Kanye West: the man, the myth, the walking dissertation on self‑importance. I think he did a song called Gold Digger about 20 years ago — that’s the extent of my expertise here. What I do know is that his portfolio includes a complicated relationship with religion, some “creative” political takes, and an ego so large it’s probably eligible for its own zip code. Still, I can’t deny the dude's influence.
Here’s the terrifying part — I’m genuinely afraid I might like this album. There’s a slim chance this masterpiece everyone swears by could actually be a masterpiece, which means I’ll have to start respecting a man who once declared himself a god in sunglasses. So I’ve cleared my schedule, muted Twitter, and lowered my standards like a responsible adult. Here we go — deep into My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
Dark Fantasy
We open with the kind of British monologue that instantly makes you feel underdressed — elegant woman, cryptic tone, possibly reading from an ancient IKEA scroll. Then, out of nowhere, a digital choir erupts. It’s lush, dramatic, and drowning in auto‑tune so thick it could stop a bullet. And then we get Kanye just repeating Yeah over and over, almost hesitantly, like he can’t figure out where to come in or what he’s going to say. And then the beat drops — finally, solid, heavy, and honestly pretty killer.
He announces himself as the Chicago Kid made good, referencing eighties television and nostalgia like he’s diagnosing his own childhood trauma. The hook — “Can we get much higher?” — floats above the mix in glorious irony. It’s grand, overstuffed, ambitious — very Kanye. It took 10 writers and 5 producers, and against every natural instinct, I kind of like it.
Gorgeous (feat. Kid Cudi & Raekwon)
Only nine writers this time, I hope the quality doesn’t suffer.. “Gorgeous” opens with distorted, fuzzy guitar and drums that thump. For a moment, it’s pure Curtis Mayfield revival: warm, funky, perfect. Then Kanye starts rapping, and suddenly it’s like the store PA system interrupted my vibe to announce a cleanup in aisle five. His vocal mix loud and shrill, standing right on top of everything else, shouting its resumé while the music quietly weeps underneath.
The groove holds. Kid Cudi, Raekwon, and that syrupy background harmony glide over the fuzz like a velvet glove full of attitude. If Kanye had just stepped aside for ten seconds, this track could’ve been pure magic — slow, sultry, timeless. Instead, it becomes a gorgeous near‑miss, which ironically makes the title accurate.
POWER
Fourteen writers. Four producers. A creative committee the size of a small school district. “Power” opens with claps straight out of Hey Mickey, followed by backup singers who sound like they’re cheering at a motivational seminar. The drums thump and burst as our cheerleader group continues to add uh huhs and yeahs above Kanye telling people to kiss his ass, or more specifically his asshole. This is so dumb. Nobody cares about your beefs dude. Awe, poor millionaire feels he was wronged when he did dumb shit. News at 11.
Speaking of news at 11, yesterday, I was watching the local news and saw a report on a cargo van full of nuns, seventy miles outside Pueblo, their van broke down in the middle of nowhere. Not a cellphone tower in sight, just twelve holy sisters, a 5‑gallon bucket of Vaseline, and a broken down Econoline.
After twenty minutes of roadside prayer, a midget mime troupe on tour for the Silent But Deadly arts and knives festival pulls up in this tiny little tour van — seven of them, all silent, and annoyed because their van has a Nickelback CD stuck in the stereo. So, it’s Nickleback or nothing for the little people. They all pile out of the van to help the nuns. First of all, so much black and white clothing. And, the the stranded nuns only spoke Spanish, so they exchange a series of interpretive gestures with the mime troupe, and in their own pure artistic confusion, assume they’re being asked to lubricate the engine.
Now, you’ve never truly experienced divine chaos until you’ve seen a group of mimes, covered head to toe in Vaseline, jumping in and out of the engine compartment of a Ford Econoline van while three nuns harmonize Bad Bunny songs and one just keeps shouting instructions at the mimes that they couldn’t understand.
When the tow truck finally arrived, it refused service due to an OSHA Spiritual Contamination rule. But, the van started right up afterward — turned out, it was just a little vapor lock.
Anyway, in Power he rattles off a bunch of movie titles and drops Obama's name for some reason. He brags about drinking and driving because...art or something.
This is all so dumb. I don’t think I can come up with anything else for this song. Fourteen human beings collaborated on a song that basically says, “I’m awesome, and you’re not.”
OMG, some production stuff, some lyrics stuff, hahahahahahahah. I can’t...Next song!
All of the Lights (Interlude + Song)
The interlude starts with a little piano and string moment — elegant, delicate, completely out of place, like a swan stumbling into a monster‑truck rally. Then the interlude is over and horns crash in, fake‑brass glory, and we’re back to the world of Auto‑Tuned angels and aggressive optimism.
Once the beat settles, Rihanna arrives to give this track actual dimension, her voice floating above Kanye’s grunting and barking like a silk scarf tied to a leaf blower. It’s chaotic, vibrant, and undeniably catchy. There are flashes of brilliance — the stuttering percussion, the bright synth runs — but also the unmistakable energy of someone insisting on being profound while wearing a MAGA hat. This might be the album’s poppiest triumph, though it sounds like it’s two whiskey shots away from Gary Busey.
Monster (feat. JAY‑Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)
From the first grimy chord, “Monster” feels like the audio equivalent of a haunted basement — muddy, echoing, a little wet. Kanye declares everyone knows he’s a monster, which, fine, but maybe save the confession for therapy. The beat, though? Perfection. Heavy, creeping, cinematic. Eleven writers somehow found one consistent idea: menace.
Then the guests show up. Jay‑Z arrives halfway through like a man who just remembered his verse on the drive over. Rick Ross says very little but means even less. And then Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver. It’s all cartoonish and stereotyped performance. Except for the Bon Iver part, what the actual fuck was that?
So Appalled
A stuttering drum machine and Xerox copier lay down an interesting beat as Kanye starts speaking like he’s dictating an email. The whole thing feels like luxury ennui — you can practically hear the disappointment echoing through his marble kitchen while he complains that success isn’t as emotionally fulfilling as he hoped. Kanye complains that the whole world is fucking rediculous. I know Kanye, the world is so unfair for millionaires. Jay‑Z steps up to contribute his own collection of grievances about being adored by millions while having more money than some countries. Pusha T chimes in and then someone named Prynce Cy Hi appears sounding like his verse was recorded on a Bluetooth speaker in an Uber.
This is all so fucking ridiculous, indeed Kanye.
9 writers for this?
Devil in a New Dress (feat. Rick Ross)
Some retro Supremes style vocals over far away strings, and my favorite -- FAKE VINYL RECORD CRACKLE. Can we just stop with this? Nobody wants their vinyl to sound like someone was using it for a dinner plate.
I can’t, the crackle is too much noise. I’m skipping this one.
Runaway (feat. Pusha T)
“Runaway” begins with a single, fragile piano note that repeats like an alarm clock on Saturday. Then Kanye raises a glass to the jerkoffs, assholes, douchebags, scumbags, etc. of the world.
8 writers and 4 producers. I don’t get it. I feel like with this many writers, there would be something great here. What's the point? And then I remember what I’m listening to. . It’s confessional, vulnerable, and mostly kind of dumb, which is a fascinating combination.
Near the end some fuzz guitar, piano, and a string quartet pop up and its genuinely good. If the whole album was this with the beats that have been used on some of these songs, this would be something profound and different. I was worried when I saw the 9 plus minute runtime of this song, but this ending makes it all worth it. I might crop out just this section and add it to my playlists.
Hell of a Life
Somewhere between a 1990s robot nightmare and a bachelor‑party mixtape, this one bursts in with pulsing synths and kick drums that sound busier than a one legged cat in a litter box.
But, there is some texture here — cool melodies, strange swing — but Kanye spends the whole track turning sexual energy into an obstacle course. We go from heavy groove to lyrical cringe in record time.
He starts asking if she’s “into gangbangs or anal,” and just when you think it can’t devolve further, he rewrites the Iron Man riff with new words about said gangbangs and anal. The instruments keep me listening though. There are some synth layers that really shimmer like ghosts of better taste.
Blame Game (feat. John Legend)
John Legend opens this one crooning through soft piano fog, sounding like he’s performing in the world’s fanciest cry for help. For twenty glorious seconds, it feels like we might have wandered into an album with emotional depth. Then Kanye strolls in, his voice drenched in reverb and wounded pride, immediately derailing the grown‑up energy.
They trade verses about romantic sabotage, one said lovingly, the other angrily, each dripping with regret. It’s halfway beautiful, halfway petulant journal entry. Then, in a move only Kanye could justify, Chris Rock appears near the end to deliver a full‑blown stand‑up routine for no apparent reason at all.
Lost in the World / Who Will Survive in America
Auto‑tuned Bon Iver greets us like a malfunctioning angel at a digital gate. It’s hypnotic — voices stacked to the ceiling, drums pounding like a panic attack on loop. This is the sound of a computer learning sorrow. The production is gigantic; the heart, mechanical. Kanye weaves verses about fame, loneliness, and self‑deification until the track nearly combusts from all the grandeur.
Then it slides directly into Who Will Survive in America, a sample sermon thundering over the same beat, closing the album like a question no one asked. It’s poetic, heavy, and somehow still feels like a commercial for sneakers. Grand finale? Sure. Resolution? Nope. By this point, I’m just marveling at the audacity. Nobody does uninspired spiritual exhaustion quite like Kanye West.
Wrap‑Up
And that, dear friends, was My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy — or as I like to call it, The Sistine Chapel of Self‑Promotion. It’s grand, overproduced, ridiculous, and disposable. This isn’t an album so much as a group session. Seriously, I’m pretty sure this thing has more writers than the Bible.
Lyrically? It’s chaos rhymes about fame, resentment, and carnal obsession. Sonically? It’s astonishingly well‑built. For every track that crashes me into laughter, there’s another that almost touches grace. That’s the paradox of Kanye West: a man who can give you Runaway’s beautiful outro one minute, and “gangbangs and anal” the next. You don’t listen to him to feel better about music; you listen to remember that art and arrogance are apparently roommates.
So where does it land? I give this one two writers out of fourteen, mostly for the drum programming and the courage to be this aggressively oblivious. It’s a beautiful mess — a diary scrawled in neon, equal parts interesting and cringe. Maybe this is the future of art: everyone building monuments to themselves and calling it vulnerability.