“Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh?” he leers on “Can we get much higher?” a voice whoops on the stage-setting “Dark Fantasy.”

West dives into the deep end of decadence and hedonism on the new album. Multimillion-dollar recording budget and every indulgence at his Now he’s one of the world’s biggest stars, with a Minimum- wage retail clerk who rapped about his life with frankness and On his 2004 debut album, “The College Dropout,” the blue-collar, West is a long way from the character he portrayed Opulence and emptiness, a meditation on the disconnect between theĪrtist’s intent and the public’s perception. Much of the album has that feel, a collision of Verses, oddly triumphant and darkly humorous during the choruses. It’s a turbulent combination of sounds: brooding and chastened in the Section like a drunk, splattering mud on the white-tablecloth beauty. With elegiac violins, while a dirty guitar wends through the string

Melancholy, reverberating piano notes, while a deep, mushrooming bass The music mirrors that complexity.Ī midtempo funky-drummer beat glides underneath the Wedding, the song plays as an apology, a warning and a defiant Ostensibly sung by a groom to his new bride at a Let’s have a toast for the scumbags,” he sings, before advising, “Run Guests to raise a glass: “Let’s have a toast for the douche bags. He hammers out aįew notes, then stands teetering atop the piano, while asking his White and a group of ballet dancers in black tutus. Piano between an opulent banquet table filled with guests dressed in

InĪn elaborate video for the song, West positions himself at an upright Perhaps only West could turn all the hatred that hasīeen directed at him into “Runaway,” a surreal nine-minute anthem. But that transparency makes “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” a terrific album. What makes him so off-putting - his almost pathological allegiance toĮxpressing his emotions, unfiltered - is also what makes him soīecause of West’s let-it-blurt bluntness, he is definitely not getting a Christmas card this year from either Taylor Swift or former President George W. Twisted Fantasy” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam), he owns his contradictions. On his fifth studio album, “My Beautiful Dark He has made some of the decade’s most resonant, ambitious pop music. It’s sometimes easy to overlook, given that Kanye WestĬan’t seem to go three months without being written off as a jerk, but KANYE WEST “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” 3 1/2 stars

Kanye west dark fantasy piano cover