#album 42

[anyways-wonderwall]

Album of the Week #42

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

(2010)

by Kanye

Overall Rating: 8/10

TL;DR: I know I’m not original in saying this is good but it is!! This is what people are referencing when they say Kanye is talented!

(I really hate when an album cover has like 10 iterations because then I can't figure out what the original is. I think this one the best though 8/10)

Typing on my laptop has become so associated with schoolwork that I have been putting off writing this for weeks :/. Also Kanye just keeps doing stuff, although honestly I think its a lost cause to try and wait that out. 

Overall Thoughts

I mean nothing I’m going to say here is new, this is one of the most celebrated albums of the 2010s, and I’m not the first to say that I agree with that. This isn’t going to be an Anthony Fantano contrarian review, I genuinely really enjoyed this album. I grew up on his early 2000s stuff and I’m really glad I fed into the hype and listened to this. Its just so confusing how someone so talented can be a terrible, crazy person. 

Anyways, that’s not saying anything specific about the album! The thing that really stuck out to me is how incredible the instrumental tracks are on each of these songs. Most of them are amazing on their own and I could care less about what Kanye is doing, some of them are super monotonous and you get the point pretty early and are ready to move on (“Power”, “Devil in a New Dress”). I particularly loved the electric guitar parts of most of the songs, especially in “Gorgeous” and “Hell of a Life”. 

Okay I have to talk about the second one in more detail. The chorus is the riff from “Iron Man” played with a dirty grunge guitar and Kayne singing over it “no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all i need”??? I’m sorry but that is the funniest thing to hear over “Iron Man”. So true Ye!! So true! This is what Black Sabbath meant!

There are a lot of really funny lines in this album, another one of my favorites being “if god had an ipod id be on his playlist”. That is such a funnily dated line that is a purely Kanye level of confidence. He’s to the point and honest, I like that. (another banger line is “Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh? Ah, put the pussy in a sarcophagus,” what the hell does this mean??) This album also features Nicki Minaj’s famous “Bad bitch from Sri Lanka line” so I feel like that’s enough to know that this is an important piece of culture. 

Besides these funny little one offs, the lyrics in this album are really good. Its a great album about reclaiming America and what it means to be American for African Americans (crazy since he just got in trouble for doing a bunch of white lives matter stuff) and it does a great job of keeping this theme under all the silly stuff. It features a talent cast of characters from Rick Ross to John Legend and they add a lot of flavor to the songs they are on. This album is wonderful at sounding cohesive without being repetitive, something I feel like is hard for albums to do (especially if I’m only listening to them a few times). 

My favorite song off of the album was probably “Blame Game”, with an amazing piano and bass backing track that I could listen to for hours (which is good because this song is a whopping 7:50). John Legend is there but doesn’t sing and turn the song into a durge, and the end is just a comedy bit from Chris Rock that I cannot get sick of listening to. Some random reviewer said that “i have to make sure you know this is personal” which makes the whole bit funnier because its about a women getting better at sex because of yeezy. I didn’t know that Kanye made stuff like this and this song alone made me so happy I chose this album. 

Final Verdict

Listen even if you haven’t heard this album you’ve certainly heard of it and know “POWER” since it is played at every American sports game. I’m not going to be the first person to tell you to listen to this album but I stand by that it’s a great one. It is important to note though that I think it’s best as an album unit it, the only song I would really listen to outside of this context is “Blame Game”. But you should listen to it anyways because after all, who doesn’t want to hear about pussy to the tune of Black Sabbath?

[stellomiacis]

Those who are dead are not dead, they’re just living in my head.

[jennsterjay]

Can you imagine the chaos that would be Miles G and Peni interacting?

Like when Miles G joins the group to help fight the Spot for the big finale and he just kind of shuffles himself to the back of the group and Peni is there

And they both look at each other with resting depressed / bitch face and size each other up and scrutinize each other's tech and gear with their eyes and then at the same time they look at each other and say

"Huh... cool"

And then during the fight with The Spot, the whole time they're asking each other questions about each other's tech while attacking and dodging effortlessly because they're cool like that, and they get so engrossed in their tech conversations that the fight becomes more of an annoying background thing so they just lock in and do joint team duo attacks to help Miles so they can wrap up the fight and get back to their conversation on hydraulics faster

And after the group wins the fight and Hobie makes everyone secret watches- oh its so over

They both just drop into each other's dimensions at random times of the day and help each other with whatever tech or engine or weapon or gizmo or what have you and create the most tech thing ever that even regular Spider-Man villians couldn't understand

Miles G teaches Peni about present day tech (which is old tech to her) and Peni teaches Miles G about her present day tech (which is future tech to him) and they gain a wider understanding of the origins and mechanics of past and future tech and now with this knowledge they learn to build anything (Miguel has ranked them higher on the 'people to watch' list again) and Margo is involved in their shenanigans too.

They get into discussions about dubbed vs subbed anime, and Peni reintroduces Miles G to My Chemical Romance. Miles G is vibing with it, and Rio is entertained because Miles G has randomly entered his 'No one understands me' phase again

These two dimension hop to 1610B every other week just to go to the arcade house and kill it in some Dance Dance Revolution. They invite the others later (Miles: So you just invited me after you already did stuff without me in my dimension??).

They watch Big Hero Six together, and immediately try to figure out how to make those little magnet things (they do it in a day) and help each other upgrade Sp//dr with Baymax related protocols they like

Peni helps Miles upgrade his own suit of course and it gets the coolest most badass design known to man, his mask can translate 1000 different languages, has built in 'prowler-sense' to detect danger, and God knows what else and Kingpin, Doc Ock, Scorpion, Lizard, and the rest of the Sinister Six and related villians are baffled because they have no idea how someone could've built or manufactured a suit like that on their own (and they can't replicate it).

Eventually they become so airtight that they just start chillin and talking to each other in Spanish and Japanese and they both understand each other and meanwhile the others in the Spiderband Ensemble (Miles and the others) are wracking their brains trying to figure out how they defeated over 20,000 villians on their own over the past year with just the two of them, and how they have 3 successful self published mangas about their Ocs together in 3 different dimensions

[sometimesiwritethings]

figured i'd go ahead and share what i've been working on instead of Yeosang's incredibly late birthday fic time is a social construct from which i'm completely divorced

[prolibytherium]

Does anyone know what the instrument(s?) most prominent from 2:22-2:52 is. I love these noises

[reds1981]

you literally can take it pretty far on a prayer that’s pale and synthetic bending my crowbar with tension that’s telekinetic a paradox poetic you get choked up reading the classics your pride will take a gluttonous bite - it’s a stupid question I’d rather not ask it

[helenofblackthorns]

wait I just realised Jace is 19 here

[newwave-lesbian]

they can give you swag OR they can give you class.....

[glittergroovy]

[oopsl]

BRAT by Nnamdi, 2020

[mrsterlingeverything]

Im still marinating on my st vincent album review... my main takeaway was i liked it but it felt very short

[vampryn]

they put hesitation marks on spotify a bit ago this is not a drill

[looselipssinkships-x]

Having run to both MANIA and Take This To Your Grave i have thoughts (these are just my opinions and if you have opinions too id love to hear them):

- structurally, mania is an excellent album to run to, starting high energy and then maintaining a steady strong pulse through the mid album songs

- several songs on tttyg start very similarly, which isn't bad, but does make it hard for me to judge how far i am/how much i have left of the album (this could also just be me)

- mania has a much clearer order of songs

- tttyg would be an absolute banger of an album to run to when my mood is so high i feel giddy and excited inside

- tttyg has a lot of songs where they play with tempo within the individual song, which is fun, but confuses my feet

**i think i had more to say but i am currently very tired and don't remember them

- sending postcards from a plane crash is very fun to sing along to sprinting down a hill

- the "whoo"s in church are likewise very fun to let out, usually at the point in my run where im wondering why the hell i do this