November 2010
“MBDTF is one of the few modern hiphop albums I’m certain our kids will listen to in 20 years.”
—Toure via Twitter
If Taylor Swift was never born I would be listening to Good Ass Job right now.
If Mama West never dies, “Good Ass Job” would have been out 2 years ago.
A Few Observations About "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy".....
- The first thing I noticed upon listening the first round was through the linear notes and how frequent Mike Dean’s name came up with each song. Here are his contributions to MBDTF (I must find and thank this man):
“Dark Fantasy”: Additional production, recorded, mixed, Cello & Piano.
“Gorgeous”: Co-producer, recorded & Guitar solo
“Power”: Additional production, Guitar & Bass
“All Of The Lights”: Recorded, Keyboards & Cello arrangement
“Monster”: Additional production, recorded & mixed.
“So Appalled”: Co-produced, recorded, mixed, Keyboards & Cello arrangement
“Devil In A New Dress”: Additional production, recorded, mixed, Guitar, Bass & Piano
“Runaway”: Co-produced & recorded
“Hell Of A Life”: Co-produced, recorded, mixed & Keyboards
“Blame Game: Additional production, mixed, Piano & Bass
“Lost In The World”: Recorded
- Somewhere between downloading “Monster” as the iTunes pre-order single and finally downloading the rest of the album, the track listing got mangled up as if ‘Monster’ never existed on the album. Quite strange.
- At the tail end of “Blame Game”, I literally cut off the Chris Rock dialogue…no I really edited the song to end at 5.17 (the song proper clocks in at 7.50). I can’t even imagine having to listen to that every single time I hear ‘Blame Game’. Not happening.
- Another element that we could have did without was RZA’s vocal contributions to “So Appalled”. I know Kanye did it to say he got on a song with Bobby Steele but it’s over a minute of filler that wasn’t needed in the first place. Meanwhile…..
- “All Of The Lights” has vocal contributions from Rihanna, Drake (supposedly), La Roux’s Elly Jackson, The Dream, Kid Cudi, Tony Williams, Alicia Keys, Charlie Wilson, John Legend, Alvin Fields AND Kevin Lewis. Good luck sorting that out.
- There’s also some plot similarities on “Robo Cop” (from ‘808s And Heartbreak’) and ”Blame Game”. The former has Kanye on the defensive about a pressing former girlfriend whereas the latter has Kanye being the aggressor, vulnerable former boyfriend. A very interesting change of pace and what’s even more eye opening is how exposed he is here, considering ‘Robo Cop’ was about a woman he was once engaged to and now with onto someone most of us thought to be just a ‘girlfriend’.
- I didn’t need 4 listens between last night and this morning to know that this is his most ambitious adventure, easily the best album of the year and you can already argue this for one of the best this century has to offer thus far.
