My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Review
For better or for worse Kanye West knows how to make a first impression; on the red carpet before the 2009 VMAs he was shown bumbling clumsily down the carpet with a half-drank bottle of liquor, which may in part explain his onstage outburst directed towards Taylor Swift.  
But musically, he always sets the tone for the album with great opening songs: “We Don’t Care”, “Heard ‘Em Say”, “Good Morning”, and “Welcome to Heartbreak” all perfectly set the stage for their respective albums, and the first song on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” does the same by showcasing both the highs and the lows of West’s psyche that he explores throughout the album, often within the same song.
  The overuse of Auto-tune that many people criticized on his last album, “808s and Heartbreak”, is now gone with the exception of at the end of “Runaway” and during the hook to “Lost in the World” and is used more as a secondary effect than the primary style.   In its place are strong rock inspirations, like the ones used in “Georgous”, “Power”, and “Hell of a Life” while still maintaining his soul-beat roots in songs like “Devil in a New Dress” and “Blame Game”.   His lyrical style for this album is a mixture of celebrating the perks of the celebrity lifestyle, while also criticizing its negative effects on him and others around him.
The album features many of the top contemporary artists like Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, John Legend, and Niki Minaj, and even manages to squish in eleven different artists into the highlight of the album, “All of The Lights”.   But his true musical genius is best displayed when he steps out of the box formed by conventional contemporary artists and experiments with features from Chris Rock, Elton John, indie-rock’s Justin Vernon, and even an excerpt from a Gil Scott-Heron poem in order to fully illustrate the complexities that exist in his mind and music.

Three of the albums songs; “Monster”, “So Appalled”, and...