My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Kanye, 2010. After the VMAs backlash he went to Hawaii and came back with his most ambitious album.
The comeback setup
After he interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs, Kanye was the most hated man in music. He left the country for a while, then set up in a studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, with a rotating crew of producers, rappers and singers. The goal was simple: make something so good people had to talk about the music again.
GOOD Fridays
In the months before release, he gave away a new song every Friday for free. Fans treated each one like an event. It was a rollout strategy years before everyone else did it.
The album
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out on November 22, 2010. It's huge and maximalist: choirs, orchestras, rock samples, and songs about fame, ego and self-destruction.
- "Power" is built on a sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man".
- "Monster" has Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Bon Iver, and a Nicki Minaj verse that a lot of people call the best guest verse ever.
- "Runaway" got a 35-minute film, directed by Kanye.
The reviews
Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10.0, which it almost never does for new albums. The cover, a painting by artist George Condo, was considered too graphic by some stores, so alternate covers were made.
Pop quiz
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