Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Label: Def Jam

What can we say? What can anyone say about Kanye West in 2010? For one thing, the dude himself says so freakin' much — about himself! Like, where are we supposed to get a word in edgewise? The truth of the matter is that I think Kanye is one of the best pop stars America's ever had — best as in, he's almost completely insane and knows it; and he delivers on exactly what we ask of our pop stars, namely to reflect some aspect of ourselves, our aspirations and doubts and dreams, writ large (real large in this case). And yeah, he's really that good. He backs it all up. He can hardly rap but nonetheless does it brilliantly, and he writes rhymes that are just too good, too good. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is maximal in just about every way, a full-bore blast of melody, tension, beats and rhymes that always seem better than they should be. There's no doubt that if you're reading this, you have some opinion of Kanye already, informed by his stupid-ass antics, awesomely crazy proclamations and over-coverage in the media. Try putting all that aside and sitting with the music a bit, and see how you feel about just that, just the music. Cause I have no interest in the hype and noise . . . but I love his music. I love the tormented genius that's inside My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. He's the enormous, difficult, unbearable, rewarding pop star that this country deserves. Check out the tracks below and see what you think. (M.L. Thrope)