Good Ass Job
Encyclopedia
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album
by American hip hop
recording artist Kanye West
, released November 22, 2010, on Roc-A-Fella Records
. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during 2009 to 2010. Production was handled by West and several other record producers, including Jeff Bhasker, RZA
, No I.D.
, and Mike Dean
, among others. Following a hiatus from his music career, West worked on the album through a communal development that involved him and various other musicians and producers contributing collectively to its music. Noted by music writers for its varied elements, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy incoporates musical components from West's previous works and features themes regarding excess and celebrity
.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200
chart, selling 496,000 copies in its first week in the United States. It achieved respectable international charting and produced four singles that attained chart success, including US Billboard
hits "Power
", "Monster", "Runaway
", and "All of the Lights
". Upon its release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy received general acclaim from music critics, earning praise for its varied musical style, opulent production quality, and West's dichotomous themes. It was also named the best album of 2010 in numerous critics' polls and year-end lists. The album has been certified platinum
by the Recording Industry Association of America
and, as of October 2011, has sold 1,212,000 copies in the United States.
in promotion of his previous album, 808s & Heartbreak
, was cancelled on October 1, 2009, without reason.
The album was formerly known as Good Ass Job and tentatively Dark Twisted Fantasy. GOOD Music
artist Big Sean
was the second to announce the title of the album as Good Ass Job. On July 24, 2010, on Kanye West's blog, a banner appeared reading "My Dark Twisted Fantasy Trailer". On July 28, 2010, West announced via his new official Twitter account that "The album is no longer called 'Good Ass Job' I'm bouncing a couple of titles around now." The official title, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was announced on October 5, 2010.
and Platinum Sound Recording
in New York City. It was reported that West spent over $3 million in expenses from his record label Def Jam on the album's recording. He later explained the initial recording process to Noah Callahan-Bever, Complex editor-in-chief and West's confidant at the time, who said that "he'd holed up in Hawaii and was importing his favorite producers and artists to work on and inspire his recording. Rap Camp!".
Recording artists reported to have participated in the sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at one time or another included Raekwon
, RZA
, Pusha T
, Rick Ross
, Charlie Wilson, Big Sean
, CyHi Da Prynce
, Swizz Beatz
, Dwele
, Nicki Minaj
, T.I.
, Drake
, Common, Jay-Z
, Eminem
, Lil Wayne
, John Legend
, Fergie, Rihanna
, The-Dream
, Ryan Leslie
, Elton John
, M.I.A.
, Justin Vernon, Seal, Beyoncé Knowles
, Kid Cudi
, Mos Def
, Santigold, Alicia Keys
, Elly Jackson
, and Tony Williams. Record producers who participated at the album's recording sessions with West included Q-Tip
, RZA, DJ Premier
, Madlib
, and Pete Rock
. Madlib has stated that he made five beats for the album. DJ Premier later revealed that his beats were ultimately discarded.
for leisure. Kid Cudi
smoked marijuana in preparation and worked-out on a treadmill, while RZA
worked-out in the weight room. West held breakfast each morning at his Diamond Head
residence for his crew.
Throughout the album's development, West elicited other producers and musicians to weigh-in on its music with conversations and contributions at the studio. In observing discussions among them during his visit, Callahan-Bever noted that "Despite the heavyweights assembled, the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive [...] we are here to contribute, challenge, and inspire". In an interview with Callahan-Bever, Q-Tip described the process as "music by committee" and elaborated on its significance to the sessions and West's work ethic, stating:
Pete Rock elaborated on his studio experience with West, stating "He's definitely hip-hop, his roots, I was testing him on joints...He takes it to another level which is dope. He had these musicians and this song, they played around my little raggedy beat and made it real. I love the way he works — he goes from one room, writing rhymes then goes to another beat and goes to another room and does something else — I love what he's done". Rapper Pusha T
characterized the album as "a collage of sounds" and found West's methods unorthodox when recording for the album, "We could easily be working on one song, thinking we're in a mode, and he'll hear a sound from someone like [producer] Jeff Bhasker and immediately turn his whole attention to that sound and go through his mental Rolodex to where that sound belongs on his album, and then it goes straight to that song, immediately". BET
executive vice president Stephen Hill, who was invited to listen to material for the album, commented on its musical direction as "less like 808s & Heartbreak and more like Graduation
". In an April 2010 interview, DJ Premier discussed the production in comparison to West's previous work, stating "Well, first of all, if you look at all of Kanye West's output, he actually did a lot to bring back sampling and make it cool again, even though he's more of a mainstream artist...but his new album is strictly hard beats and rhyme. He's totally done with electro. You're gonna be surprised what you hear".
s Simon Vozick-Levinson perceives that such elements "all recur at various points", namely "the luxurious soul
of 2004's The College Dropout
, the symphonic pomp of Late Registration
, the gloss of 2007's Graduation
, and the emotionally exhausted electro of 2008's 808s & Heartbreak
". Sean Fennessey of The Village Voice
writes that West "absorb[ed] the gifts of his handpicked collaborators, and occasionally elevat[ed] them" on previous studio albums, noting collaborators and elements as Jon Brion
for Late Registration ("arranging orchestral majesty"), DJ Toomp
for Graduation ("adapted DJ Toomp’s oozing menace"), and Kid Cudi for 808s & Heartbreak ("Cudi’s moaning melodies became elemental"). Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork Media
calls it a "culmination" of his past work, writing that "musically, [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy] largely continues where 2007's Graduation left off in its maximalist hip-hop bent, with flashes of The College Dropouts comfort-food sampling and Late Registrations baroque instrumentation weaved in seamlessly". Allmusic's Andy Kellman also views it as the "culmination" of those albums, while noting that "it does not merely draw characteristics from each one of them. The 13 tracks [...] sometimes fuse them together simultaneously. Consequently, the sonic and emotional layers are often difficult to pry apart and enumerate". Kellman denotes "All of the Lights
" as most representative of the album's "contrasting elements and maniacal extravagance".
, with subject matter such as decadence, grandiosity, escapism
, sex, wealth, romance, self-aggrandizement, and self-doubt. Andrew Martin of Prefix Magazine notes the album's ethos
as "more is more" and describes it as "a meditation on fame", in which West decries the burden that it entails. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also features more open references to drinking and drug use than on West's previous albums. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club
describes the album as "darkly funny, boldly introspective, and characteristically fame-obsessed", noting "manic highs and depressive lows emotionally" in West's lyrics. Music journalist Sean Fennessey compared its thematic structure to that of a Greek tragedy
, adding that "things do come crashing down, and [...] it’s felled by a woman".
Alex Denney of NME
characterizes West as "by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking", "the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American dream
to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy captures that essence in full". Music writer Ann Powers
interprets West's predominant theme on the album to be "the crisis of the jet-lagged cosmopolitan [...] the exhausted cry of one who's always new in town, chasing whatever goal or girl is in the room, fueled by consumer culture
's relentless buzz, but finally left unsatisfied". Powers views the album's songs to work "as pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceives West's "uncertainty about his own place in the world" to be connected to the subject of race, stating "The rootlessness West celebrates and despairs of on Fantasy belongs to someone who feels unwelcome everywhere. This isn't just a personal problem. It's the curse of what the theorist Michael Eric Dyson has called 'the exceptional black man', embraced for his talents but singled out for the color of his skin". Music essayist Robert Christgau
finds the themes of insecurity and uncertainty on the album to be West's "heart, his message, the reason he's so major", noting the tracks "Hell of a Life" and "Runaway" as examples.
The album's opening track, "Dark Fantasy
", is introduced with a narrative by Nicki Minaj
, elocuting in an English accent, that serves as a retelling of writer Roald Dahl
's poetic rework of "Cinderella
". It introduces the album's themes of decadence and hedonism, with West musing how "the plan was to drink until the pain was over / But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?". His lyrics on the track contain various musical and popular culture references, including those to the song "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
", the Lamborghini Murciélago
sports car, rapper Nas
, fashion designer Phoebe Philo
, short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
", the song "Sex on Fire
", singer Leona Lewis
, and television character Steve Urkel
. "All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass
break
s and brass
fanfare. West's lyrics contain a reference to the death of Michael Jackson
in the opening lines and present a narrative of a character who abuses his lover, does prison time, scuffles with her new boyfriend, and subsequently mourns his absence from his child's life. For the song, West enlisted 11 guest vocalists, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Elton John, Tony Williams, Elly Jackson, and Rihanna, who sings the song's hook
. In an interview for MTV, Jackson said of the song's vocal layering, "He got me to layer up all these vocals with other people, and he just basically wanted to use his favorite vocalists from around the world to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out".
Built on a sample
of Smokey Robinson
's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", "Devil in a New Dress
" is about lust and heartache, with sexual and religious imagery described by one critic as "part bedroom allure, part angelic prayer". It is the only album track without production by West, but features his characteristic style of manipulating the pitch and tempo of classic soul samples. "Runaway
" features a piano-based motif
comprising a series of sustained descending half
and whole note
s, with a coda
that incorporates light strings
and vocoder
-singing by West. The narrator's self-critical lyrics reflect on his personality and character flaws. Sean Fennessey cites the song as the point in the album in which "self-laceration overtakes chest-beating", noting West's sung-line "I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most". Inspired by his two-year relationship with model Amber Rose, "Hell of a Life" contains a psychedelic rock sample and a narrative about marrying a porn star. According to critic Ryan Dombal, the song "attempts to bend its central credo
— 'no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need'— into a noble pursuit. [...] [T]he song blurs the line between fantasy and reality, sex and romance, love and religion, until no lines exist at all. It's a zonked nirvana with demons underneath; a fragile state that can't help but break apart on the very next song".
"Lost in the World
" features tribal drums and samples Bon Iver
's "Woods", a song originally written about alienation, applied by West "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie" on the album. It features several musical changes, beginning with Iver's faint vocals, followed by 4/4 drums, gospel
-styled chorus, and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo. "Lost in the World" transitions into the closing track "Who Will Survive in America". It serves as the album's coda and is built on a sample of Gil Scott-Heron
's "Comment No. 1", a blunt, surrealist piece delivered by Scott-Heron in spoken word about the African-American experience and the fated idealism of the American dream. Scott-Heron's original speech, which criticized the 1960s Revolutionary Youth Movement
for failing to recognize the more basic needs of the African-American community, is edited to a reduced version on the track that, according to music writer Greg Kot
, "retains its essence, that of an African-American male who feels cut off from his country and culture". In contrast, Sean Fennessey interprets it as "a too-serious denouement for an album that is more about the self’s little nightmares than some aching societal rejection".
through his website on August 20, 2010, offering a free download of previously unreleased songs each Friday of the week, a portion of which were included on the album. Titled after his imprint label G.O.O.D. Music, the program generated considerable publicity in the months leading up to the album's release. Online marketing coordinator Karen Civil said of the program in retrospect, "It's a genius idea. He did something no one had ever done before, and at a point when he was the most hated person in music, he brought excitement back with his Friday releases". G.O.O.D. Fridays was originally intended to continue through December, but was extended by West through January 2011. The album was released as a digital download on Amazon.com
at a list price of $3.99, which coincided with the site's $3 discount promotional offer on MP3 purchases made valid through the album's release week. West has revealed he will go on tour in promotion of the album, naming possible guest performers as Nicki Minaj
, Rick Ross
, Kid Cudi
, Jay-Z
, Lil Wayne
, and Drake
.
" was leaked onto the Internet. It features additional vocals by Dwele
and was co-produced by Kanye West
and S1
. The official remix, featuring Jay-Z
and Swizz Beatz
, was premiered on August 20, 2010 on Hot 97 by DJ Kayslay. The single spent eight weeks and peaked at number 22 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award
for Best Rap Solo Performance
, presented at the 53rd Grammy Awards
in 2011. On September 12, 2010, West performed "Runaway" at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards
. Three weeks later on October 2, West performed the song on Saturday Night Live
, along with "Power". "Runaway" was officially released to the iTunes Store
on October 4, 2010. It spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 12 on the chart. Rolling Stone
named it the best single of 2010 in its year-end list. A 35-minute short film of the same name
, directed by West and containing the song's official music video, was released on October 23, 2010. Filmed in Prague
over a period of four days during Summer 2010, the film stars West and model Selita Ebanks
and features the script written by Hype Williams
with the story written by West. West described the video as an "overall representation of what [he dreams]" and a parallel to his music career.
The third single "Monster" was sent out to radio on September 21, and it was released to the iTunes Store on October 23, 2010. The song was originally released on August 27, 2010 as part of West's music program G.O.O.D. Friday. It spent five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 18 on the chart. Rolling Stone ranked it number 10 on its list of the Best Singles of 2010. The song was performed at Jay-Z
's and Eminem
's "Home and Home" concert
on September 14, 2010, along with Nicki Minaj
. West announced through his Twitter account that "All of the Lights
" will be the album's next single. Following the album's release, the song debuted at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100, and album track "Dark Fantasy" entered the chart at number 60 the same week. "All of the Lights" was released as a single on January 18, 2011 in the US and on February 21, 2011 in the UK. It reached number 18 and has spent 18 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. During his performance at the The Big Chill
music festival, West announced "Lost in the World
" as the album's fifth single.
that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been rejected by certain stores because of the cover art. The artwork (a portrait by George Condo
) shows West being straddled by an armless winged female (a phoenix
). Both characters are depicted nude, and one nipple
of the phoenix's breasts and her buttocks are visible. The artist later said that Kanye wanted a cover image that would be banned. The painting is centered with a thin yellow border on a red background. The artwork follows along the apparent theme of the album, as well as West's music film Runaway. This is one of five album covers; all of them were included with its purchase. A second cover, with a painting of a ballerina
by Condo, was posted on the Amazon.com
pre-order page. It was intended to be the original artwork for "Runaway," but West used a photograph of a ballerina instead.
George Condo and Kanye West met up for several hours where they listened to tapes of his music, and over the next few days Condo made eight or nine paintings for the album. Two of them were portraits of West, one in extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth. Another showed his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, impaled by a sword. There was also a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu, a painting of the crown and the sword by themselves in a grassy landscape, and a lurid scene of a naked black man on a bed, straddled by a naked white female creature with fearsome features, wings, no arms, and a long, spotted tail, the last one being the original album cover. According to New York
, a new painting for the album, entitled "The Priest", was completed by Condo, who described it as an attempt to bring depictions of religious figures into the modern world.
chart, with first-week sales of 496,000 copies in the United States. It is West's fourth consecutive US number-one album, and its debut week serves as the fourth-best sales week of 2010, while its first-week digital sales of 224,000 copies serve as the fourth-highest sales week for a digitally-downloaded album. The album also entered at number one on Billboard
s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
, Rap Albums
, and Digital Albums charts. On January 11, 2011, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified platinum
by the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA), for shipments of one million copies in the US. It has spent 34 weeks on the Billboard 200, and as of October 2011, has sold 1,212,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan
.
In Canada, it entered at number one on the Top 100 Albums
chart, with first-week sales of 29,000 copies. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number 16 on the Top 100 Albums
chart, on which it spent six weeks. On December 10, 2010, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry
, for shipments of 60,000 copies in the UK. In Australia, it entered at number six on the ARIA Top 50 Albums
and at number two on the Top 40 Urban Albums chart. On March 21, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association
, for shipments of 70,000 copies in Australia. In New Zealand, the album debuted at number 10 on the RIANZ's Top 40 Albums
chart. It also charted at number four in Denmark, at number 18 in Ireland, at number 11 in Norway, at number 10 in Switzerland, at number 21 in Belgium, at number 19 in Germany, at number 39 in Greece, at number 19 in Sweden, at number 28 in France, at number 87 in Mexico, at number 42 in Finland, at number 97 in Spain, and at number 17 in the Netherlands.
s. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
score of 94, based on 43 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Andy Gill of The Independent
gave it five out of five stars and called it "one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza in which any notion of good taste is abandoned at the door". Entertainment Weekly
s Simon Vozick-Levinson commended West's "outrageously hedonistic lyrics" and stated "West has tricked out these tracks with sharper verses and grander instrumental interludes, then lined them up in a sequence that demands to be heard from start to finish [...] essential components of a soundly built structure—easily his most consistently compelling full-length since 2005′s Late Registration". Los Angeles Times
writer Ann Powers
called its music "Picasso
-like, fulfilling the Cubist
mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space to suggest new ways of viewing things". Steve Jones of USA Today
gave the album four out of four stars, calling it "an epic, adventurous aural mélange that easily outstrips anything he's done". David Browne
of Time
dubbed it West's "most extravagant work [...] congested, constantly bustling", writing that it "reasserts the fact that few combine disparate elements as smoothly as West". The Washington Post
s Chris Richards called it his "masterpiece [...] pure pop bravura, with hip-hop's biggest ego torquing self-obsession into unapologetic new shapes". Dan Vidal of URB stated "Kanye (much like Miles Davis
) has the ability to bring out the strengths of his collaborators — squeezing out the essence of their artistic persona as highlights for the music that he creates".
Kitty Empire
of The Guardian
criticized its lyrics regarding "women as ruthless money-grabbers", but called the album "herculean [...] a flawed near-masterpiece". Despite noting an inconsistency in West's rapping, Allmusic editor Andy Kellman described the album as "a deeply fascinating accomplishment" in West's catalogue, stating "As fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an extraordinarily complex 70-minute set of songs. [...] As the ego and ambition swells, so does the appeal, the repulsiveness, and – most importantly – the ingenuity". Rolling Stone
writer Rob Sheffield
gave it five out of five stars, citing it as West's best album and "his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus [...] Nobody else is making music this daring and weird". Giving the album four-and-a-half out of five stars, Sputnikmusic
's Channing Freeman noted "a zest for life in these songs that is really quite beautiful" and viewed it as "the first album in which he's truly lived up to his potential in every way - as a rapper, as a lyricist, as a songwriter". Jon Caramanica of The New York Times
described it as "a startlingly maximalist take on East Coast rap
traditionalism" and called West "a better rapper than he’s ever been". The Village Voice
s Sean Fennessey commented that "Kanye is rapping and singing better and with more tenacity than he ever has on Fantasy", while calling the album "a staggering, often breathtaking work [...] masterfully engineered and sequenced, each song bleeding over like some long night out into the hazy morning after".
Anslem Samuel of XXL
gave the album a maximum rating of "XXL" and praised it "Sonically and lyrically [...] intricately constructed tracks framing his heartfelt outbursts and honest inner reflections". Alex Denney of NME
called it "an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man". Chris Martins of Spin
noted its production as "loud and proud, but also poignant and gripping" and called the album "a sinister, orchestral, hugely grandiose affair that owes as much to the artist's self-aggrandizing ego as to the voracious id that would destroy it publicly". Chicago Sun-Times
writer Thomas Conner gave it four out of four stars and commented that West's "difficulty in communicating" is "pretty compelling on record". Chicago Tribune
writer Greg Kot
perceived the album's feel as "a collision of opulence and emptiness" and complimented West's transparency, "his almost pathological allegiance to expressing his emotions, unfiltered [...] a curious mix of bravado and vulnerability". Nitsuh Abebe of New York
called the album "adventurous, fierce, and full of vitality", writing that "Its guiding principle seems to be to go in harder on every front: Be more opulent and arty, be more vicious and aggrieved, be more 'complicated' and self-lacerated". Slant Magazine
's Matthew Cole viewed it as a milestone in hip hop music and lauded its themes of "self-aggrandizement and self-effacement", writing that it "allows Kanye a thematic palette broad enough to confront his pride and anguish". Pitchfork Media
's Ryan Dombal called it "a hedonistic exploration into a rich and famous American id
". Giving it a 10 out of 10 rating, David Amidon of PopMatters
complimented West's dichotomous themes and noted "there are few more human albums in hip-hop".
named it the fourth best album of 2010, and the publication's M.T. Richards called it "a nuanced, intimately personal record wherein even ostensibly boastful tracks are tangled with insecurities, both personal and professional [...] perhaps this century’s definitive portrait of torment, vanity, self-delusion, and pathos". Nitsuh Abebe of New York named it the eighth best album of the year. The Guardian included it at number two on its list of 2010's top 40 albums and commented that West "remains, on record, one of the most compelling artists of our time". NME ranked the album number 34 on its list of 75 Best Albums of 2010.
Many critics and publications named it the best album of the year. Spin
placed the album at number one on its 40 Best Albums list for 2010. In naming it the album of the year, the publication's Charles Aaron wrote that it "is 2010's album of the year because Kanye dramatizes... with a budget-averse musical imagination that's ominous, symphonic, heartsick, riff-ravaged, and driven by the most technically legit rapping he's ever managed". Billboard
, Time, Slant Magazine, Pitchfork Media, and Rolling Stone also named it the best album of 2010 in their year-end lists. Both Chris Richards and Allison Stewart of The Washington Post named the album the best of 2010. The New York Times Jon Caramanica, Nate Chinen, and Jon Pareles all included the album in their individual top-10 albums lists. The A.V. Club
ranked the album at the top of its year-end list and commented on its significance, stating "Fantasy is an idiot-savant smash, an example of a musician overreaching, yet triumphing through dumb bravado and an imagination gloriously unfettered by logic. Kanye actually set out to make the album of the year when nobody listens to albums anymore". My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was voted best album in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
critics' poll for 2010, winning by the largest margin in the poll's history. The singles "Power", "Runaway", and "Monster" were voted in the top-10 of the Pazz & Jop's singles list.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was nominated for a Grammy Award
for Best Rap Album
, set to be presented at the 54th Grammy Awards
in 2012. The song "All of the Lights" was nominated for Grammy Awards for Song of the Year
, Best Rap Song
, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
.
(add.) Additional production
Sample credits
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by American hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
recording artist Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
, released November 22, 2010, on Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records
Roc-A-Fella Records is a record label founded by Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter, Damon "Dame" Dash, and Kareem "Biggs" Burke. Today it operates as a subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and is distributed by Island Def Jam Motown Music Group.-Formation and Early Years:...
. Recording sessions for the album took place primarily at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during 2009 to 2010. Production was handled by West and several other record producers, including Jeff Bhasker, RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
, No I.D.
No I.D.
No I.D., officially known as Immenslope and also known as Ernest Wilson , is a hip hop and R&B record producer, also the vice-president of Def Jam Recordings, best known for his early work with Chicago rapper Common and is known as "The Godfather of Chicago hip hop".. The nickname No I.D...
, and Mike Dean
Mike Dean (producer)
Mike Dean is an American hip-hop producer. He is known for pioneering the "Dirty South" sound in the 1990s, particularly in work for artists from Rap-A-Lot Records. Dean has most notably worked alongside Scarface of the Geto Boys, 2Pac, Do or Die, Tha Dogg Pound, Yukmouth of the Luniz, Outlawz,...
, among others. Following a hiatus from his music career, West worked on the album through a communal development that involved him and various other musicians and producers contributing collectively to its music. Noted by music writers for its varied elements, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy incoporates musical components from West's previous works and features themes regarding excess and celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
.
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, selling 496,000 copies in its first week in the United States. It achieved respectable international charting and produced four singles that attained chart success, including US Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
hits "Power
Power (Kanye West song)
"Power" is a single by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released as the lead single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song features additional vocals by Dwele and is co-produced by Kanye West and Symbolyc One...
", "Monster", "Runaway
Runaway (Kanye West song)
"Runaway" is a single by American recording artist Kanye West, released as the second single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It features a guest verse from rapper Pusha T of Clipse. The single debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100.A 35-minute short film...
", and "All of the Lights
All of the Lights
"All of the Lights" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released January 18, 2011, as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy...
". Upon its release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy received general acclaim from music critics, earning praise for its varied musical style, opulent production quality, and West's dichotomous themes. It was also named the best album of 2010 in numerous critics' polls and year-end lists. The album has been certified platinum
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
and, as of October 2011, has sold 1,212,000 copies in the United States.
Background
The album was conceived during West's self-imposed exile in Oahu, Hawaii, following a period of legal and public image controversy amid an overworked mental state at the time. West later said that his fatigue from overworking led to his controversial outburst at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, his disgust with its ensuing media response, and his hiatus from recording. Amid negative response to the incident, his scheduled tour with recording artist Lady GagaLady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
in promotion of his previous album, 808s & Heartbreak
808s & Heartbreak
808s & Heartbreak is the fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released November 24, 2008 on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California and Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during...
, was cancelled on October 1, 2009, without reason.
The album was formerly known as Good Ass Job and tentatively Dark Twisted Fantasy. GOOD Music
GOOD Music
GOOD Music is a record label and management firm founded by music producer and artist Kanye West. "GOOD" is an acronym for "Getting Out Our Dreams".-History:...
artist Big Sean
Big Sean
Sean Michael Anderson , better known by his stage name Big Sean, is an American rapper. Big Sean signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D...
was the second to announce the title of the album as Good Ass Job. On July 24, 2010, on Kanye West's blog, a banner appeared reading "My Dark Twisted Fantasy Trailer". On July 28, 2010, West announced via his new official Twitter account that "The album is no longer called 'Good Ass Job' I'm bouncing a couple of titles around now." The official title, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was announced on October 5, 2010.
Avex Recording sessions
Recording sessions took place primarily at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, with additional recording at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California, and at Electric Lady StudiosElectric Lady Studios
Electric Lady Studios, at 52 West 8th Street, in New York City's Greenwich Village, is a recording studio originally built by Jimi Hendrix and designed by John Storyk in 1970...
and Platinum Sound Recording
Platinum Sound Recording Studios
Platinum Sound Recording Studios is a boutique recording studio in Manhattan, New York City, located on restaurant row in the theater district. Founded in 2000 by multi-platinum record producers, the studio is one of the leading luxury commercial recording studios -Platinum albums and singles:*The...
in New York City. It was reported that West spent over $3 million in expenses from his record label Def Jam on the album's recording. He later explained the initial recording process to Noah Callahan-Bever, Complex editor-in-chief and West's confidant at the time, who said that "he'd holed up in Hawaii and was importing his favorite producers and artists to work on and inspire his recording. Rap Camp!".
Recording artists reported to have participated in the sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at one time or another included Raekwon
Raekwon
Corey Woods , better known by the stage name Raekwon, is an American rapper and a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. He released his solo debut, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... in 1995, and has since recorded four solo albums, as well as work with Wu-Tang and an extensive amount of guest contributions with...
, RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
, Pusha T
Pusha T
Terrence Thornton better known by his stage name Pusha T is an American recording artist, occasional actor and one half of the critically acclaimed hip hop duo Clipse. He is also the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Re-Up Records along with his brother Gene 'Malice' Thornton...
, Rick Ross
Rick Ross (rapper)
William Leonard Roberts II , better known by his stage name Rick Ross, is an American rapper. He derived his stage name from the drug trafficker "Freeway" Ricky Ross, to whom he has no connection...
, Charlie Wilson, Big Sean
Big Sean
Sean Michael Anderson , better known by his stage name Big Sean, is an American rapper. Big Sean signed with Kanye West's G.O.O.D...
, CyHi Da Prynce
Cyhi Da Prynce
Cydel Young also known as CyHi The Prynce , born September 15, 1984 is an American rap artist from Stone Mountain, Atlanta. He is signed to Kanye West's GOOD Music Label and Def Jam Recordings...
, Swizz Beatz
Swizz Beatz
Kasseem Dean , better known by his stage name, Swizz Beatz, is an American record producer, DJ, rapper and painter. At the age of 17, he gained attention in the hip-hop world through his friendship with rapper DMX. Grady Spivey and rapper Cassidy helped launch his label Full Surface Records...
, Dwele
Dwele
Andwele Gardner , better known by his stage name Dwele is a soul singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan.-Biography:...
, Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...
, T.I.
T.I.
Clifford Joseph Harris, Jr. , better known by his stage name T.I., is an American rap artist, film and music producer, actor and author. He is also the founder and co-chief executive officer of Grand Hustle Records....
, Drake
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
, Common, Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
, Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
, Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne
Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. , better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included...
, John Legend
John Legend
John Roger Stephens , better known by his stage name John Legend, is an American singer, musician, and actor. He is the recipient of nine Grammy Awards, and in 2007, he received the special Starlight award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.Prior to the release of his debut album, Stephens' career...
, Fergie, Rihanna
Rihanna
Robyn Rihanna Fenty , better known as simply Rihanna, is a Barbadian recording artist. Born in Saint Michael, Barbados, Rihanna moved to the United States at the age of 16 to pursue a recording career under the guidance of record producer Evan Rogers...
, The-Dream
The-Dream
Terius Youngdell Nash , better known by his stage name The-Dream, is an American singer-songwriter and record producer. He is known for co-writing "Umbrella" for Rihanna and "Single Ladies " for Beyoncé, as well as for his three solo albums, Love Hate, Love vs...
, Ryan Leslie
Ryan Leslie
Anthony Ryan Leslie, known professionally as Ryan Leslie, is a Grammy nominated American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, entrepreneur, and singer. Founder of the media company NextSelection Lifestyle Group, Leslie has produced singles for a number of artists in a variety of genres...
, Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
, M.I.A.
M.I.A. (artist)
Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam , better known by her stage name M.I.A. , is an English singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, painter and director of Sri Lankan Tamil descent. Her compositions combine elements of hip hop, electronica, dance, alternative and world music. M.I.A...
, Justin Vernon, Seal, Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Knowles
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles , often known simply as Beyoncé, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she enrolled in various performing arts schools and was first exposed to singing and dancing competitions as a child...
, Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi
Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi , better known by his stage name Kid Cudi , sometimes stylized KiD CuDi, is an American rapper, singer and actor. He first gained major attention after the release of his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. In 2009, his single "Day 'n' Nite" reached the top five of the...
, Mos Def
Mos Def
Dante Terrell Smith is an American actor and Emcee known by the stage names Mos Def and Yasiin Bey. He started his hip hop career in a group called Urban Thermo Dynamics, after which he appeared on albums by Da Bush Babees and De La Soul. With Talib Kweli, he formed the duo Black Star, which...
, Santigold, Alicia Keys
Alicia Keys
Alicia Augello Cook , better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and occasional actress. She was raised by a single mother in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan in New York City. At age seven, Keys began playing the piano...
, Elly Jackson
Elly Jackson
Eleanor Kate "Elly" Jackson is an English singer-songwriter and the lead singer of the electropop duo La Roux. She is well known for her red hair and androgynous style.-Biography:...
, and Tony Williams. Record producers who participated at the album's recording sessions with West included Q-Tip
Q-Tip (rapper)
Kamaal Ibn John Fareed , better known by his stage name Q-Tip, is an American hip hop artist, producer, singer, and actor from St. Albans, Queens, New York, part of the critically acclaimed group A Tribe Called Quest...
, RZA, DJ Premier
DJ Premier
Christopher Edward Martin , better known by his stage name DJ Premier , is an American record producer and DJ, and was the instrumental half of the hip hop duo Gang Starr, together with emcee Guru...
, Madlib
Madlib
Otis Jackson Jr. in Oxnard, California, known professionally as Madlib, is a Los Angeles-based DJ, multi-instrumentalist, rapper, and music producer...
, and Pete Rock
Pete Rock
Peter Phillips , better known by his stage name Pete Rock, is an American record producer, DJ and rapper. He rose to prominence in the early 1990s as one half of the critically acclaimed group Pete Rock & CL Smooth...
. Madlib has stated that he made five beats for the album. DJ Premier later revealed that his beats were ultimately discarded.
Recording process
West, who had previously recorded at Avex for 808s & Heartbreak, block-booked the studio's three session rooms indefinitely to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. According to Noah Callahan-Bever, who visited West during the recording sessions, "when he hits a creative wall... he heads to another studio room to make progress on another song". He often worked through the night and napped in the studio, and recording engineers were present behind the mixing board 24 hours a day. Prior to recording in the afternoon, West and most of his crew played games of 21 against locals at the Honolulu YMCAYMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
for leisure. Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi
Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi , better known by his stage name Kid Cudi , sometimes stylized KiD CuDi, is an American rapper, singer and actor. He first gained major attention after the release of his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. In 2009, his single "Day 'n' Nite" reached the top five of the...
smoked marijuana in preparation and worked-out on a treadmill, while RZA
RZA
Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, better known by his stage name RZA , is an American Grammy-winning music producer, multi-instrumentalist, author, emcee, and occasional actor, director, and screenwriter. A prominent figure in Hip Hop, RZA is the de facto leader of the Wu-Tang Clan. He has produced almost...
worked-out in the weight room. West held breakfast each morning at his Diamond Head
Diamond Head, Hawaii
Diamond Head is the name of a volcanic tuff cone on the Hawaiian island of Oahu and known to Hawaiians as Lēahi, most likely from lae 'browridge, promontory' plus ahi 'tuna' because the shape of the ridgeline resembles the shape of a tuna's dorsal fin...
residence for his crew.
Throughout the album's development, West elicited other producers and musicians to weigh-in on its music with conversations and contributions at the studio. In observing discussions among them during his visit, Callahan-Bever noted that "Despite the heavyweights assembled, the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive [...] we are here to contribute, challenge, and inspire". In an interview with Callahan-Bever, Q-Tip described the process as "music by committee" and elaborated on its significance to the sessions and West's work ethic, stating:
Pete Rock elaborated on his studio experience with West, stating "He's definitely hip-hop, his roots, I was testing him on joints...He takes it to another level which is dope. He had these musicians and this song, they played around my little raggedy beat and made it real. I love the way he works — he goes from one room, writing rhymes then goes to another beat and goes to another room and does something else — I love what he's done". Rapper Pusha T
Pusha T
Terrence Thornton better known by his stage name Pusha T is an American recording artist, occasional actor and one half of the critically acclaimed hip hop duo Clipse. He is also the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Re-Up Records along with his brother Gene 'Malice' Thornton...
characterized the album as "a collage of sounds" and found West's methods unorthodox when recording for the album, "We could easily be working on one song, thinking we're in a mode, and he'll hear a sound from someone like [producer] Jeff Bhasker and immediately turn his whole attention to that sound and go through his mental Rolodex to where that sound belongs on his album, and then it goes straight to that song, immediately". BET
Bet
Bet or BET may refer to:* A wager in gambling* Basic Economics Test * Bet , the second letter in many Semitic alphabets, including Aramaic, Hebrew, Phoenician and Syriac* Brunauer-Emmett-Teller isotherm. See BET_theory...
executive vice president Stephen Hill, who was invited to listen to material for the album, commented on its musical direction as "less like 808s & Heartbreak and more like Graduation
Graduation (album)
Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released September 11, 2007 on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios and Sony Music Studios in New York City and at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant...
". In an April 2010 interview, DJ Premier discussed the production in comparison to West's previous work, stating "Well, first of all, if you look at all of Kanye West's output, he actually did a lot to bring back sampling and make it cool again, even though he's more of a mainstream artist...but his new album is strictly hard beats and rhyme. He's totally done with electro. You're gonna be surprised what you hear".
Music and style
The album's music has been noted by writers for incorporating elements from West's previous four albums. Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Simon Vozick-Levinson perceives that such elements "all recur at various points", namely "the luxurious soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
of 2004's The College Dropout
The College Dropout
The College Dropout is the debut album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released February 10, 2004, on Roc-A-Fella Records. It was recorded over a period of four years, beginning in 1999. Prior to the album's release, West had worked on rapper Jay-Z's The Blueprint , which showcased his...
, the symphonic pomp of Late Registration
Late Registration
Late Registration is the second studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released August 30, 2005, on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place over the course of a year at various recording studios located in New York City and Hollywood...
, the gloss of 2007's Graduation
Graduation (album)
Graduation is the third studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released September 11, 2007 on Roc-A-Fella Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during 2005 to 2007 at Chung King Studios and Sony Music Studios in New York City and at Chalice Studios and The Record Plant...
, and the emotionally exhausted electro of 2008's 808s & Heartbreak
808s & Heartbreak
808s & Heartbreak is the fourth studio album by American hip hop artist Kanye West, released November 24, 2008 on Roc-A-Fella Records in the United States. Recording sessions for the album took place at Glenwood Studios in Burbank, California and Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii during...
". Sean Fennessey of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
writes that West "absorb[ed] the gifts of his handpicked collaborators, and occasionally elevat[ed] them" on previous studio albums, noting collaborators and elements as Jon Brion
Jon Brion
Jon Brion is an American rock and pop multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, composer and record producer.-Early life:...
for Late Registration ("arranging orchestral majesty"), DJ Toomp
DJ Toomp
Aldrin Davis, better known as DJ Toomp, is an award-winning American record producer and DJ who works in Atlanta, Georgia. In the late 1980s he was MC Shy-D's DJ and went on tour with him and the 2 Live Crew as they performed at various venues across the country with other artists such as N.W.A...
for Graduation ("adapted DJ Toomp’s oozing menace"), and Kid Cudi for 808s & Heartbreak ("Cudi’s moaning melodies became elemental"). Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
calls it a "culmination" of his past work, writing that "musically, [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy] largely continues where 2007's Graduation left off in its maximalist hip-hop bent, with flashes of The College Dropouts comfort-food sampling and Late Registrations baroque instrumentation weaved in seamlessly". Allmusic's Andy Kellman also views it as the "culmination" of those albums, while noting that "it does not merely draw characteristics from each one of them. The 13 tracks [...] sometimes fuse them together simultaneously. Consequently, the sonic and emotional layers are often difficult to pry apart and enumerate". Kellman denotes "All of the Lights
All of the Lights
"All of the Lights" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released January 18, 2011, as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy...
" as most representative of the album's "contrasting elements and maniacal extravagance".
Lyrical themes
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy features lyrical themes regarding excess and celebrityCelebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
, with subject matter such as decadence, grandiosity, escapism
Escapism
Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an "escape" from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life...
, sex, wealth, romance, self-aggrandizement, and self-doubt. Andrew Martin of Prefix Magazine notes the album's ethos
Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
as "more is more" and describes it as "a meditation on fame", in which West decries the burden that it entails. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also features more open references to drinking and drug use than on West's previous albums. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
describes the album as "darkly funny, boldly introspective, and characteristically fame-obsessed", noting "manic highs and depressive lows emotionally" in West's lyrics. Music journalist Sean Fennessey compared its thematic structure to that of a Greek tragedy
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
, adding that "things do come crashing down, and [...] it’s felled by a woman".
Alex Denney of NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
characterizes West as "by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking", "the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American dream
American Dream
The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, "life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each...
to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy captures that essence in full". Music writer Ann Powers
Ann Powers
Ann Powers is an American writer and pop music critic.Powers has been writing about popular music and society since the early 1980s...
interprets West's predominant theme on the album to be "the crisis of the jet-lagged cosmopolitan [...] the exhausted cry of one who's always new in town, chasing whatever goal or girl is in the room, fueled by consumer culture
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
's relentless buzz, but finally left unsatisfied". Powers views the album's songs to work "as pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceives West's "uncertainty about his own place in the world" to be connected to the subject of race, stating "The rootlessness West celebrates and despairs of on Fantasy belongs to someone who feels unwelcome everywhere. This isn't just a personal problem. It's the curse of what the theorist Michael Eric Dyson has called 'the exceptional black man', embraced for his talents but singled out for the color of his skin". Music essayist Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
finds the themes of insecurity and uncertainty on the album to be West's "heart, his message, the reason he's so major", noting the tracks "Hell of a Life" and "Runaway" as examples.
Content
The album's opening track, "Dark Fantasy
Dark Fantasy (song)
"Dark Fantasy" is a song by American hip hop artist Kanye West, from his fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song serves as the opening track of the album, and was written by Kanye West, Ernest Wilson, Jeff Bhasker, Mike Dean and the RZA...
", is introduced with a narrative by Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...
, elocuting in an English accent, that serves as a retelling of writer Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
's poetic rework of "Cinderella
Cinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
". It introduces the album's themes of decadence and hedonism, with West musing how "the plan was to drink until the pain was over / But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover?". His lyrics on the track contain various musical and popular culture references, including those to the song "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
"Mercy Mercy Me " was the second single from Marvin Gaye's 1971 album, What's Going On. Following the breakthrough of the title track's success, the song, written solely by Gaye, became one of his most poignant anthems of sorrow regarding the environment...
", the Lamborghini Murciélago
Lamborghini Murciélago
The Lamborghini Murciélago is a two-door, two-seat sports car produced by Italian automaker Lamborghini between 2001 and 2010. Successor to the Diablo and flagship of the automaker's lineup, the Murciélago was introduced as a coupé in 2001. The automaker's first new design in eleven years, the car...
sports car, rapper Nas
Nas
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who performs under the name Nas , formerly Nasty Nas, is an American rapper and actor. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in hip hop and one of the most skilled and influential rappers of all-time...
, fashion designer Phoebe Philo
Phoebe Philo
Phoebe Philo is a British fashion designer and the Creative Director of Céline. Philo is also known for her work at Chloé.Philo graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1996, a year after Stella McCartney...
, short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a short story by Washington Irving contained in his collection The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., written while he was living in Birmingham, England, and first published in 1820...
", the song "Sex on Fire
Sex on Fire
"Sex on Fire" is the first single to be taken from Kings of Leon's fourth studio album Only by the Night and as of September 2009, the second most-downloaded digital single ever in the United Kingdom...
", singer Leona Lewis
Leona Lewis
Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer and songwriter. Lewis first came to prominence in 2006 when she won the third series of the British television series The X Factor....
, and television character Steve Urkel
Steve Urkel
Steven Quincy Urkel, generally known as Steve Urkel or simply Urkel, is a fictional character on the ABC/CBS sitcom Family Matters, portrayed by Jaleel White...
. "All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
break
Break (music)
In popular music, a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece....
s and brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
fanfare. West's lyrics contain a reference to the death of Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...
in the opening lines and present a narrative of a character who abuses his lover, does prison time, scuffles with her new boyfriend, and subsequently mourns his absence from his child's life. For the song, West enlisted 11 guest vocalists, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Elton John, Tony Williams, Elly Jackson, and Rihanna, who sings the song's hook
Hook (music)
A hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener". The term generally applies to popular music, especially rock music, hip hop, dance music, and pop. In these genres, the hook is often...
. In an interview for MTV, Jackson said of the song's vocal layering, "He got me to layer up all these vocals with other people, and he just basically wanted to use his favorite vocalists from around the world to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out".
Built on a sample
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
of Smokey Robinson
Smokey Robinson
William "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. Robinson is one of the primary figures associated with Motown, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy...
's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", "Devil in a New Dress
Devil in a New Dress
"Devil in a New Dress" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West. It appears as the eighth song on the track-listing of his fifth studio album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Originally released as the fourth G.O.O.D...
" is about lust and heartache, with sexual and religious imagery described by one critic as "part bedroom allure, part angelic prayer". It is the only album track without production by West, but features his characteristic style of manipulating the pitch and tempo of classic soul samples. "Runaway
Runaway (Kanye West song)
"Runaway" is a single by American recording artist Kanye West, released as the second single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It features a guest verse from rapper Pusha T of Clipse. The single debuted at number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100.A 35-minute short film...
" features a piano-based motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
comprising a series of sustained descending half
Half note
In music, a half note or minim is a note played for half the duration of a whole note and twice the duration of a quarter note...
and whole note
Whole note
thumb|right|250px|Figure 1. A whole note and a whole rest.In music, a whole note or semibreve is a note represented by a hollow oval note head, like a half note , and no note stem . Its length is equal to four beats in 4/4 time...
s, with a coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
that incorporates light strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
and vocoder
Auto-Tune
Auto-Tune is a proprietary audio processor created by Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a phase vocoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise off-key inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed singers to perform apparently perfectly tuned vocal...
-singing by West. The narrator's self-critical lyrics reflect on his personality and character flaws. Sean Fennessey cites the song as the point in the album in which "self-laceration overtakes chest-beating", noting West's sung-line "I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most". Inspired by his two-year relationship with model Amber Rose, "Hell of a Life" contains a psychedelic rock sample and a narrative about marrying a porn star. According to critic Ryan Dombal, the song "attempts to bend its central credo
Credo
A credo |Latin]] for "I Believe") is a statement of belief, commonly used for religious belief, such as the Apostles' Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Mass, either as text, Gregorian chant, or other musical settings of the...
— 'no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need'— into a noble pursuit. [...] [T]he song blurs the line between fantasy and reality, sex and romance, love and religion, until no lines exist at all. It's a zonked nirvana with demons underneath; a fragile state that can't help but break apart on the very next song".
"Lost in the World
Lost in the World
"Lost in the World" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West from his studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song features vocals by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and also heavily samples his 2009 work, "Woods"...
" features tribal drums and samples Bon Iver
Bon Iver
Bon Iver is a Grammy nominated folk band founded in 2007 by American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. It includes Michael Noyce, Sean Carey, and Matthew McCaughan. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago independently in July 2007. The majority of that album was...
's "Woods", a song originally written about alienation, applied by West "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie" on the album. It features several musical changes, beginning with Iver's faint vocals, followed by 4/4 drums, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
-styled chorus, and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo. "Lost in the World" transitions into the closing track "Who Will Survive in America". It serves as the album's coda and is built on a sample of Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s...
's "Comment No. 1", a blunt, surrealist piece delivered by Scott-Heron in spoken word about the African-American experience and the fated idealism of the American dream. Scott-Heron's original speech, which criticized the 1960s Revolutionary Youth Movement
Revolutionary Youth Movement
The Revolutionary Youth Movement was the section of Students for a Democratic Society that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party...
for failing to recognize the more basic needs of the African-American community, is edited to a reduced version on the track that, according to music writer Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
, "retains its essence, that of an African-American male who feels cut off from his country and culture". In contrast, Sean Fennessey interprets it as "a too-serious denouement for an album that is more about the self’s little nightmares than some aching societal rejection".
Release and promotion
On October 4, 2010, the album's release date was announced as November 22, 2010. Prior to its release, West initiated the free music program G.O.O.D. FridaysG.O.O.D. Fridays
G.O.O.D. Fridays was a weekly free music giveaway started by rapper Kanye West. The name originates from the name of his label, G.O.O.D. Music, and is also a reference to the Friday before Easter, which is known as Good Friday. Every Friday, beginning on August 20, 2010, Kanye planned on releasing...
through his website on August 20, 2010, offering a free download of previously unreleased songs each Friday of the week, a portion of which were included on the album. Titled after his imprint label G.O.O.D. Music, the program generated considerable publicity in the months leading up to the album's release. Online marketing coordinator Karen Civil said of the program in retrospect, "It's a genius idea. He did something no one had ever done before, and at a point when he was the most hated person in music, he brought excitement back with his Friday releases". G.O.O.D. Fridays was originally intended to continue through December, but was extended by West through January 2011. The album was released as a digital download on Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
at a list price of $3.99, which coincided with the site's $3 discount promotional offer on MP3 purchases made valid through the album's release week. West has revealed he will go on tour in promotion of the album, naming possible guest performers as Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...
, Rick Ross
Rick Ross (rapper)
William Leonard Roberts II , better known by his stage name Rick Ross, is an American rapper. He derived his stage name from the drug trafficker "Freeway" Ricky Ross, to whom he has no connection...
, Kid Cudi
Kid Cudi
Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi , better known by his stage name Kid Cudi , sometimes stylized KiD CuDi, is an American rapper, singer and actor. He first gained major attention after the release of his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi. In 2009, his single "Day 'n' Nite" reached the top five of the...
, Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
, Lil Wayne
Lil Wayne
Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. , better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is an American rapper. At the age of nine, Lil Wayne joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo, The B.G.'z, with B.G.. In 1997, Lil Wayne joined the group Hot Boys, which also included...
, and Drake
Drake (entertainer)
Aubrey Drake Graham , who records under the mononym Drake, is a Canadian recording artist and actor. He originally became known for playing Jimmy Brooks on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation....
.
Singles
On May 28, 2010, an unfinished version of a speculative first single titled "PowerPower (Kanye West song)
"Power" is a single by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released as the lead single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song features additional vocals by Dwele and is co-produced by Kanye West and Symbolyc One...
" was leaked onto the Internet. It features additional vocals by Dwele
Dwele
Andwele Gardner , better known by his stage name Dwele is a soul singer, songwriter and record producer from Detroit, Michigan.-Biography:...
and was co-produced by Kanye West
Kanye West
Kanye Omari West is an American rapper, singer, and record producer. West first rose to fame as a producer for Roc-A-Fella Records, where he eventually achieved recognition for his work on Jay-Z's album The Blueprint, as well as hit singles for musical artists including Alicia Keys, Ludacris, and...
and S1
Strange Fruit Project
Strange Fruit Project is an underground hip hop group from Waco, Texas, which consists of producer and emcee Symbolyc One , his cousin emcee Myth and emcee Myone...
. The official remix, featuring Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
and Swizz Beatz
Swizz Beatz
Kasseem Dean , better known by his stage name, Swizz Beatz, is an American record producer, DJ, rapper and painter. At the age of 17, he gained attention in the hip-hop world through his friendship with rapper DMX. Grady Spivey and rapper Cassidy helped launch his label Full Surface Records...
, was premiered on August 20, 2010 on Hot 97 by DJ Kayslay. The single spent eight weeks and peaked at number 22 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Rap Solo Performance
Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance was awarded from 1991 to 2011, alongside the Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. Previously a single award was presented for Best Rap Performance....
, presented at the 53rd Grammy Awards
53rd Grammy Awards
The 53rd annual Grammy Awards were held on February 13, 2011, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. They were broadcast on CBS with a rating of 26.6 million viewers. Barbra Streisand was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year two nights prior to the telecast on February 11. Nominations were...
in 2011. On September 12, 2010, West performed "Runaway" at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards
2010 MTV Video Music Awards
The 2010 MTV Video Music Awards took place on September 12, 2010 at Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, honoring the best music videos from the previous year...
. Three weeks later on October 2, West performed the song on Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
, along with "Power". "Runaway" was officially released to the iTunes Store
ITunes Store
The iTunes Store is a software-based online digital media store operated by Apple. Opening as the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003, with over 200,000 items to purchase, it is, as of April 2008, the number-one music vendor in the United States...
on October 4, 2010. It spent 12 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 12 on the chart. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
named it the best single of 2010 in its year-end list. A 35-minute short film of the same name
Runaway (2010 film)
Runaway is a 35-minute short film directed by and starring Kanye West. It serves as the music video for a compilation of songs from West's album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It is inspired by other music-related films such as Purple Rain, Pink Floyd The Wall and Michael Jackson's Thriller...
, directed by West and containing the song's official music video, was released on October 23, 2010. Filmed in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
over a period of four days during Summer 2010, the film stars West and model Selita Ebanks
Selita Ebanks
Selita Ebanks is a Caymanian fashion model. She worked for Victoria's Secret and as a Victoria's Secret Angel from 2005-2008.-Early life:...
and features the script written by Hype Williams
Hype Williams
Harold "Hype" Williams , previously known as HYPE, is an American music video and film director of African-American and Honduran descent. His nickname "Hype" comes from his hyperactive nature as a child....
with the story written by West. West described the video as an "overall representation of what [he dreams]" and a parallel to his music career.
The third single "Monster" was sent out to radio on September 21, and it was released to the iTunes Store on October 23, 2010. The song was originally released on August 27, 2010 as part of West's music program G.O.O.D. Friday. It spent five weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 18 on the chart. Rolling Stone ranked it number 10 on its list of the Best Singles of 2010. The song was performed at Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
's and Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
's "Home and Home" concert
The Home & Home Tour
The Home & Home Tour is a tour by rappers Eminem & Jay-Z. The tour comprises two shows at Comerica Park in Detroit, Michigan, and two shows in Yankee Stadium, New York City. A DVD of the tour is being made of the Detroit show. It may only be a DVD of Eminem's part of the show, but nothing has been...
on September 14, 2010, along with Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj
Onika Tanya Maraj , better known by her stage name Nicki Minaj; ), is a Trinidadian-born American recording artist...
. West announced through his Twitter account that "All of the Lights
All of the Lights
"All of the Lights" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released January 18, 2011, as the fourth single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy...
" will be the album's next single. Following the album's release, the song debuted at number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100, and album track "Dark Fantasy" entered the chart at number 60 the same week. "All of the Lights" was released as a single on January 18, 2011 in the US and on February 21, 2011 in the UK. It reached number 18 and has spent 18 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. During his performance at the The Big Chill
The Big Chill (music festival)
The Big Chill is an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August...
music festival, West announced "Lost in the World
Lost in the World
"Lost in the World" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West from his studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The song features vocals by Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, and also heavily samples his 2009 work, "Woods"...
" as the album's fifth single.
Cover art
On October 17, 2010, Kanye West revealed through TwitterTwitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been rejected by certain stores because of the cover art. The artwork (a portrait by George Condo
George Condo
George Condo is an American contemporary visual artist.-Life and career:Condo works in the medium of painting and sculpture...
) shows West being straddled by an armless winged female (a phoenix
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
). Both characters are depicted nude, and one nipple
Nipple
In its most general form, a nipple is a structure from which a fluid emanates. More specifically, it is the projection on the breasts or udder of a mammal by which breast milk is delivered to a mother's young. In this sense, it is often called a teat, especially when referring to non-humans, and...
of the phoenix's breasts and her buttocks are visible. The artist later said that Kanye wanted a cover image that would be banned. The painting is centered with a thin yellow border on a red background. The artwork follows along the apparent theme of the album, as well as West's music film Runaway. This is one of five album covers; all of them were included with its purchase. A second cover, with a painting of a ballerina
Ballerina
A ballerina is a title used to describe a principal female professional ballet dancer in a large company; the male equivalent to this title is danseur or ballerino...
by Condo, was posted on the Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
pre-order page. It was intended to be the original artwork for "Runaway," but West used a photograph of a ballerina instead.
George Condo and Kanye West met up for several hours where they listened to tapes of his music, and over the next few days Condo made eight or nine paintings for the album. Two of them were portraits of West, one in extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth. Another showed his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, impaled by a sword. There was also a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu, a painting of the crown and the sword by themselves in a grassy landscape, and a lurid scene of a naked black man on a bed, straddled by a naked white female creature with fearsome features, wings, no arms, and a long, spotted tail, the last one being the original album cover. According to New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
, a new painting for the album, entitled "The Priest", was completed by Condo, who described it as an attempt to bring depictions of religious figures into the modern world.
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
chart, with first-week sales of 496,000 copies in the United States. It is West's fourth consecutive US number-one album, and its debut week serves as the fourth-best sales week of 2010, while its first-week digital sales of 224,000 copies serve as the fourth-highest sales week for a digitally-downloaded album. The album also entered at number one on Billboard
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums
Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999...
, Rap Albums
Top Rap Albums
Top Rap Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks Rap and hip-hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart began publication for the week of November 13, 2004....
, and Digital Albums charts. On January 11, 2011, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified platinum
RIAA certification
In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...
by the Recording Industry Association of America
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
(RIAA), for shipments of one million copies in the US. It has spent 34 weeks on the Billboard 200, and as of October 2011, has sold 1,212,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan
Nielsen SoundScan is an information and sales tracking system created by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett. Soundscan is the official method of tracking sales of music and music video products throughout the United States and Canada...
.
In Canada, it entered at number one on the Top 100 Albums
Canadian Albums Chart
The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS...
chart, with first-week sales of 29,000 copies. In the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number 16 on the Top 100 Albums
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
chart, on which it spent six weeks. On December 10, 2010, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry
British Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
, for shipments of 60,000 copies in the UK. In Australia, it entered at number six on the ARIA Top 50 Albums
ARIA Charts
The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June...
and at number two on the Top 40 Urban Albums chart. On March 21, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
, for shipments of 70,000 copies in Australia. In New Zealand, the album debuted at number 10 on the RIANZ's Top 40 Albums
Recording Industry Association of New Zealand
The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand...
chart. It also charted at number four in Denmark, at number 18 in Ireland, at number 11 in Norway, at number 10 in Switzerland, at number 21 in Belgium, at number 19 in Germany, at number 39 in Greece, at number 19 in Sweden, at number 28 in France, at number 87 in Mexico, at number 42 in Finland, at number 97 in Spain, and at number 17 in the Netherlands.
Critical response
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy received general acclaim from music criticMusic criticism
See also Music journalism for reporting on classical and popular music in the media.The Oxford Companion to Music defines music criticism as 'the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres'. In this...
s. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 94, based on 43 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". Andy Gill of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
gave it five out of five stars and called it "one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza in which any notion of good taste is abandoned at the door". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Simon Vozick-Levinson commended West's "outrageously hedonistic lyrics" and stated "West has tricked out these tracks with sharper verses and grander instrumental interludes, then lined them up in a sequence that demands to be heard from start to finish [...] essential components of a soundly built structure—easily his most consistently compelling full-length since 2005′s Late Registration". Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
writer Ann Powers
Ann Powers
Ann Powers is an American writer and pop music critic.Powers has been writing about popular music and society since the early 1980s...
called its music "Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
-like, fulfilling the Cubist
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space to suggest new ways of viewing things". Steve Jones of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
gave the album four out of four stars, calling it "an epic, adventurous aural mélange that easily outstrips anything he's done". David Browne
David Browne
David Browne is an American journalist and author. He was the resident music critic at Entertainment Weekly between 1990 and 2006. He was an editor at Music & Sound Output magazine and a music critic at the New York Daily News before EW...
of Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
dubbed it West's "most extravagant work [...] congested, constantly bustling", writing that it "reasserts the fact that few combine disparate elements as smoothly as West". The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
s Chris Richards called it his "masterpiece [...] pure pop bravura, with hip-hop's biggest ego torquing self-obsession into unapologetic new shapes". Dan Vidal of URB stated "Kanye (much like Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
) has the ability to bring out the strengths of his collaborators — squeezing out the essence of their artistic persona as highlights for the music that he creates".
Kitty Empire
Kitty Empire
Kitty Empire is the pen name of a British writer and music critic.Empire was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1970 and brought up in Canada, Italy and Egypt before arriving in Britain in 1988....
of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
criticized its lyrics regarding "women as ruthless money-grabbers", but called the album "herculean [...] a flawed near-masterpiece". Despite noting an inconsistency in West's rapping, Allmusic editor Andy Kellman described the album as "a deeply fascinating accomplishment" in West's catalogue, stating "As fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an extraordinarily complex 70-minute set of songs. [...] As the ego and ambition swells, so does the appeal, the repulsiveness, and – most importantly – the ingenuity". Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
writer Rob Sheffield
Rob Sheffield
Rob Sheffield is an American music journalist and author. He is currently a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing music reviews and essays on pop culture. Prior to that, he was a contributing editor at Blender before the print version of the magazine folded in 2009, and at Spin...
gave it five out of five stars, citing it as West's best album and "his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus [...] Nobody else is making music this daring and weird". Giving the album four-and-a-half out of five stars, Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic
Sputnikmusic, or simply Sputnik, is a music website offering music criticism and music news alongside features commonly associated with wiki-style websites...
's Channing Freeman noted "a zest for life in these songs that is really quite beautiful" and viewed it as "the first album in which he's truly lived up to his potential in every way - as a rapper, as a lyricist, as a songwriter". Jon Caramanica of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
described it as "a startlingly maximalist take on East Coast rap
East Coast hip hop
East Coast hip hop is a regional subgenre of hip hop music that originated in New York City, USA during the 1970s. Hip hop is recognized to have originated and evolved first in the East Coast...
traditionalism" and called West "a better rapper than he’s ever been". The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
s Sean Fennessey commented that "Kanye is rapping and singing better and with more tenacity than he ever has on Fantasy", while calling the album "a staggering, often breathtaking work [...] masterfully engineered and sequenced, each song bleeding over like some long night out into the hazy morning after".
Anslem Samuel of XXL
XXL (magazine)
XXL is a Hip-Hop magazine, published by Harris Publications.In 1997, XXL was founded by former Source staffers as well as other Harris Publication employees, who wanted to create their own magazine about the hip-hop music and culture using the model developed by the founders of The Source...
gave the album a maximum rating of "XXL" and praised it "Sonically and lyrically [...] intricately constructed tracks framing his heartfelt outbursts and honest inner reflections". Alex Denney of NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
called it "an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man". Chris Martins of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
noted its production as "loud and proud, but also poignant and gripping" and called the album "a sinister, orchestral, hugely grandiose affair that owes as much to the artist's self-aggrandizing ego as to the voracious id that would destroy it publicly". Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
writer Thomas Conner gave it four out of four stars and commented that West's "difficulty in communicating" is "pretty compelling on record". Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
writer Greg Kot
Greg Kot
Greg Kot is an American writer and journalist. Since 1990, Kot has been the music critic at the Chicago Tribune, where he has covered popular music and reported on music-related social, political and business issues...
perceived the album's feel as "a collision of opulence and emptiness" and complimented West's transparency, "his almost pathological allegiance to expressing his emotions, unfiltered [...] a curious mix of bravado and vulnerability". Nitsuh Abebe of New York
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
called the album "adventurous, fierce, and full of vitality", writing that "Its guiding principle seems to be to go in harder on every front: Be more opulent and arty, be more vicious and aggrieved, be more 'complicated' and self-lacerated". Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
's Matthew Cole viewed it as a milestone in hip hop music and lauded its themes of "self-aggrandizement and self-effacement", writing that it "allows Kanye a thematic palette broad enough to confront his pride and anguish". Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...
's Ryan Dombal called it "a hedonistic exploration into a rich and famous American id
Id, ego, and super-ego
Id, ego and super-ego are the three parts of the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche; they are the three theoretical constructs in terms of whose activity and interaction mental life is described...
". Giving it a 10 out of 10 rating, David Amidon of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
complimented West's dichotomous themes and noted "there are few more human albums in hip-hop".
Accolades
The album appeared on numerous music critics' and publications' end-of-year albums lists. Chicago Tribune writer Greg Kot included it at number seven on his list of the year's top albums, writing that it "turns contradictions into strengths, a mix of classical opulence, grimy beats, boldness and vulnerability". PopMatters named it the year's fourth best album in its year-end list, calling it "Kanye West’s self-portrait, in Cubism: complex, petulant, somewhat paranoid, but bursting with ideas and never boring". Chris Yuscavage of Vibe ranked it number one on his list of the 10 Best Albums of 2010. PastePaste (magazine)
Paste is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine published in the United States by Wolfgang's Vault. Its tagline is "Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture."-History:...
named it the fourth best album of 2010, and the publication's M.T. Richards called it "a nuanced, intimately personal record wherein even ostensibly boastful tracks are tangled with insecurities, both personal and professional [...] perhaps this century’s definitive portrait of torment, vanity, self-delusion, and pathos". Nitsuh Abebe of New York named it the eighth best album of the year. The Guardian included it at number two on its list of 2010's top 40 albums and commented that West "remains, on record, one of the most compelling artists of our time". NME ranked the album number 34 on its list of 75 Best Albums of 2010.
Many critics and publications named it the best album of the year. Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
placed the album at number one on its 40 Best Albums list for 2010. In naming it the album of the year, the publication's Charles Aaron wrote that it "is 2010's album of the year because Kanye dramatizes... with a budget-averse musical imagination that's ominous, symphonic, heartsick, riff-ravaged, and driven by the most technically legit rapping he's ever managed". Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
, Time, Slant Magazine, Pitchfork Media, and Rolling Stone also named it the best album of 2010 in their year-end lists. Both Chris Richards and Allison Stewart of The Washington Post named the album the best of 2010. The New York Times Jon Caramanica, Nate Chinen, and Jon Pareles all included the album in their individual top-10 albums lists. The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club
The A.V. Club is an entertainment newspaper and website published by The Onion. Its features include reviews of new films, music, television, books, games and DVDs, as well as interviews and other regular offerings examining both new and classic media and other elements of pop culture. Unlike its...
ranked the album at the top of its year-end list and commented on its significance, stating "Fantasy is an idiot-savant smash, an example of a musician overreaching, yet triumphing through dumb bravado and an imagination gloriously unfettered by logic. Kanye actually set out to make the album of the year when nobody listens to albums anymore". My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was voted best album in The Village Voices Pazz & Jop
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
critics' poll for 2010, winning by the largest margin in the poll's history. The singles "Power", "Runaway", and "Monster" were voted in the top-10 of the Pazz & Jop's singles list.
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was nominated for a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
for Best Rap Album
Grammy Award for Best Rap Album
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums with rapping at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards...
, set to be presented at the 54th Grammy Awards
54th Grammy Awards
The 54th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on February 12, 2012, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. It will be broadcasted on CBS. Nominations were announced on November 30, 2011 on prime-time television as part of "The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live! – Countdown to Music's Biggest Night", a...
in 2012. The song "All of the Lights" was nominated for Grammy Awards for Song of the Year
Grammy Award for Song of the Year
The Song of the Year is one of the four most prestigious awards in the Grammy Awards ceremony, if not in all of the American music industry. It has been awarded since 1959 and unlike the Record of the Year award, which goes to the performer and production team of a single song, Song of the Year...
, Best Rap Song
Grammy Award for Best Rap Song
The Grammy Award for Best Rap Song was first awarded in 2004. It is a songwriting award given to all who wrote the lyrics and music of the song. Years reflect the year in which the Grammy Awards were presented, for works released in the previous year...
, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration
The Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration is an honor presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for quality songs on which rappers and singers collaborate...
.
Track listing
(co.) Co-producer(add.) Additional production
Sample credits
- "Dark Fantasy" contains samples of "In High PlacesIn High Places (song)"In High Places" is a single by musician Mike Oldfield, released in 1987 . "In High Places" is from the album Crises, "Poison Arrows" is from Discovery and "Jungle Gardenia" is a non-album track....
" by Mike OldfieldMike OldfieldMichael Gordon Oldfield is an English multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, working a style that blends progressive rock, folk, ethnic or world music, classical music, electronic music, New Age, and more recently, dance. His music is often elaborate and complex in nature...
. - "Gorgeous" contains portions and elements of the composition "You Showed MeYou Showed Me"You Showed Me" is a song written by Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark of The Byrds in 1964. It was recorded by The Turtles and released as a single in 1969, becoming the group's last big hit in the U.S. The song has also been covered by a number of other bands and artists over the years, including The...
", written by Gene ClarkGene ClarkGene Clark, born Harold Eugene Clark was an American singer-songwriter, and one of the founding members of the folk-rock group The Byrds....
and Roger McGuinnRoger McGuinnJames Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
. - "Power" contains elements from "It's Your Thing" by Cold Grits, contains elements of "Afromerica" by Continent Number 6, and contains material sampled from "21st Century Schizoid Man21st Century Schizoid Man"21st Century Schizoid Man" is a song by progressive rock band King Crimson from their debut album In the Court of the Crimson King.-Personnel:* Greg Lake – Vocals, bass guitar* Ian McDonald – saxophone* Robert Fripp – guitars* Michael Giles – drums...
" performed by King CrimsonKing CrimsonKing Crimson are a rock band founded in London, England in 1969. Often categorised as a foundational progressive rock group, the band have incorporated diverse influences and instrumentation during their history...
. - "So Appalled" contains samples of "You Are – I Am" by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band.
- "Devil in a New Dress" contains samples of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" as performed by Smokey RobinsonSmokey RobinsonWilliam "Smokey" Robinson, Jr. is an American R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. Robinson is one of the primary figures associated with Motown, second only to the company's founder, Berry Gordy...
. - "Runaway" contains a sample of "Expo 83" performed by Backyard Heavies, and contains excerpts of from "Rick JamesRick JamesJames Ambrose Johnson, Jr. , better known by his stage name Rick James, was an American singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. James was a popular performer in the late 1970s and 1980s, scoring four number-one hits on the U.S. R&B charts performing in the genres of funk and R&B...
‘Live at Long Beach, CA’ 1981". - "Hell of a Life" contains samples of "She’s My Baby" by The Mojo MenThe Mojo MenThe Mojo Men were a rock music band, inspired by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, who recorded for the Autumn Records label in San Francisco, California....
, contains samples of "Stud-Spider" by Tony Joe WhiteTony Joe WhiteTony Joe White is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his 1969 hit "Polk Salad Annie"; "Rainy Night in Georgia", which he wrote but was first made popular by Brook Benton in 1970; and "Steamy Windows", a hit for Tina Turner in 1989...
, and contains portions of "Iron ManIron Man (song)"Iron Man" is a song by British heavy metal band Black Sabbath from their second studio album Paranoid released in 1970. It was later included on their initial greatest hits compilation We Sold Our Soul for Rock 'n' Roll , as well as all subsequent greatest hits compilations.-Writing and...
" by Black SabbathBlack SabbathBlack Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
. - "Blame Game" contains elements of "Avril 14th" by Richard JamesAphex TwinRichard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
. - "Lost in the World" contains portions of "Soul MakossaSoul Makossa"Soul Makossa" is a 1972 single by Cameroonian makossa saxophonist Manu Dibango. It is often cited as one of the first disco records. In 1972 David Mancuso found a copy in a Brooklyn West Indian record store and often played it at his Loft parties. The response was so positive that the few copies...
", written by Manu DibangoManu Dibango-External links:*...
, contains a sample of "Think (About It)Think (About It)"Think " is a funk song recorded by Lyn Collins and released as a single on James Brown's People Records in 1972. The recording was produced by Brown and featured instrumental backing from his band The J.B.'s...
" as performed by Lyn CollinsLyn CollinsLyn Collins was an African American soul singer best known for working with James Brown in the 1970s. Contrary to some reports, she is not related to Bootsy Collins, nor Catfish Collins....
, contains samples of "Woods" as performed by Bon IverBon IverBon Iver is a Grammy nominated folk band founded in 2007 by American indie folk singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. It includes Michael Noyce, Sean Carey, and Matthew McCaughan. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, For Emma, Forever Ago independently in July 2007. The majority of that album was...
, and contains samples of "Comment No. 1" performed by Gil Scott-HeronGil Scott-HeronGilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s...
. - "Who Will Survive In America" contains samples of "Comment No. 1" performed by Gil Scott-Heron.
Musicians
- Ian Allen – handclapping
- Tim Anderson – French horn
- Richard Ashton – French horn
- Chris "Hitchcock" Chorney – cello, cello arrangement
- Wilson Christopher – handclapping
- Rosie Danvers – cello, conductor, orchestration
- Uri Djemal – handclapping
- Drake – vocals
- The-Dream – vocals
- Dwele – vocals
- Fergie – vocals
- Alvin Fields – chant, vocals
- Simon Finch – trumpet
- Danny Flam – brass, woodwind
- Kay Fox – vocals
- Mark Frost – trombone
- Andrew Gathercole – trumpet
- Tony Gorruso – Brass, woodwind
- Elly Jackson "La Roux" – vocals
- Elton John – piano, vocals
- Philip Judge – trombone
- Salma Kenas – vocals
- Alicia Keys – vocals
- Kid Cudi – vocals
- Ken Lewis – bass, brass, chant, drum programming, engineer, guitar, horn arrangements, organ, vocals, woodwind
- John Legend – vocals
- Ryan Leslie – vocals
- Mike Lovatt – trumpet
- Nicki Minaj – vocals
- Khloe Mitchell – poetry
- Rihanna – vocals
- Rachel Robson – viola
- Chris Rock – vocals
- Amber Rose – vocals
- Tom Rumsby – French horn
- Jenny Sacha – violin
- Kotono Sato – violin
- Gil Scott-Heron – vocals
- Chris Soper – handclapping
- Teyana Taylor – vocals
- Justin "Bon Iver" Vernon – vocals, background vocals
- Chloe Vincent – flute
- Tony Williams – vocals, background vocals
- Charlie Wilson – vocals
Production
- Virgil Abloh – art direction
- Chris Atlas – marketing
- Jeff Bhasker – additional production, cello arrangement, keyboards, piano, producer
- Peter Bischoff – assistant, assistant engineer, engineer
- Al Branch – marketing
- Leesa D. Brunson – A&R
- Don C. – A&R
- Mike Caren – producer
- Shawn Carter – executive producer
- Cary Clark – mixing assistant
- George Condo – artwork, paintings
- Andrew Dawson – additional production, engineer, mixing
- Mike Dean – additional production, bass, cello arrangement, engineer, guitar, keyboards, mixing, piano, producer, soloist
- DJ Frank E – producer
- Emile – producer
- Ryan Gilligan – engineer
- Noah Goldstein – engineer
- Alex Graupera – assistant
- Gaylord Holomalia – assistant
- Phil Joly – assistant, assistant engineer, engineer
- Terese Joseph – A&R
- Kyambo "Hip Hop" Joshua – executive producer
- Doug Joswick – package production
- JP Robinson – art coordinator
- Anthony Kilhoffer – drum programming, engineer, mixing
- Brent Kolatalo – drum programming, engineer, keyboards
- Erik Madrid – mixing assistant
- Manny Marroquin – mixing
- Vlado Meller – mastering
- Christian Mochizuki – assistant, assistant engineer, engineer
- Fabien Montique – photography
- No I.D. – producer
- Plain Pat – additional production
- Christian Plata – mixing assistant
- Antonio "L.A." Reid – executive producer
- Patrick "Plain Pat" Reynolds – A&R
- Gee Roberson – executive producer
- Todd Russell – art coordinator
- RZA – producer
- S1 – producer
- Tommy D. – producer
- Marcos Tovar – vocal engineer
- Tracey Waples – marketing
- Eric Weissman – sample clearance
- Kanye West – art direction, executive producer, producer
- Kristen Yiengst – art coordinator
Chart positions
| Chart (2010) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
6 |
| Australian Urban Albums Chart ARIA Charts The ARIA charts are the main Australian music sales charts, issued weekly by the Australian Recording Industry Association. The charts are a record of the highest selling singles and albums in various genres in Australia. ARIA commenced compiling its own charts in-house from the week ending 26 June... |
2 |
| Belgian Albums Chart (Flanders) Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... |
21 |
| Belgian Albums Chart (Wallonia) Ultratop Ultratop is an organization which generates and publishes the official record charts in Belgium, and it is also the name of most of those charts... |
43 |
| Canadian Albums Chart Canadian Albums Chart The Canadian Albums Chart is the official album sales chart in Canada. It is compiled every Wednesday by U.S.-based music sales tracking company Nielsen Soundscan, and published every Thursday by Jam! Canoe and Billboard, along with its sister charts the Canadian Singles Chart and the Canadian BDS... |
1 |
| Czech Republic Albums Chart IFPI The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a not-for-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland... |
30 |
| Danish Albums Chart Tracklisten Tracklisten is a Danish top 40 record chart that is presented every Thursday midnight at .The weekly Danish Singles Chart also known as Track Top-40 combines the 40 best selling tracks from legal music downloads and the sales of music singles on either CD or vinyl... |
4 |
| Dutch Albums Chart MegaCharts MegaCharts is responsible for the composition and exploitation of a broad collection of official charts in the Netherlands, of which the Mega Top 50 and the Mega Album Top 100 are the most known ones. Mega Charts also provides information to the Stichting Nederlandse Top 40, of which the Dutch Top... |
17 |
| European Top 100 Albums European Top 100 Albums The European Top 100 Albums chart is the European adaptation of the Billboard 200 albums chart. It was created in March 1984.The European Top 100 Albums, commonly referred to as Eurochart Top 100 Albums shows the sales of an act in 19 European countries based on IFPI data.The European Top 100... |
19 |
| Finnish Albums Chart | 42 |
| French Albums Chart Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique The Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique is the inter-professional organization which protects the interests of the French record industry... |
28 |
| German Albums Chart Media Control Charts The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie... |
19 |
| Greek Albums Chart IFPI Greece International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Greece or IFPI Greece is the Greek branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and is the official charts provider and recording sales certification body for Greece. Currently two charts are compiled, one for sales of... |
39 |
| Irish Albums Chart Irish Albums Chart The Irish Albums Chart is the Irish music industry standard albums popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association and compiled on its behalf by Chart-Track. Chart rankings are based on sales, which are compiled through over-the-counter retail data captured electronically... |
18 |
| Japanese Albums Chart Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc... |
15 |
| Mexican Albums Chart | 87 |
| New Zealand Albums Chart Recording Industry Association of New Zealand The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand is a non-profit trade association of record producers, distributors and recording artists who sell music in New Zealand... |
10 |
| Norwegian Albums Chart VG-lista VG-listen is a Norwegian record chart. It is weekly presented in the newspaper VG and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation program Topp 20. It is considered the primary Norwegian record chart, charting albums and singles from countries and continent around the world. The data is collected by... |
7 |
| Scottish Albums Chart Scottish Singles and Albums Chart The Scottish Singles Chart and Scottish Albums Chart are charts compiled by The Official Charts Company, based on physical and digital sales in the STV North, STV Central and ITV Border regions.... |
24 |
| South Korean Albums Chart Album Chart (Gaon Chart) The Gaon Album Chart are a set national charts that ranks the best-selling albums, including mini-albums and singles, in South Korea, provided by the Korea Music Content Industry Association. It started tracking sales since the beginning of 2010 and launched in February the same year as part of the... |
2 |
| Spanish Albums Chart | 97 |
| Swedish Albums Chart Sverigetopplistan Sverigetopplistan, earlier known as Topplistan and Hitlistan and other names, is since October 2007 the Swedish national record chart, based on sales data from Swedish Recording Industry Association .... |
19 |
| Swiss Albums Chart Swiss Music Charts The Swiss Music Charts are Switzerland's main music sales charts. The charts are a record of the highest-selling singles and albums in various genres in Switzerland.The Swiss Charts include:* Singles Top 75... |
10 |
| UK Albums Chart UK Albums Chart The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart... |
16 |
| UK Download Chart | 3 |
| US Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists... |
1 |
| US Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums is a chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks R&B and hip hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The name of the chart was changed from Top R&B Albums in 1999... |
1 |
| US Billboard Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums Top Rap Albums is a record chart published by Billboard magazine that ranks Rap and hip-hop albums based on sales compiled by Nielsen SoundScan. The chart began publication for the week of November 13, 2004.... |
1 |
Certifications
| Country | Provider | Certification |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | ARIA Australian Recording Industry Association The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956... |
Platinum |
| Denmark | IFPI | Gold |
| United Kingdom | BPI British Phonographic Industry The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies... |
Silver |
| United States | RIAA Recording Industry Association of America The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States... |
Platinum |
Chart precession and succession
See also
- G.O.O.D. FridaysG.O.O.D. FridaysG.O.O.D. Fridays was a weekly free music giveaway started by rapper Kanye West. The name originates from the name of his label, G.O.O.D. Music, and is also a reference to the Friday before Easter, which is known as Good Friday. Every Friday, beginning on August 20, 2010, Kanye planned on releasing...
- List of number-one albums of 2010 (U.S.)
- Runaway (2010 film)Runaway (2010 film)Runaway is a 35-minute short film directed by and starring Kanye West. It serves as the music video for a compilation of songs from West's album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It is inspired by other music-related films such as Purple Rain, Pink Floyd The Wall and Michael Jackson's Thriller...
External links
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at DiscogsDiscogsDiscogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
- My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at MetacriticMetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...