sets/quompilation-1/
Re Grooveshark – i read they’ve done some sort of deal with Universal, for a start. I’ve lost count of the number of different yokes like muxtape etc which have come along and were the greatest thing since sliced pan and then disappeared. I mean, I thought Soundcloud was 100% legit, but I got takedown notices before Xmas for a few tracks which had actually come from labels. Again, right hand of record industry doesn’t know left hand is doing.
There’s no blanket licence coverage on Soundcloud so it’s hit and miss, even if you do have label permission which has happened to me about 3 times in the last year.
Nialler – after I got the notice from them did some digging and they did a big purge before Xmas with loads of tracks taken down (especially ones which appeared on mixes for some reason). Weird weird behaviour.
Anyway, back to Yeezy…..
I gave ‘…Twisted Fantasy’ another listen this morning and have to say I prefer Big Boi’s latest offering. Don’t get me wrong, I do think its a very good album, expertly produced (big, big ideas done good) and some of the lyricism is as witty and thought provoking as there is likely to be. But for me, Big Boi crafted an album that left me buzzing, more so than Yeezys. The beats and bleeps on Sir Lucious just did more for me, I do prefer his voice to Kanyes aswell. And I can’t be having Justin Vernon vocodered.
as someone who was quite impressed by MBDTF, but who doesn’t normally much appreciate hip-hop, and only listened to it because all the critics were talking about it, I can see both sides of John Connolly’s controversy-baiting statement (also the elucidation @7 is a good point which I don’t think most people will necessarily take on board).
however, it seems to me there’s a delicious (and possibly deliberate?) irony in using The Wire to describe how “there is something fundamentally ridiculous about a whole lot of white people trying to connect with music that is principally out of the black urban experience.” What’s that TV show about again? And who are the creators? Also, I haven’t seen Treme yet, but doesn’t that make it the televisual equivalent of Kanye’s album?
In my defence here . . . First off, what’s in the paper is a fraction of almost two hours of discussion, so context is rather lost, as indeed is the concept of irony and a spot of deliberate provocation to get the ball rolling on the discussion. So . . . My record collection proudly holds albums by Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, The Last Poets, De La Soul and any number of rap artists, but my point about “inherent ridiculousness” was directed at a very narrow type of white music fan, often young, who chooses to define himself through a single genre of music while not necessarily understanding its roots or, indeed, the source of its anger. There is an unprintable rhyming slang name for such individuals. On the KW album, I actually like about half of it a lot, but, in common with most modern records, it’s too long, it’s overblown, and a
number of songs support Quincy Jones’s view that sampling can become
a “bad habit” if overindulged in. KW is talented, but undisciplined. Still, the world is more interesting for having him in it.
Much like its predecessor, MBDTF is an album I admire rather than like, though its a good deal better than 808s. It’s a magnificent achievement, but kind of hard to love, and nowhere near as fun as his first two records. I always enjoy listening to it, but I can’t say it calls me back to listen to it again and again. In years to come I will probably give it the occasional listen, think “wow, that really was a great album, I should listen to it more” and then not put it on again for years.
And the world is a more interesting place for having you in it, Mr Connolly. Jaysus John. You are never dull!
Oh, and I preferred ’808s & Heartbreak’: more pared down, and less ambitious, but a more genuine, human expression of his talents. And, yes, it’s okay to listen to Springsteen if you’re not from New Jersey, as long as you don’t listen to so much of it that you start believing you are from New Jersey . . .
Who are these white music fans, often young, who choose to define themselves through a single genre of music while not necessarily understanding its roots or, indeed, the source of its anger? Have you quizzed them on their understanding of said roots and anger? What is the pass rate?
@12 ah yeah gotcha.. the online guardian music section conflates with observer music monthly i think..
my two cents on yeezy’s album.. ok so it’s a pop album.. well it’s failed insofar as it hasn’t produced a straight-up radio-conquering song in the vein of say golddigger.. proof of this is his humble singles figures in the states. it didn’t contain a ‘ms jackson’, ‘crazy in love’ or ‘umbrella’ and when we’re talking about monumental pop that’s the sort of tune i’m personally looking for.
@showyourbones
enjoyed big boi’s album too but ill never forgive him that tune with those guys vonnegut, awful.. prob on the whole not as good as yeezy’s effort but it is much better fun to listen to..
@johnconnolly
i kinda realised after my knee-jerk reaction and reading darragh defend you above that he had probably deliberately taken an off-hand comment out of context with the explicit intention of provocation. but if you think it reads ironically, you might want to read it again.
I agree entirely with John’s comments in the original article and also the Guardian review. I’ve never warmed to Kanye’s music: too much gimmickry and samples and not enough soul. It all sounds very sterile to me. Plus he’s an unlikeable, egotistical moron.
@22 Bono syndrome?
@18 The Wire is ‘about’ the decline of an American industrial city.
Just because something has black people in it, it doesn’t mean that’s the theme.
Btw, does Kanye really rap all that much about the ‘black urban experience’ other than to spout the odd conspiracy theory?
I stand to be corrected, but his obsessions seem to be himself, celebrity and relationships.
It’s more the middle-class boy made (very) good experience that I hear.
“He’s an unlikeable, egotistical moron.”
Bullshit. All entertainers have outsized egos. If you think Taylor Swift, or Daniel O’Donnell, or whoever, is still playing the aw shucks card backstage with their assistant then you’re sorely mistaken.
West’s ego is a problem he and, I’d imagine, the people around with have to deal with. Makes fuck all difference to fans though. Phil Spector shot a woman. Michael Jackson was almost certainly a… Well, we all know what Michael Jackson almost certainly was. Doesn’t mean they didn’t make great music.
Chris Martin could raise the dead – I still wouldn’t listen to one of his fucking records.
Halandor – No, not deliberately taken out of context at all. John meant what he said and has more than ably defended the sentiment in his comments above. And damn, it made for a good soundbite.
Quint – Yes, soul. Several people I’ve spoken with have worried that MBDTF is a ‘shower not a grower’. At which point in the conversation Kanye’s massive spend on the project tends to get a mention. Not sure I agree, but I need to live with this album for another few months before really knowing.
as a long time rap fan, kanye doesn’t do it for me. If this latest album is prime time Kanye West, it falls well short of the best of the genre. It’s nowhere near as good as the likes of Public Enemy or Wu Tang or even Notorious BIG at their best.
@26 that’s the historical background, not the subject of the show. which is consistently about black drug-dealers, and the efforts focused on them by the police.
I think the point is that the Wire has universal themes, in relation to systems and capitalist society, as does MBDTF with regard to fame and ego and (perhaps less universally) sex and race, and its great that people can appreciate both those and their particular context; but in both cases there’s a danger of a white audience living vicariously through the experiences of the other, without actually seeing why that particular connection is not valid. of course, the OTR community love to make Wire jokes, so I’m not saying it can’t be fun either, but Kanye puts the important hip-hop idea up front when he points out that there’s an unavoidable element of fantasy to it…
@29 – We at The Ticket are tough on soundbites, tough on the causes of soundbites. Except when they make for a neat, provocative standfirst
Agree with Sean Brody above: Kanye doesn’t seem particularly interested in the classic black urban experience, and neither has he any duty to be, which probably explains why his appeal is wider than, say, that of the very politicized Public Enemy, who have been reduced to seeking donations from the public in order to fund the recording of a new album. Even from the curtailed nature of the article, it’s clear that I find it admirable that he has such Catholic musical tastes, as his samples indicate an affection for, and curiosity towards, a wide variety of music. That’s how music takes new and interesting forms, whether it’s Kanye sampling prog rock in the form King Crimson to the alt-country movement of the 80s combining rock with the classic forms of country music to create their own hybrid. Similarly, it’s great that white people can listen to, and appreciate, black urban music, just as we can listen to Tinariwen alongside Springsteen, as Sean stated earlier. But despite Fergal’s witty questioning above, and allowing for the fact that poor whites have more in common with poor blacks than they do with wealthy whites, you don’t have to spend long in the US to find a small subculture of predominantly young white males who have found in rap music an expression of their own more generalized anger, and who perhaps miss the nuances of character and irony that allow some (not all, for that’s a whole other debate) rappers to take on homophobic and, particularly, misogynistic guises in order to explore those issues as they relate to their own communities, and, in their most extreme forms, end up as caricatures that do little for the reputations of those who appreciate black music and, I suspect, would find themselves unwelcome in most black urban communities. Hence the “ridiculous” comment above.
By the way, this really is an interesting discussion. The Irish Times should hold the next album club in a pub!
fair enough darragh..
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/arts/music/03kanye.html?scp=3&sq=kanye%20west&st=cse
interesting opinion piece worth reading as a contribution to the debate..
Sure he is a divided figure. But thank God for that I say. Look throughout history and you will see that anyone worth anything musically is a conflicting figure. People love or hate famous people and he ha shown enough for people to form an opinion.
Despite all of that he makes some remarkable music so despite what people think of him as a human he can not be disregarded due to his antics. He is continually pushing an increasingly stagnant genre of music and I take my hat firmly off to him. He intrigues, divides and captivates. What else do we want from a modern day pop star?
halandor – Interesting piece, that. >Mr. West has no song in the Top 75 pop singles — “Runaway” is No. 76, and “Monster” is No. 100. “Twisted Fantasy” may become Mr. West’s first album without a Top 10 pop single. Perhaps all the critical love has turned it into a cult album.< I reckon there's more to it than just critical love though. In the discussion Dan McAuley praised the album precisely for its dearth of radio-friendly singles. To pick up on Dan's own film analogy, MBDTF may be asking its listeners to think in terms of a 70-minute aural movie (crap way of putting it, but you know what I mean) rather than a menu of isolated iTuneable tracks. And that's something we always ask our guests when we give them a CD: please don't dip, try to listen from start to finish as often as possible. We're interested in the album as an album. And as an aural movie.
i think it’s a good album, but not great. it’s well-produced, with some great guest turns, but it’s let down by KW’s, as usual, poor delivery, and cringe-worthy lyrics.
take away the guests, and you have an entirely forgettable album.
it doesn’t change anything in hiphop, it has no amazing new ideas, it isn’t a game-changer.
i very much doubt in 10 years it’ll be regarded as a classic, other than among white middle-class critics who usually listen to indie rock.
I have said it once snd I will say it again, Kanye West is hugely overrated. I say that as someone who believe it or not actually likes hip-hop. I am 36 and hip-hop music was what I listened to growing up as I did not like heavy metal, the other mainstay of the ’80s apart from pop. For me, I just like old school rap for example: Dr. Dre, Ice T, Public Enemy, Ice Cube, even Snoop Dog because they had something to say. Clean rappers like Dela Soul where fun to dance to. Now it is all bitches and bling, giant egos. Now I will give credit to Eminem, an artist I was not a fan, but his Recovery Album is really good. On the issue of selling black culture to white people. I am Irish American white as the snow now blanketing the grass here in Philadelphia, when I was coming up rap was political with the artists talking about the plight of the inner cities. Now like every other form of music, shallow.
I think the real problem I have is there is no originality anymore: I think I would have given the album of the year award to Enimem maybe because he reminds me of another white rap act I loved, the Beastie Boys. I am just thankful they did not give the album of the year to Rihanna, talk about recycled shite.
final word on all this really should go to the onion..
http://www.theonion.com/articles/fully-validated-kanye-west-retires-to-quiet-farm-i,18724/
ciaran – ‘i very much doubt in 10 years it’ll be regarded as a classic, other than among white middle-class critics who usually listen to indie rock.’ Good God, man, are you trying to start a row or something?
Jennifer – ‘when I was coming up rap was political with the artists talking about the plight of the inner cities. Now like every other form of music, shallow.’ There was a lively discussion between Orla Tinsley and John C. about the placement of the Gil Scott-Heron piece at the close of the album. Orla felt that Kanye deserved kudos for injecting a note of counter-bling realism (“All I want is a good home and a wife and a children, And some food to feed them every night”), while John found it all a wee bit facile and tokenistic.
I like the idea of a “Frontline” style show (tv/web/radio) based solely on the review of one album complete with artist background, career/genre context and interjected with musical and/or video clips. I’m not sure the format lends itself to the print medium.
I think the album was rightly album of the year and who knows it may even be better than anything that comes out in 2011.
The sonic depths are matchless in my opinion. To enjoy this album one needs to invest in a pair of REAL earphones/headphones.
Very well done Kanye.
Aonghus – I’m with you, a show along those lines would be only brilliant. Instead of racing through a handful of albums, guests could slow down and maintain focus on just the one. We’re trying to do a little bit of that with The Ticket Album Club. Everything but everything is up for discussion, from track sequencing to artwork to the album’s way of growing (or shrinking) over return visits. Without the clock harrying guests on to the next album on the agenda, all sorts of things can be teased out in the course of a relaxed discussion – which is itself a prelude to an open-floor discussion here. As anyone who’s worked in music knows, an inordinate amount of blood, sweat and tears goes into writing, tracking, mixing, mastering and packaging an LP. It can be nice to pay some sort of homage to this labour on the ‘demand’ side of the equation. And from what we’ve been hearing from some of our guests since October, being forced to ‘live with’ just one album, and not necessarily an album from one’s preferred genre(s), can be a surprisingly rewarding experience.
I’m put in mind here of a really good OTR discussion from last July about ‘Slow music and short attention spans’ – http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2010/07/05/slow-music-and-short-attention-spans/#comments
Bo – ‘To enjoy this album one needs to invest in a pair of REAL earphones/headphones.’ Yep, good phones can take things to a whole nother level. Often one of the first things I ask guests is: *how* did you listen to this album?
I’m of the evidently popular opinion that it’s a fantastic piece of work that could have been very slightly trimmed down, i.e. get rid of Chris Rock. Very interesting to see how it has slipped under the radar compared to his other albums. A friend of mine, quite into his rap and hip-hop, recently wondered what had happened to Kanye West. I mentioned that his new album was very, very good, and he seemed aghast that there was even a new album to speak of. As someone has mentioned though, there doesn’t seem to be a “Gold Digger” here, or a “Stronger”, or a “Love Lockdown”, something of almost immediate accessabilty. It reads like a proper “album”, one to be considered as a whole, which is refreshing to see (or hear).
K West is well ahead of the curve at the moment because he s not afraid to look back & utilize what helped make hip hop special in the first place.
3 songs in and i had to turn it off…not my cup of tea….nor is tea ironically.
As singles go Kanye does realise some blinders (just like Muse), but as an album goes I was bored after 3 songs (again just like Muse). Not sure what exactly my argument was but it could not hold my attention for more than three songs, i found it quite repetitive.
“Very interesting to see how it has slipped under the radar compared to his other albums. A friend of mine, quite into his rap and hip-hop, recently wondered what had happened to Kanye West.”
It hasn’t slipped under the radar. The radar has slipped under your friend.
My missus has been rinsing this album non-stop for the last few weeks. It’s killing me now. At the start I wasn’t loving it but didn’t mind it too much. Now the more I hear it the more contrived it seems. Shock-rap for the Irish housewife. My missus has much more sense than to listen to the records i bring home so she’s never really heard any rap outside of the Kanye West demographic. She’d never heard a female rapper until she heard that Nicki Minaj tune on the album. It’s Pop Rap or PRAP as i like to call it.
If it’s your first exposure to this kind of thing it might appear novel or exciting. If you’ve been listening to black rap for more than ten years you might suggest there’s something gimmicky about this latest Kanye album. The truth most likely lies somewhere in between I suppose.
For what its worth I hated that 808 & Heartbreak on the first few listens. Now I think its really good.
G Side Cohesion, amazing album, guardian calling it contender for album of the year, amazing, sso much better then Kanyes latest overproduced effort, unfortunately it wont get the attention it deserves as it doesnt have the machine behind it
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jan/18/new-band-g-dide
Have you heard it Jim?
David – None of our guests really liked the Chris Rock/’Yeezy taught me’ turn either. Shocking.
Caroline – ’3 songs in and i had to turn it off’. Oi, you’re in breach of Article Two of the Album Club Constitution.
The Golden Maverick/Matt Vinyl – ‘Shock-rap for the Irish housewife’. Ouch.