My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

{{Quote box My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy evolved from Good Ass Job, which Kanye West had planned as the conclusion of a college-themed tetralogy that began with The College Dropout (2004). He adhered to the plan with Late Registration (2005) and Graduation (2007), but after the death of his mother Donda West and his breakup with his fiancée Alexis Phifer, he pivoted to the electropop project 808s & Heartbreak (2008). While industry publications and collaborators reported that West would follow 808s & Heartbreak with Good Ass Job, in private, West had lost interest in continuing the plan. He explained to MTV News in October 2010 that he "didn't want to... have to stick to the skits" and other conventions of his previous albums. West said that fatigue from overworking led to his controversial outburst at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) when the singer Taylor Swift was awarded Best Female Video at the ceremony. West then went on stage, stole the mic from Swift who was 19 at the time, and said "Yo Taylor, I'm really happy for you, I'ma let you finish, but, Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!" West then shrugged and gave the mic back to Swift. He was disgusted with the media response, which led to a brief hiatus from recording. West had held recording sessions at the same studio as 808s & Heartbreak. In 2010, he explained to Ellen DeGeneres the incident served as motivation for his works because he felt like "a soldier of culture", realizing no one wants this to be his role and admitted he will continuously "feel convicted about things that really meant stuff to culture that constantly get denied for years". In 2013, West said that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy served as a backhanded apology after his VMAs outburst, detailing that he used the music to become accepted again. He elaborated that a minimum of 80 percent was genuine, with the remainder "fulfilling a perception" for the public. West insisted that he was not criticizing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and instead failed to reach satisfaction, then openly revealed his idea of the truth. == Recording and production ==

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was recorded at Avex in Honolulu, Hawaii. Additional recording took place at Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, California, and at Electric Lady Studios and Platinum Sound Recording Studios in New York City. It was reported that West spent around $3 million provided by his record label Def Jam to record the album, making it one of the most expensive albums ever made. He explained the initial recording process to Noah Callahan-Bever, the editor-in-chief of Complex and West's then-confidant, telling him he had resided in Hawaii accompanied by his favorite producers and artists to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and provide inspiration. Vocals were also recorded by M.I.A., Mos Def, Santigold, and Seal. Madlib, Statik Selektah, and DJ Premier. Madlib said he made five beats for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Sheets of paper were posted on one side of the studio with what were known as "Kanye Commandments", such as "No Tweeting" and "No Pictures". Later in the mornings after breakfast, West and most of the crew played games of 21 against locals at the Honolulu YMCA for leisure. Kid Cudi smoked marijuana in preparation and worked out on a treadmill, while RZA exercised in the weight room. Throughout the album's development, West enlisted other producers and musicians for opinions. At the studio, they went through various conversations and contributions. Expressing a similar sentiment, the rapper Malik Yusef said that he was mocked for his vision of incorporating collaborators from genres outside hip-hop like John. DJ Premier recalled that West insisted to him during the production for no electro, describing him as "that crazy dude he's always been" and pointing out his focus on the album's rawness. West ensured that the recording sessions were secretive, placing paper sheets in the studio reading "no tweeting, no talking, no e-mailing", and also prohibiting speaking with people outside of the location. In October 2010, West tweeted that the recording of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been finished. == Musical style ==

The music was described as maximalist hip-hop boom bap, R&B ballads, electronic music, and progressive rock samples. Pitchforks Ryan Dombal and AllMusic's Andy Kellman wrote My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy seamlessly combines elements from West's earlier albums; Kellman felt that "All of the Lights" denotes its varied elements and "maniacal extravagance". The album draws elements from varied genres like progressive rock, soul, and old-school rap, moving towards a new sound. Al Horner from NME called it a rap opera. The author Kirk Walker Graves thinks West became a collagist, who makes a bold and vulnerable work of art from "scattered pop shards and indelible beats". == Lyrics and themes ==

West's lyrics explore themes of excess, celebrity, self-aggrandizement, self-doubt, decadence, and sex. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also openly acknowledges alcohol and drug usage more than West's previous albums. which range from lows to highs of his mental state. He conveys feelings of despair with his public image since 808s & Heartbreak, depicting his out-of-control world. According to author Bernadette Marie Calafell, West used My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to celebrate monstrosity after his troubled year. He poses a risk of self-destruction with the id, while perusing any goal or girl he can and driven by the buzz of consumer culture, despite ultimately being unsatisfied. Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times depicted the songs as "pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceived West as not welcome nor sure about the purpose of his presence due to the discussion of race. Powers felt that rather than an issue for West, it is the inherent curse of author Michael Eric Dyson's theory of "the exceptional black man" whose talents are welcomed, but he is excluded for his skin color. According to Rolling Stones Rob Sheffield, the album serves as "a rock-star manifesto" in a world where expectations have generally lowered. == Songs ==

Tracks 1–7 The album begins with "Dark Fantasy", opened by rapper Nicki Minaj narrating a rework of Roald Dahl's 1982 poem Cinderella, The song introduces the themes of decadence and hedonism, The track's lyrics contain musical and popular culture references, including fellow rapper Nas, the 1820 short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", British singer Leona Lewis, and the song "Sex on Fire" by Tennessee rock band Kings of Leon. "Gorgeous" is an uplifting blues-styled track, "Power" features a dark production that relies on a sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" (1969), which Fennessey found to be "apocalyptic" and it is accompanied by chants loosely resembling a choir. "All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass breaks, energetic percussion, and horn instruments. West enlisted 11 guest vocalists for the song, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Tony Williams, and Elly Jackson; Rihanna sings the hook. In an interview with MTV, Jackson said that West designated her to layer up the vocal arrangement with other people as he simply used his favorite vocalists worldwide "to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out". "Monster" is a posse cut, The song is the only track without production by West, yet features his characteristic style of manipulating the pitch and tempo of classic soul samples. "Runaway" contains a piano-based motif comprising a series of uninterrupted descending half and whole notes, with a coda that incorporates cello at first, before a violin section and West's vocoder-singing, Fennessey cited "Runaway" as the point in My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy where "self-laceration overtakes chest-beating", while Graves is taken aback by how the song contains all of its contradictions; "self-mythologizing, rife with hubris, [and] assertively 'artistic' to the point of unintentional parody". and features additional vocals from Legend. and contains a profane skit by comedian Chris Rock. "Lost in the World" features tribal drums and prominent samples from the indie folk band Bon Iver's "Woods" (2009), with West applying the sample "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie". and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo. "Lost in the World" transitions into the closing track "Who Will Survive in America". Scott-Heron's original speech is edited to an excerpt that, according to Kot, "retains its essence, that of an African-American male" feeling isolated from the US and his culture. By contrast, Fennessey wrote that the seriousness of the denouement does not suit "an album that is more about the self's little nightmares than some aching societal rejection". == Title and packaging ==

designed the artwork.|alt=Portrait showing George Condo in a chair|240x240px Good Ass Job remained My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy provisional title until July 28, 2010, Music journalists reported that Dark Twisted Fantasy was among the titles under consideration. West expressed uncertainty about the title in September, tweeting: "I can't decide on my album title [...] uuuugh!!!!" He also asserts that its royal red colour is "symbolic of passion, love, anger, and, of course, blood", marked by the starkness. The artwork was done at Condo's studio, after West visited for several hours and they listened to tapes of his music. Over the next few days, the painter designed eight or nine paintings for the album. Two of them were portraits of West: an extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth; a portrait showing his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, pierced by a sword. Condo also did a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu and one of the crown alongside the sword in a grassy landscape. A second cover that contains a painting of a ballerina was posted on the Amazon.com pre-order page. The image was originally intended to be the cover art for "Runaway", but West used a photograph of a ballerina instead. West told Condo that he wanted a phoenix painting. After Condo produced with the artwork, West expressed his admiration for how they both "express ourselves with our truest vision". Certain retailers did not carry the original cover, with West substituting it with Condo's ballerina artwork, while some shipped copies used a pixelated version of the original. In 2015, Billboard named the album's artwork as the 30th best of all time. The magazine wrote that West "matched the widescreen brilliance of the album's music with boundary-cracking art", including a demonic image of him "being straddled by a nude angel". In 2017, NME listed the cover as the seventh best album artwork of the 21st century so far. == Marketing ==

.|West performing his headlining set at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2011 Before the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West initiated the music program GOOD Fridays through his website beginning August 20, 2010, offering a free download of a new song for each Friday. West tweeted that he was aware his fans needed new music, "so I'm dropping 1 new song every weekend until Xmas" and he explained a release could be a song by him, Jay-Z, or another artist. On September 12, 2010, West premiered "Runaway" with a live performance at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Three weeks later, on October 2, he performed the song a second time on Saturday Night Live, along with "Power". On October 4, 2010, West announced the album's release date of November 22, after he had previously tweeted that he was "contemplating my album date". The deal was only offered by Amazon, while the album was simultaneously made available on iTunes and West's website linked to this release. Four singles were released from it and all reached the top 40 of the US Billboard Hot 100, with the lead single "Power" released on July 1, 2010, charting at number 22. "Runaway" was released on October 4, they both charted at number 18. Filmed in Prague over a period of four days in the summer of 2010, the film stars West and model Selita Ebanks, with the script penned by Hype Williams and the story written by West. West described the video as an overall representation of his dreams and a reflection of feelings throughout his life, including a parallel of the situation from 2009 to 2010. He explained that it is "the story of a phoenix fallen to Earth", whom he makes his girlfriend, though she faces discrimination and eventually "has to burn herself alive and go back to her world". At a Runaway screening in Paris, he broke down into tears. After another screening in Los Angeles, West said that the affect his music and art has on people people inspires him to continue in his career. The film was included on a bonus DVD for the deluxe edition of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. For initial promotion of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, West performed at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in late November 2010. Following the release of the album, West performed headlining sets at several large festivals in 2011, including SXSW, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, and Coachella; the latter was viewed by The Hollywood Reporter as "one of the great hip-hop sets of all time". == Commercial performance ==

In its first week of release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 496,000 copies. The entry blocked Nicki Minaj's debut album Pink Friday from the top spot with 375,000 sales; the week marked the first time in two years that the chart had two albums bow with over 300,000 units. It also gave West his fourth consecutive US number-one album and surpassed the 450,000 first-week sales of 808s & Heartbreak, with the debut becoming the fourth-best sales week of 2010. The album's first-week digital sales of 224,000 units accounted for 45% of the total and stood as the fourth-highest digital copies for an album in a week. In its second week on the Billboard 200, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy descended six places to number seven with 108,000 copies sold, marking a 78% sales decline, while remaining above Pink Friday by one place. As of July 2013, it had sold 1,300,000 copies in the United States, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. By June 2011, the album had sold 483,000 digital copies, ranking as the second best-selling digital rap album ever. On November 23, 2020, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America for pushing 3,000,000 certified units in the US. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy became West's fourth number one album on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album charted within the top 10 in Norway, South Korea, New Zealand, and Switzerland. On February 20, 2026, it received a double platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry for selling 600,000 units in the United Kingdom. By 2018, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had registered a billion streams on Spotify. == Critical reception ==

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was met with widespread critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an average score of 94, based on 45 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". The aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 8.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Powers, writing for the Los Angeles Times, found West's artistry comparable to Pablo Picasso, reaching "the Cubist mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space" for suggesting newer viewpoints. The album was called a work of art and West's most lavish record in a review by Time magazine's David Browne, who said it proved again that few other artists shared his ability to adeptly mix diverse elements. Steve Jones of USA Today was impressed by West's display "of sonic flavors — old school hip-hop, progressive rock, R&B, classical music" for how he combines and matches these genres, concluding his only predictability is a consistent drive to make every project his best. James Reed of The Boston Globe said that the album is "seamlessly his personal best" as West becomes self-involved in the varied styles and universal themes, standing as the most original hip-hop record of 2010, through his efforts to push the genre's boundaries. Christgau, in MSN Music, hailed it as a "world-beating return to form" for West. The Village Voices Sean Fennessey observed that while the album cannot be perfect as listeners "will reach to call [it]", West's point from the album is imperfection. Pitchfork awarded the album a 10/10, the first perfect score the publication had given to a new release since Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2002. Dombal from the publication highlighted West's "blast of surreal pop excess" that the majority of artists would not even try to create. A few reviewers were more qualified in their praise, mostly focusing on West's rapping. For The Guardian, Kitty Empire was critical of his lyrics calling women "ruthless money-grabbers" on an otherwise "herculean [...] flawed near-masterpiece". AllMusic writer Andy Kellman found West's rapping inconsistent on "a deeply fascinating accomplishment" in his catalogue and one of complicated merit that is "as fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted", and maintains complexity across 70 minutes. David Amidon from PopMatters desired for West to utilize his rap skills from The College Dropout and that the songs may be good yet he misses "the opportunity to provide us with answers", in spite of the lush production on one of hip-hop's "most bloated, egotistical, fantastical, flat-out amazing release[s]" for a while. including Billboard, Time, Slant Magazine, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Spin. 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 with 3,250 points. "Power", "Runaway", and "Monster" were voted in the top-10 of the Pazz & Jop singles list. Metacritic, which collates reviews of music albums, identified it as the best-reviewed album of 2010. The album stood as the first rap release to achieve this since Outkast's 2000 album Stankonia and the sixth-highest ranking of albums released in the 2010s to have at least 15 professional reviews. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy appeared on decade-end best albums lists. In 2012, Complex included it on their list of "25 Rap Albums From the Past Decade That Deserve Classic Status". In October 2013, the magazine ranked the album as the best hip-hop album of the last five years. In 2014, Pitchfork named it the best album of the 2010s so far, with Ian Cohen writing, "West broke the ground upon which the new decade's most brilliant architects built their masterworks; Bon Iver, Take Care, Channel Orange, and Good Kid, M.A.A.D City don't exist without the blueprint of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy." It was later ranked as the top album of the 2010s by The A.V. Club, In 2014, Spin named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the eighth best album of the past 30 years, with Dan Weiss noting it is a world combining samples, interpolations, and vocalists; he expressed that West does not believe "one man should have all that power" of God, yet he "lives one hell of a life". In 2017, the staff of HipHopDX wrote the album is "widely considered [West's] magnum opus" and the release that made the public's perception of him positive again. EW picked My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy as the eighth greatest album of all time in 2016, while it was ranked 21st and 17th on the lists by NME and Rolling Stone in 2013 and 2020, respectively. == Industry awards ==

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy won awards for both Album of the Year and Reader's Choice: Best Album at the 2010 HipHopDX Awards, receiving over 50 percent of the vote for the latter. The album was awarded CD of the Year at the next year's BET Hip Hop Awards, while it was nominated for Outstanding Album at the 2011 NAACP Image Awards. The album received a nomination for Top Rap Album at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, though ultimately lost to fellow rapper Eminem's Recovery. For the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was awarded Best Rap Album, while "All of the Lights" was nominated for Song of the Year, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, winning in the latter two categories. However, The Recording Academy's decision not to nominate My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for Album of the Year was viewed by many media outlets as a snub, along with the rejection of West and Jay-Z's 2011 effort Watch the Throne in the category. For the Los Angeles Times, Randall Roberts pinpointed the exclusion of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy – "the most critically acclaimed album of the year, a career-defining record" – as a snub in favor of nominating less substantial albums. Time journalist Touré deemed West's nominations in minor Grammy categories as booby prizes and stated that the album was easily "the best reviewed album in many years", being lauded by critics "like nothing since Radiohead's zenith", while achieving success with over 1,200,000 sales. Having expressed that he thought he was snubbed for major awards in the past, West responded to the Grammy nominees onstage during a concert on the Watch the Throne Tour in December 2011. West believed the snub was due to releasing Watch the Throne and My Beautiful Dark Fantasy within a year of each other, feeling he "should've just spaced it out, just a little bit more". == Track listing ==

Track notes • signifies a co-producer • signifies an additional producer • "Dark Fantasy" features background vocals by Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver member Justin Vernon, and additional vocals by Teyana Taylor and Amber Rose • "Gorgeous" features background vocals by Tony Williams • "Power" features additional vocals by Dwele • "All of the Lights" features additional vocals by Rihanna, Kid Cudi, Tony Williams, The-Dream, Charlie Wilson, John Legend, Elly Jackson of La Roux, Alicia Keys, Elton John, Fergie, Ryan Leslie, Drake, Alvin Fields and Ken Lewis • "Runaway" features background vocals by Tony Williams and additional vocals by The-Dream • "Hell of a Life" features additional vocals by Teyana Taylor and The-Dream • "Blame Game" features additional vocals by Chris Rock and Salma Kenas • "Lost in the World" and "Who Will Survive in America" feature additional vocals by Charlie Wilson, Kaye Fox, Tony Williams, Alicia Keys and Elly Jackson of La Roux Sample credits • "Dark Fantasy" contains samples of "In High Places", written by Mike Oldfield and Jon Anderson, and performed by Anderson. • "Gorgeous" contains portions and elements of the composition "You Showed Me", written by Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn, and performed by The Turtles. • "Power" contains elements from "It's Your Thing", performed by Cold Grits; elements of "Afromerica", written by Francois Bernheim, Jean-Pierre Lang, and Boris Bergman, and performed by Continent Number 6; and material sampled from "21st Century Schizoid Man", composed by Robert Fripp, Michael Giles, Greg Lake, Ian McDonald, and Peter Sinfield, and performed by King Crimson. • "So Appalled" contains samples of "You Are – I Am", written by Manfred Mann, and performed by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. • "Devil in a New Dress" contains samples of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and performed by Smokey Robinson. • "Runaway" contains a sample of "Expo 83", written by J. Branch, and performed by Backyard Heavies; and excerpts from Rick James Live at Long Beach, CA, 1981. • "Hell of a Life" contains samples of "She's My Baby", written by Sylvester Stewart, and performed by The Mojo Men; samples of "Stud-Spider" by Tony Joe White; and portions of "Iron Man", written by Terence Butler, Anthony Iommi, John Osbourne, and William Ward, and performed by Black Sabbath. • "Blame Game" contains elements of "Avril 14th", written and performed by Richard James. • "Lost in the World" contains portions of "Soul Makossa", written by Manu Dibango; a sample of "Think (About It)", written by James Brown, and performed by Lyn Collins; samples of "Woods", written by Justin Vernon, and performed by Bon Iver; and "Comment No. 1", written and performed by Gil Scott-Heron. • "Who Will Survive in America" contains samples of "Comment No. 1" performed by Gil Scott-Heron. == Personnel ==

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. Musicians • Jeff Bhasker – keyboards (tracks 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12, 13), piano (track 6), cello arrangement (track 1) • Mike Dean – keyboards (tracks 3, 5, 7, 10), piano (tracks 1, 8, 11), bass (tracks 3, 8, 11), guitars (tracks 3, 8), guitar solo (track 2), cello arrangement (tracks 1, 5, 7) • Ken Lewis – guitars (track 2), bass (track 2), organ (track 2), brass and woodwinds (track 5), tribal drum programming (track 12, 13), horn arrangement (track 5), chant vocals (tracks 3, 12, 13) • Brent Kolatalo – keyboards (track 2), drum programming (track 2) • Anthony Kilhoffer – additional drum programming (tracks 10, 12, 13) • Danny Flam – brass and woodwinds (track 5) • Tony Gorruso – brass and woodwinds (track 5) • Rosie Danvers – orchestral arrangement and conducting (track 5), cello (track 5) • Chris "Hitchcock" Chorney – cello (tracks 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 11), cello arrangement (track 11) • Mike Lovatt – trumpet (tracks 4, 5) • Simon Finch – trumpet (tracks 4, 5) • Alvin Fields – chant vocals (tracks 3, 12, 13) Production • Andrew Dawson – recording (tracks 1–3, 5–13), mixing (tracks 1, 10, 11) • Anthony Kilhoffer – recording (tracks 1–3, 5–10, 12, 13), mixing (tracks 2, 5, 9–13) • Mike Dean – recording (tracks 1–3, 5–10, 12, 13), mixing (tracks 1, 4, 6–8, 10, 11) • Noah Goldstein – recording (tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10–13) • Phil Joly – recording (tracks 2, 4), engineering assistance (tracks 1, 2, 5, 11) • Christian Mochizuki – recording (track 2), engineering assistance (tracks 1, 2, 5–10, 12, 13) • Pete Bischoff – recording (track 7), engineering assistance (tracks 2, 5–8, 10, 12, 13) • Ryan Gilligan – recording (track 11) • Marcos Tovar – recording (Rihanna vocals; track 5) • Manny Marroquin – mixing (track 3) • Gaylord Holomalia – engineering assistance (tracks 1, 6–8, 10) • Alex Graupera – engineering assistance (tracks 12, 13) • Christian Plata – mix engineering assistance (track 3) • Erik Madrid – mix engineering assistance (track 3) • Cary Clark – mix engineering assistance (track 9) • Ken Lewis – chant vocals engineering (track 3) • Brent Kolatalo – chant vocals engineering (tracks 3, 12, 13), horn engineering (track 5) • TommyD – orchestra production (track 5) • Vlado Meller – mastering Design • Kanye West – art direction • Virgil Abloh – art direction • George Condo – paintings • M/M (Paris) – handwritten titles and illustrations, package design • Fabien Montique – Kanye West photograph == Charts ==

Weekly charts Year-end charts == Certifications ==