My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West
User Score
8.5 out of 10

Universal acclaim- based on 772 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 686 out of 772
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 772
  3. Negative: 70 out of 772

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  1. Antinet
    Nov 24, 2010
    3
    This album is a blatant ripoff of Moby's sound and production techniques, most notably from Play and 18.
    Kanye does a competent job of copying that style, and then proceeds to ruin it by putting aggressive, angry, insanely self-obsessed rapping over it. We're not talking Eminem-style intensity or originality in rapping style either. West can conjure interesting lyrics, but his rhythmic del    ivery is quite average. I must admit I'm a fan of the video, and supposedly he directed it, but it's clear much of the credit needs to go to the director of photography. Kanye employs a bunch of strange imagery regarding some model that falls to earth, and is physically perfect, but she's a bird, and his friends won't accept her. Seriously? Get real and get a plot and a clue. Dark Fantasy's package is very appealing, but ultimately it's too much of a ripoff of someone else's musical style for my taste, and more importantly, the sentiment expressed is the same old poor-liittle-me-I'm-so-put-upon public persona that we've all gotten really tired of.… Expand
  2. Scraper
    Dec 1, 2010
    3
    Like Terrell Owens and Randy Moss, this completes the parade of self-centered simpletons with great technique and talent. The reason everyone loves this record is because the beats are tight and the rhymes flow to them. But the man who put them together is basically as deep as the tabloids you read about him.
  3. soundGreedy
    Dec 16, 2010
    3
    Ok, I am a big fan of Kanye. I have followed his career. I would not say this album is a disappointment since he has followed in his latest trend of mediocre lyrics coupled with synthesized sound. I am jumping off this band wagon.
  4. Hoshuya
    Jan 31, 2011
    3
    Whenever I hear a new Kanye song on the radio the first thing I think is, wow, this is some surprisingly bad rapping for the radio. Then I think, oh it's Kanye, that's why. His flow is really weak, his rhythm is flabby and his rhymes are boring but for some reason people really like him. Another thing that hits me is how overcrowded the beats and production are. I'm in awe of producers that can make a beat swing hard with only a few elements. Kanye's heavy layering of samples without regard to whether or not they're doing something exciting rhythmically has an amateurish sound to me. Finally, the samples themselves bug. I think that if you're going to sample, i.e. borrow someone else's idea, you've got to either make it better than the original or put it into a new context that gives it an entirely new identity. "Stronger" is a good example of his failure there. The song is really more a cover than a sample of the Daft Punk original because it's a direct lift of the chorus, but Daft Punk's version is much more thrilling and danceable. Kanye just made it worse. Kanye is obviously a great music listener because he draws samples from a very broad array of genres. But generally when I hear the original song the sample came from I think it was better off without him. Saying all that MBDTF is probably the best yet from Kanye. If I heard it as a mixtape from some unknown guy on the street I'd probably think, this guy's got something. If he keeps working at it, starts paring down that production, sharpens up his rhythm he might have something interesting. But this isn't some unknown amateur. It's Kanye West, king of the charts and supreme darling of the critics. I just don't get it.… Expand
  5. Belmsher
    Aug 11, 2011
    3
    The singles are pretty acceptable but I still wonder about all the hype concerning the other tracks. Completely outrageous, terrible... The matter is not West's ego or his attention-seeking behaviour with his lyrics (alas, which are not even a bit intelligent like almost every critic praise)...not even about his wannabe-indie attitude... it's about his music, which is so avant-garde (??...well, yeah, according to some people) that my ears can barely listen to it. Lyrics: full of clichès, inconsistent, derogatory... It's a real mess and quite clearly the most over-rated thing of the year and maybe of the decade.… Expand
  6. Kernzzi
    Nov 23, 2010
    2
    dont see what all the hype is about to be honest...
  7. Stuie
    Dec 20, 2010
    0
    This album is nothing more than over produced Moby beats with terrible vocals and shallow lyrics. The fact that it has such a high score both from critics and users is mind boggling. The fact that it is called the best album of 2010 by sites like Pitchfork and Stereogum is even worse. I mean I sat down thinking it was going to be great and was not impressed at all. Really, what is the appeal of this album?… Expand
  8. tghm1801
    Nov 23, 2010
    0
    Doesn't deserve the 98 score, or it's high user score.
    More of the same, and it is terrible.
    Repetitive, derogatory crap.
    I would say I'm disappointed but it's nothing less than what I expected, which was NOTHING.
    Crap.
  9. Drag
    Nov 22, 2010
    0
    This album feels hollow compared to his last releases. The music itself is uninteresting and has Kanye trying to reinvent himself yet again; however, unlike past releases, he failed at creating a solid album.
  10. MG1595
    Nov 23, 2010
    0
    **** nothing more I can say about this album, I mean I never like him, but now hes a fckn pain in my ears, cant handlle too many **** coming out of the mic...
  11. Padraig_Clarke
    Nov 22, 2010
    0
    I used to love Kanye's music, but this album is awful. Some of the language he uses is just downright rude and I believe Kanye should be ashamed of himself. He has lost himself a fan after this album. It was despicable. What appals me even more is the positive reviews it has got from various esteemed critics
  12. BetterMusic
    Nov 25, 2010
    0
    I got this album thinking hey it might be good. Power was a pretty good song, but then I heard the album. All the beats besides Power sound like they were produced by some crappy amateur which I know Kanye isn't after hearing some of his other beats. The singing get's annoying most of the time, and I wish he would stop. How many rap songs have to rap about porn stars, and all the other typical rap stuff. A couple of the songs are okay, but then you read the lyrics and then you give up on Kanye completely. You can try and read these lyrics off this paper before I lay them, but you can't take the sting out these words before I say them.

    This isn't Kanye's case, because besides the beats there's nothing new, and it's the same **** At least in Eminem's case he changes it up a little. In Jay-Z's case he at least does it with a cool style. Overall some of the beats are okay, but Kanye doesn't execute it correctly and it's the same lyrical **** as before and he hasn't matured at all since his first two releases (the ones I can actually listen to). He tries to be original but he fails. I give this album a 1/10 for me, but for some people's taste in music a 3/10. I hope that Eminem or Andre 3000 come out with some new material soon. Rap needs it.    … Expand
  13. Kreft
    Nov 28, 2010
    0
    I was very disappointed in this album. I read from reviews that it was a good album so I bought it. well after listening to it a few times, I can safely say that the money I spent for it was wasted. There really is not that much entertainment value in this album and I'm a huge fan of music as well as rap. Mr. West's ego is just too much. Nobody should have an ego as large as his, not even people with the greatest contributions to the world (i.e. great scientists like Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, etc. Those men have changed the world in so many good ways, and even from them I would not understand having this large of an ego). What have been Mr. West's accomplishments? Well he has put out a few albums. And while many may have liked them, they surely have not changed anything for the better. All this album is is some average rhymes/lines with him bragging about how great and what a "genius" he is. and while, granted, that's what most rap is, Mr. West takes it to an unnecessary level. DO NOT BUY THIS ALBUM UNLESS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO SOME WHINY RAPPER TALK ABOUT HOW GOOD HE IS.… Expand
  14. Damion
    Jan 28, 2011
    0
    It is simply appalling that this man continues to be so over credited for producing nothing but crap time and again. West must be the most over-rated "artist" the world has ever seen, thus his humongous ego being based on people who somehow find something good in one of the most talentless artists to ever record. "Fantasy," just like everything else he has recorded, sounds exactly the same as, well, everything else he has recorded, and it's just refried crap on digital. The man has made a career out of seemingly releasing the same terrible album over and over...and I wish someone would explain to me how this appeals to people...but then again, the country he is most popular in also kept "Macarena" at #1 for weeks. Kanye should be flipping burgers in new Mexico and should just never be seen or heard from again. This is THE most over-rated album of 2010. Oh look! Not one song of his on the radio...what a shock...… Expand
  15. ranmancarmel
    Feb 10, 2011
    0
    Ouch, my ears! Since when did stealing others' music and shouting at people qualify as creating? This is just another example of meglomania unchecked, a man surrounded by yes-men, the critics falling into that category as a whole. Give me some great Wyclef any day over this.
  16. Nimarpritdhammi
    May 2, 2011
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. In a world where celebrities hide from the paparazzi and disguise their "pop" lifestyles in order to relate with their fans, Kanye West is really doing the opposite: His beautiful dark twisted fantasy about marrying a pornstar and divorcing her by the end of the night (Hell of a Life) doesn't really seem like a fantasy because for West it could very well happen - yet he manages to create a vibe that says otherwise, because his feelings as a sexual/normal individual (his Id) are always stronger than his boastfull self that knows of fame and fortune. That is what makes My Beautiful Dark Twisted..."Fan"tasty": Kanye West is able to portray his life as a public superstar figure honestly whilst still being a character that everybody can relate to. This is a skill Mr. West has had since the time he sang "wait til i get my money right" on Can't Tell Me Nothing although he already had enough of it: He walked in the shoes of a fan that might not, although he didn't step out of his own because wanting more money is a feeling that goes beyond numbers. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is a sonic collage of juxtapositions that aren't really juxtaposed because they interact with each other so well: West has the gift of making genre-less music that still holds some level of credibility in all of the genres it stems from: Having said that, this album (like most Kanye West albums with the exception of 808s & Heartbreak) is no less a hip hop album, in fact it's really as close if not closer to oldschool hiphop as it is to pop and rock. Not buying it? go listen to the hard hitting drums on Dark Fantasy which is a quarter of the album title. Twisted Fantasy is more hiphop than The College Dropout, yet it's so much more: The samples reach you in a way that rap usually can't even dream of, which is a surprise in that he uses samples that are quite unknown as opposed to the grandiose songs he would use on previous works (e.g. Diamonds are Forever - Shirley Bassey ). West's musical repertoire has definetly gotten bigger since then and now consists of much more than just adding drums and a baseline on his Akai Mpc 2000, although he at that exact time proved this by having score composer and multi instrumentalist Jon Brion co-produce the entire Late Registration. Common for both, but much more so on this album are the details that are small yet so significant. From Nicki Minaj giving her english accent over Mozart's Lacrimosa to Bon Iver's "at the mall there was a seance" over semi-dramatic violins, this is an album filled with layers that leave goose bumps on woman that have been lasered.… Expand
  17. smokesouljah420
    Jul 14, 2012
    0
    how anyone can listen 2 this album blows my mind, this is total crap, i mean kanye west is not cool, listen 2 real music, not some loser christian rapper or rappers with kids, i mean these people don't know when to quit, i wish i metsomeone who listens to this crap, holy shot **** kanye is awful, with his cocaine smile, and moody behavior, spoiled brat, u ain't no thug

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
94 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 45 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 43 out of 45
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 45
  3. Negative: 0 out of 45
  1. Uncut
    Sep 19, 2012
    80
    West is far from rap's deftest lyricist but his neurotic grandstanding is compelling and often pretty funny to boot. [Feb 2011, p.84]
  2. Consequence of Sound
    Sep 17, 2012
    100
    There is no question that this album is a game changer. It's Kanye West's greatest work.
    Read full review
  3. Mojo
    Apr 20, 2011
    100
    My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is genuinely a great record. [Feb. 2011, p. 108]
See all critic reviews »