About

A TAV Curator’s Pick.

"My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released on November 22, 2010, by Roc-A-Fella Records. Following a period of public and legal controversy, West retreated to a "self-imposed exile" in Hawaii in 2009. There, he worked on the album in a communal recording environment that involved numerous contributing musicians and producers.

Noted by critics for its maximalist aesthetic, opulent production quality, and dichotomous themes, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy incorporates aspects of West's previous works, including soul, baroque, electro, and symphonic styles. The album deals with themes of excess and celebrity, and explores such issues as consumer culture, race, and the idealism of the American Dream.

The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy received widespread critical acclaim and was also named the best record of 2010 in numerous critics' polls and year-end lists.

Andy Gill from The Independent 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".

In the Los Angeles Times, Ann Powers found the music "Picasso-like, fulfilling the Cubist mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space to suggest new ways of viewing things".

Time magazine's David Browne viewed it as West's most lavish record and said it proved again that few other artists shared his ability to adeptly combine diverse elements. Dan Vidal of URB highlighted West's ability to bring out the best out of his collaborators, finding it comparable to the work of Miles Davis. Writing for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield called the album West's best and most wildly inspired album to date, claiming that no other artist was recording music as dark or uncanny, while Sputnikmusic critic Channing Freeman hailed 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". The Village Voice's Sean Fennessey found the album overwhelming and skillfully produced because of how each song transitions over "like some long night out into the hazy morning after"."  – Wiki

 Note: The vinyl release of the album comes in die-cut double gatefold sleeve. Includes 5 inserts and a large 24"x24" poster of George Condo artwork.

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