Kanye West, Monster
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010)
I was going to put LCD Soundsystem's This Is Happening on here, but Kanye took them out at the last minute. I liked the LCD Soundsystem album more when it first came out, probably because I figured I should. While it's got some fun, cool songs, I kind of think that if you've heard one LCD Soundsystem song, you've heard them all: they start out with minimal techno beats that run for a minute or two, and then as the song goes on, more and more layers come in while James Murphy waxes clever about all sorts of things while the music gets more frenetic.
So it's pretty good for what it is, but it's not in my Top Ten. I've been resisting putting Kanye West on my list because when The College Dropout came out in 2004 and topped critics' lists, I went out and bought it and was totally underwhelmed. This year, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy has been popping up as number one all over the place so about I month ago I picked it up. I didn't want to like it because I was afraid if I did, that meant I probably missed something with The College Dropout. Well, I guess I'm going to have to see if I can find that CD because yesterday when I was listening to this album for the hundredth time, I figured it had to go on the list.
I've been listening to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy a lot since I got it (it is a really good treadmill companion), and the more I listen, the more I realize that Kanye is just plain crazy, but in a good way. Like in the way he stood there with Mike Myers and after rambling on for awhile said George W. Bush didn't like black people--still one of the funniest, most randomly bizarre, yet presciently accurate moments ever.
As I said before, I'm usually not much for hip-hop or rap, and I'm not familiar with all of Kanye West's stuff. But this CD has all kinds of cool music, samples, and just weird ass lyrics. I enjoy it quite a bit more than I expected it to, and every time I listen to it, I hear something new. I don't know if Kanye West is worth all the hype, but he might be.
3 comments:
You dig the Kanye? I'll have to check it out. Going back to what you said about him being crazy, Sheree and I think that he's probably a lot like Tracy Jordan from 30 Rock in real life.
Yeah, dude, I really like this one. I didn't like his first couple at all, but for some reason, this one really caught my ear.
And I think you guys are dead on with the Tracy Jordan comparison. You'll think so even more after listening to this album.
I'm not a HUGE hip-hop guy, either. But, same way as you, this album grabbed me. For some reason, I liked what Kanye had to say
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