2. The National – High Violet
This is an amazing follow-up to their 2007 album Boxer. Lyrically, High Violet is more cryptic than its predecessor, using words and images that critique the social condition of the middle class. Unlike Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, this album is not obvious or over-handed, but carries itself with straight-faced satire. The band is certainly an “album” band, not looking to produce singles, but there are a handful of songs that carry significant emotional resonance. Coupled with effective hooks, the songs are appealing without being distracting. With more plays, the album reveals an emotional and intellectual depth.
2. Sleigh Bells – Rill Rill
Catchy, lovely, innocent, nostalgic, and almost nothing like the rest of the album, this song is awesome! (The album would make the Honorable Mention list... if it existed)
1. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
I’m not one for hyperboles but this may be one of the greatest albums I’ve listened to in the past five years. Kanye depicts an Icharus-like attempt to reach the heavens only to show us the tragic fall as the wings singe. This is Breugel’s painting in the form of music. The beginning of the album calls out, “Can we get much higher?” and Kanye will explore such question not with an answer of yes or no, but do we even want to get any higher? The opening track along with “Power” sounds similar to the pop-hip-hop that Kanye is known to produce, but unlike his former efforts these songs are not meant to celebrate the celebrity life. He’s no longer winking, but accepts his status as one that carries much torment. Yes, he may have “Power” or be “Gorgeous” but the first third of this album holds a deeper irony that we quickly realize in the final two-thirds. The middle songs flesh out the other side of the coin, and we see the darker outcomes of a life that is never satisfied. The grass is indeed always greener, and his protagonist is desperately searching for companionship. This insatiable appetite offers little comfort, his search for something meaningful renders and morphs itself into a hedonistic lust.
Thematics aside, Kanye’s production is brilliant, creating rhythmic beats that then transform into something more haunting such as the sampling of Aphex Twin in “Blame Game.” The music parallels the themes, as a singular piano key echoes the lonely and alienated title of its song “Runaway.” Kanye also garners much help from his associates, many of them who will make a name for themselves based on this album alone. The most talked about guest appearance is from Nicki Minaj who outraps both Kanye and Jay-Z on “Monster.” Rick Ross provides a tremendous verse in “Devil in a New Dress,” with his delivery supplementing his rhymes perfectly. Kanye also shows his skill as a rapper, “Gorgeous” being exemplary. Two lines that are personal favorites show his satirical-political bite, as well as his social awareness: “I treat cash the way the government treats AIDS, I won’t be satisified till all my niggas get it, get it?” and “Is hip-hop just a euphemism for a new religion? The soul music of the slaves that the youth is missin’?” Kanye is never one to shy away from controversy and puts himself as a voice of ironic and paradoxical consciousness.
As self aggrandizing as is Kanye the Celebrity, Kanye the Musician avoids any presumptuous claims about this album in particular. In none of these songs, does he suggest the album to be a “game-changer” as many of his contemporaries will and have done on their respective albums. But hopefully it will be. Kanye West has created an album that deceptively caters to the mainstream and then abandons them in a twisted and murky pool of intentional wit, self-parody (in a good way), intellect, and critique. Some may dismiss the album of holding any depth, but if we move past the seemingly “pointless” vulgarity, then we realize that Kanye has provided something that reaches far beyond any radio-rap, and has given us an album that is truly meaningful, that is truly art.
1. My number one song of the year: Gorgeous by Kanye West
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