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Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

So how do you follow the worst album of your often celebrated career? Smack everyone in the fucking mouth with your bona fide best album. As much as it pains me to admit it -- Kanye's latest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is a solid effort that far exceeds...
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So how do you follow the worst album of your often celebrated career? Smack everyone in the fucking mouth with your bona fide best album. As much as it pains me to admit it -- Kanye's latest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is a solid effort that far exceeds any expectations. Good music is what it is -- regardless of one's perception of that particular musician. Better put, Fantasy is fantastic, even if Kanye can be an insufferable ass.

What the rest of the critics are saying:

Rolling Stone: "There's a famous story about Queen making "Bohemian Rhapsody": Whenever the band thought the song was finished, Freddie Mercury would say, "I've added a few more 'Galileos' here, dear." But nobody can out-Galileo Kanye. With Fantasy, he makes everybody else on the radio sound laughably meek, but he's also throwing down a challenge to the audience."

Spin: "But West isn't claiming to be flawless anymore. He's trying to make a masterpiece. Trying to be honest with us. Trying to be honest with himself. Trying to figure out if he's closer to God or to something else entirely. Far more important than his aim, however, is the fact that he tries at all."

New York Times: "And of course there's the music, decidedly moody yet crisp, with dense orchestration juxtaposed against scraped-up drums and samples. Often the songs sound like two ideas, one glossy and one raw, superimposed on each other. And Mr. West finds different ways to sound phenomenal."

Pitchfork: "Like Michael [Jackson], Kanye's behavior-- from the poorly planned outbursts to the musical brilliance-- is wide-eyed in a way that most 33 year olds have long left behind. That naivety is routinely battered on Twisted Fantasy, yet it survives, better for the wear. With his music and persona both marked by a flawed honesty, Kanye's man-myth dichotomy is at once modern and truly classic."

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is out now via Def Jam. Got 34 minutes to kill? Then please enjoy Kanye West's video/film for "Runaway:"

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