Kanye West- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (****½)

Kanye West and Axl Rose just might be kindred spirits.

Both are rampant egomaniacs, trying to live up to the legacy of their debut albums. Both are prone to very embarrassing, and very public, meltdowns, as well as a taste for the lavish and expensive (Egyptian style chains for Yeezy, music videos with dolphins for Axl).

Funny enough, they even share a love of Nine Inch Nails.

Yet the thing that really binds them together is their legendary perfectionism. Both men labor tirelessly in the studio, leading them towards completely different creation processes and vastly different kinds of public reception. Rose worked sans democracy on Chinese Democracy for 14 years, hiring and firing whomever he saw fit to create (what he believed would be) rock n’ roll’s last great opus. West, on the other hand, took a more inclusive approach on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, coaxing inventive ideas from his co-producers so he could create his hip-hop Sistine Chapel (and doing it in a fraction of the time). Rather than having others fit his mold, West took was interesting about THEIR musical output and applied it to his post-808s renaissance, creating an album that’s destined to be a high art and commercial smash.

As a result, West achieved what Rose could only dream about, a record that balances his need for international acceptance and unmatched grandeur.

West’s Fantasy is all over the place, a 13-track traffic jam of machine gun beats, prog rock pomp, spaced-out drums, Tanqueray-laced soul, and some of hip-hop’s biggest names on the microphone. “Dark Fantasy” kicks things off with a galloping beat, RZA’s spectral, string-laced production, and a gaggle of arresting gang vocals. From here, it just gets stranger. “Gorgeous (Feat. KiD CuDi & Raekwon)” revels in its plodding, doom-drenched bass line, while “Lost In The World (Feat. Bon Iver & Alicia Keys)” is awash with pristine, auto-tune laden atmosphere and dense tribal drumming.

Yet on first listen, Fantasy sounds disarming, and almost feels like overkill.

The long list of guest contributors doesn’t help. Case and point: West enlists no fewer than 11 different people on the spazzed-out, horn infused blast of “All Of The Lights” (For those keeping score at home: Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Fergie, John Legend, The-Dream, Tony Williams, KiD CuDi, Charlie Wilson, Ryan Leslie, and Elly Jackson). On paper, fans will wonder if it’s a gimmick to hide thin music, but the truth is West’s excess never feels stale. Instead, he paints with a master’s touch, always careful to keep the music busy without feeling claustrophobic. Fantasy’s lead single, “Power (Feat. Dwele),” mines everything from military style drumming to electrifying 80s style synthesizers, and still feels like a song rather than a Pro-Tools experiment.

This is why Fantasy operates so efficiently; these pieces are songs first and foremost, rather than a sterile collection of sounds.

Fantasy’s music is incredibly dynamic despite its eclecticism, and provides a vehicle for West and his guests to rhyme with confidence. Though West has never been the most gifted MC, his raps on Fantasy drip with forcefulness. He means what he says, and surrounds himself with expert MCs that share that quality as well. “Monster (Feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)” is a mid-album highlight that features some of the Fantasy’s most twisted wordplay. Over a gurgling, swampy beat, West (“I’m living in the future/So the present is my past/My presence is a present/Kiss my ass…”) and Minaj (“Pink wig/Thick ass/Give ‘em whiplash/I think big/Get cash/Make ‘em blink fast…”) steal the show, each one double daring the other to take their rhymes to another level. That sense of vocal sportsmanship has largely been lost in mainstream hip-hop, and it’s refreshing to hear these performers try to resurrect it on Fantasy.

Still, for as great an ensemble effort as the album can be, West makes it clear that this is about HIS beautiful, dark, twisted, fantasy, keeping up with the raw emotionalism and introspection fans heard on 808s & Heartbreak.

This time, however, West does not isolate himself in a compressed prison. He parades his flaws and fears on Fantasy, which range from his celebrity bravado (“Runaway (Feat. Pusha T)”), his impulsive nature (“Hell Of A Life”), and his fear of feeling powerless (“Lost In The World”). On “Blame Game (Feat. John Legend)” West even goes so far as to share fault with his scorned lover (“On a bathroom wall I wrote/‘I'd rather argue with you/Than to be with someone else…’”), providing the background for his feelings, but never a justification.

He leaves that up to his listeners.

That’s the biggest change here, and an important one. Fans are treated to a new kind of Kanye West, one that’s aware of the context he finds himself inhabiting, and one who succeeds where Axl Rose would fail. Ever since the Taylor Swift incident, West has realized an overblown sense of entitlement made his career a difficult one to sustain. On Fantasy, West has found a way convey his ideas by showing us, not telling us. He chronicles his pitfalls in vivid honesty, displaying how he was seduced towards self-destruction by his fame, his desires, and his ego. Masterfully, in one fell swoop, he gets listeners to empathize without being exploitative, something a Jay Leno interview could never grant him.

All in all, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy finds Kanye West using his illusions correctly. He lets his chopped, skewed, baroque, and cinematic take on hip-hop do the talking for him. Unlike Axl Rose who might have responded 14 years too late, Kanye West got the last word on his critics. He told us “I’mma let you finish…,” and when the media was done, he dropped an album that finds him artistically and emotionally unmatched by his hip-hop peers.

Key Cuts: Dark Fantasy, Power, Monster (Feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)

Sounds Like: Intimacy (Bloc Party), The Blueprint (Jay-Z), 8 Diagrams (Wu-Tang Clan)

Click on the artwork to sample My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for yourself!

Two Discs/Two Singles

Let's get down to business time, shall we?

How To Destroy Angels- How To Destroy Angels E.P. (***½)
It was rough to see the Internet collectively freak out at Trent Reznor’s recent marriage and “final” string of shows for Nine Inch Nails. Though it was understandable why: People didn’t want the world’s most dangerous musician suddenly writing songs about being middle-aged. If nothing else, the How To Destroy Angels E.P. rectifies that, but without taking a big leap forward in Reznor’s artistic canon. It’s reminiscent of the spacious soundscapes and electronic blips of Ghosts I-IV, but with less of an exploratory feel and more of a compact edge. In fact, HTDA can feel downright funky at times, the crawling bass and pulsing glitch of “Parasite” almost feeling like a warped pop song. Mariqueen Maandig Reznor also adds an interesting touch to these arrangements, her Amy Lee-like croon adding a hint of sexuality that NIN could never really pull off subtly. Yet the E.P.’s stand out is the piano laden haze fest “A Drowning,” expertly displaying the happy couple making depressing music with each other.

Key Cuts: The Space In Between, Parasite, A Drowning


Stone Temple Pilots- Stone Temple Pilots (**)
Since 1992’s dark and chunky masterpiece Core, the Stone Temple Pilots have been a band suffering from diminishing returns. Each album they put out seems to contain less and less bite, and have made us value Scott Weiland less and less as a lyricist. While Weiland briefly rediscovered his seductive wild side with Velvet Revolver’s Contraband, the honeymoon didn’t last but one more record, pushing his mainstay band back together for another bland offering. As it is, Stone Temples Pilots is a tired exercise in processed riff rock, a fangless 12 tracks that never really pushes the band’s talents. Weiland’s cockier-than-thou attitude never inspires danger so much as it inspires irritation, his metaphors opting for saccharine clichés over gritty introspection. Sure, the album has its share of fun moments (The big harmonies on “Huckleberry Crumble,” the acoustic thump of “Bagman”) but they feel tailor-made for top 40. Though if history is any indication, that means the Stone Temple Pilots are right where they’d like to be.

Key Cuts: Between The Lines, Huckleberry Crumble, Bagman


Kanye West- Power (Feat. Dwele) (*****)
Love him or hate him, the world needs Kanye West right now. He’s the only super star capable of balancing both eclectic genius with ADD branding, whether or not you liked his editorials at award shows. His new single, “Power” is yet another exciting musical buffet featuring a scattered beat, soulful samples, a smorgasbord of 80s snyths, as well as a delicate sprinkling of classical piano. It’s daring and reckless while other artists are attempting to streamline themselves, and it further displays West’s gifts as a composer. Concordantly, it builds the Kanye West mythos as a musical Michaelanglo with a troubled ego, and that excites us as well. Think about this: If Jay-Z dropped “Power,” do you think we’d all still care if it sampled King Crimson? Probably not. THAT, is true power in and of itself.


Weezer- Represent (*)
Oh Rivers, we get it. You like soccer, the world likes soccer, and for this summer, America likes soccer too. Unfortunately, there’s something that we, as Weezer listeners, don’t like: Bone-head stadium songs. And as hit or miss as Weezer’s recent output has been, “Represent” is a frustrating beast at best. It’s a soupy mess of shout outs, liberal amounts of auto-tune, and big booming bass. On the whole, “Represent” does a better job at representing River’s eternal quest to bottle up pop grandeur than it does to capture the group’s voice. Still, you get what you pay for: The song is free on iTunes, perhaps making it clear to die-hard Weezer fans that this doesn’t totally represent them as musicians. I wonder if they let Rivers in on that joke.

Kanye West- 808s & Heartbreak (****)

It’s already being said, but I might as well reiterate it: 808s & Heartbreak is Kanye West’s Kid A.

Much like the daring and adventurous Radiohead, West has crafted an album that has succeeded in A) A complete stylistic overhaul, and B) Acts as an incredibly astute observation on pop/consumer culture as well as what it means to be a human being in 2008. Stripping his sound away from the old school soul that marked his first two releases and the Daft Punk trickery of Graduation, West has coalesced his love for the T808 drum machine and Auto-Tune (Of T-Pain fame) into the most introspective pop record in the past decade.

From the Clockwork Orange-like opening of “Say You Will” listeners are greeted to a vastly different artist than the sarcastic up-and-comer that gave us “Gold Digger.” The track plods along with sparse electro beeps and blips, as ominous backing vocals and spaced-out drums provide the backbone for West’s digitized croon. His voice dips and dives, exploring loss with lines like, “Wish this song would really come true/I admit I still fantasize about you...about you…”

While much has been said about West’s singing (Pre AND Post Auto-Tune) the concept he’s working with is an interesting one. 808s’ use of Auto-Tune was incorporated to mimic the feeling of “heartbreak.” Against thick smashing beats and descending synthesizers “Welcome To Heartbreak” finds West questioning the value of the mountain he’s so desperately wanted to climb. It’s a dicey move, mimicking the banality of pop culture with a vocoder as he laments on how, “My friend showed me pictures of his kids/And all I could show him were pictures of my cribs…”

To the casual fan, it might seem as though Kanye’s copping out to follow the bandwagon, but his somber lyrics make one delve a bit deeper than the compressed surface. 808s & Heartbreak is decidedly sparse, evoking the emptiness West sees in pop culture as well as his own life, losing both his fiance and mother in the same year. Yet for as grim and cold as the record is, it’s certainly not bereft of hooks.

“Love Lockdown” has been screaming Top 40 since its leak earlier this year. And with good reason, the killer hook of, “I’m not lovin’ you/The way I wanted to/What I had to do/Had to run from you…” simply implants itself into your brain without mercy. Through the track, West’s voice goes through some surprising changes, velvety smooth one moment and digitally crunchy the next. His R&B delivery works alongside the minimalist beat and Chopsticks-inspired piano, rather than fighting with it, as “Love Lockdown” eventually grows into a dense tribal crescendo.

Elsewhere, “Amazing (Feat. Young Jeezy)” is a cocky romp through click-clacky beats, pulsing dance grooves, and jaunt piano as the chorus swells with swirling backing vocals. All the while, West’s compressed vocals come across fluidly as he sings, “No matter what/You'll never take that from me/My reign is as far/As your eyes can see…” Almost operatic in scope, “Amazing” proves that West still has an ear for melody despite being bogged down with all the aforementioned *ahem* heartbreak.

Yet if there is one area where 808s hiccups, it’s in the fact that West isn’t a gifted singer.

His delivery sometimes comes off awkwardly, some of his hooks missing the mark and feeling forced. And for a star that made his bread and butter rapping, it’s striking to see West push his voice this way. The album’s true miss is the overly goofy synth-pop of “Paranoid (Feat. Mr. Hudson).” Owing much to the 80s as West’s influences often do, it’s a disaster of trite lyrics and half staccato rapping, set to saccharine electro melodies.

Being that this is a pop record, it’s the only track that succumbs to the genre’s propensity to feel overly manufactured. Still, this is but a minor distraction to the ideas and sounds West is working with. The wistful “Street Lights” is over before it really takes off, but West’s pained voice is expertly set against a backdrop of fleeting electronics, syrupy backing vocals, and thumping beats.

Say what critics will about 808s & Heartbreak’s minimalist approach to music, West can still craft exciting and dynamic arrangements.

For this look no further than the album’s incredible stand out, “RoboCop.” The track’s relentless beat underscores a fleet of rich strings and West’s robotic vocals. It’s impressive as the track climbs, erupting in mechanized sound bites and a fluttering back beat. Accentuated with twinkling chimes and West’s soundtrack ready strings, there’s no doubt that listeners will revel West’s often geeky parallels in referring to his cold lover as, “That girl from Misery…” If nothing else, “RoboCop’s” indulgent tendencies remind us that there is a human face to the cold austere of 808s & Heartbreak and that’s precisely why this record succeeds.

Kanye West, while providing listeners with a sterile atmosphere, has given us and incredibly personal and human album. 808s & Heartbreak has a soul, despite the instrumentation, and doesn’t get lost behind it’s compression like so many others records in the pop and hip-hop genre’s today.

And with a record such as this under his belt, it’s refreshing to think that the sky’s the limit for Mr. West, despite his broken heart.

Sounds Like: Graduation (Kanye West), Invincible (Michael Jackson), Kid A (Radiohead)

Key Cuts: Amazing (Feat. Young Jeezy), Love Lockdown, RoboCop

Click on the artwork to sample some of 808s & Heartbreak for yourself!