But My Dark Twisted Fantasy – a flawed near-masterpiece – doesn't impress just by dint of numbers. Post-Facebook, the significance of one's friend-count can be overstated. Hip-hop albums are often ensemble pieces but – in the words of another densely populated track, So Appalled – "this shit is fucking ridiculous". All of the Lights – the album's most magnificent high – really does call on the leading lights of pop in wholesale fashion.īeginning with an Elton John piano interlude, it swells with synths set to grievous bodily harm, beats that simulate bodies rolling over one another, and a Greek chorus of pop stars – Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, and even La Roux.
Probably no one but Kanye and his exhausted production accountant knows the final tally of guest vocalists, many of whom spent weeks in Hawaii at the start of this year in what West allegedly (and fairly accurately) described as "the craziest studio in the western world right now".
Around 10 producers show off on these 13 maximal tracks, in stark contrast to the relative minimalism of West's previous album, 808s & Heartbreak. Comedian Chris Rock is hilariously foul-mouthed at the end of Blame Game his riff on pudenda is taken up again by a sampled Gil Scott-Heron on West's political closer, Who Will Survive in America. This opulent, saturated LP deploys a symposium of talents from the indie backwoods (Bon Iver), the pop pantheon (Elton John) and many points between. He probably would have done if he was still alive. Having begun his career feted for sped-up soul samples on Jay-Z productions – Devil in a New Dress supplies a flashback here – West is now notorious for his behaviour, rather than his music: his petulant egomania, compulsive tweeting, hissy fits at award ceremonies and, more compellingly, for causing what Bush described as the lowest point of his presidency.Ĭountry singer Conway Twitty is probably the only guest artist who doesn't crop up on West's herculean fifth effort. But no less than two US presidents have referred to Kanye West recently: Barack Obama called him a "jackass" and – worse – George Bush mispronounced his name as "Conway". T he highest office in the land rarely weighs in on American hip-hop.
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