With months of buzz and building expectations, today’s release of Kanye West’s new album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” marks another large milestone in the ever interesting life of West.
For University students, West is a dorm, apartment and household name. With albums like “College Dropout,” “Late Registration” and “Graduation,” it’s hard to find a student who can’t reference at least one of West’s songs.
In the fall of 2008 when West released “808s & Heartbreaks,” an auto-tuned experiment riddled with themes of tragic events in West’s life, the artist lost many fans who disliked his different sound.
It appears West may gain back many of these fans with the new sounds of “Twisted Fantasy,” but sounds that fall closer to those his original listeners came to appreciate.
“I’d say that it’s such a different album than the rest of his stuff that it seems as if he’s evolving into a darker, more mature artist,” University senior Austin Clark said.
With a number of positive reviews and early glimpses, the anticipation may be higher than ever. As 2010 has unfolded in hip-hop, Drake and Eminem songs have been played in dorm rooms, house parties and passing cars. “Twisted Fantasy” appears to be the next album.
“As usual, it appeals directly to the college crowd by being dark and contemplative at one moment and then lighthearted and fun the next,” Clark said.
West’s songs playing across campus will be a return to the fall of 2008 with “808s & Heartbreaks” and especially the fall of 2007 when it was impossible to go anywhere without hearing songs from “Graduation.”
Descriptions show the heavy and emotionally strong themes will be a departure from the commercially circulated songs around campus. Although “Twisted Fantasy” is a commercial record, the music will carry a different sound than the current music scene offers. How this will be received is yet to be determined as anticipation changes into reaction as more students listen to the album.
Such anticipation around the album started actually started in 2007 after the release of “Graduation.” “Twisted Fantasy” was originally planned to be released following “Graduation.” But West decided to start production on “808s & Heartbreaks” after the unexpected departure of West’s fiancee Alexis Phifer along with the tragic death of his mother, Donda West, who died while undergoing cosmetic surgery. The original name for the album was “Good Ass Job,” which was changed to “Dark Twisted Fantasy” until West finally decided on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.” Production on the album started in the beginning of 2010.
Most recently though, West stirred the buzz when he released samples of the album at the beginning of the summer.
From his Twitter account, West released free music every Friday in a saga he called G.O.O.D. Friday. While some of these songs were just musical fun, others were directly off “Twisted Fantasy” where listeners were given a glimpse into the themes of the not-yet-released album.
The early glimpses expanded when West released “Runaway,” an extended 35-minute film, on Oct. 23. The film, which starred West as he interacted with a phoenix who crashed to earth, featured short one-to-two-minute samples of songs from the album. Directed and written by West along with acclaimed video director Hype Williams, “Runaway” added to the anticipation as the censored and non-censored version combined had 10 million views.
After the sneak peeks into the album, students will finally get to hear the songs as a whole. The question now is whether or not it will live up to West’s previous records.
[email protected]