Rave Reviews for Kanye West

I recently read the review Rolling Stones did on Kanye West new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. They gave the album a five star rating, which I don’t understand. I am a Kanye West fan but this album is not better than his previous albums Graduation or College Dropout. Everyone knows that Kanye has complained to media outlets about his previous ratings on his work, so I feel that Rolling Stones almost felt obligated to give him a high rating due to them dropping the ball on ratings earlier in Kanye’s career.  

Original Album Cover

Kanye West expects five star ratings on of all his work and when he didn’t receive them in the past, he began to push the envelope and experiment with his music. That is why in the article the author says, “this is Kanye’s most maniacally inspired music yet”.  I don’t feel that an artist should have to go out of their lane just to impress media. Its one thing to be creative it is another to try and make your critics understand what you are trying to do musically. If you listen to West’s first album and have not been a fan since the beginning you might not think it is the same artist. Now don’t get me wrong the album is a great piece of work, I just feel that he was forced to make more pop inspired songs to impress his critics. Also, his original album cover was forced to be changed due to graphic content. Even though in the 70's as Kanye pointed out album covers had actual nude photos where as his is just a personal painting. In the  end Kanye gave in and chose a more media friendly cover. This goes to show us the compromise artist have to make to be successful in todays industry.

Revised Album Cover

Even though the album is projected to sell over 600,000 units in its first week I feel that Kanye is losing his fans he had from the start and is gaining a new fan base. Me personally I like the old Kanye when he was a clever and comical rapper. I think all of this transformation for him as an artist has a lot to do with the passing of his mother and failed relationships. Great music artist put their real life emotions into their work and when you listen to his last two albums you can really see he did exactly that. Even the song that introduced the world to Mr. West was a real life situation about his near life ending car accident. So he has always made music from his real life emotions and events. There are certain albums you buy and they will stay in your music player for a whole year and there are others that you like for a month or so. This album deserves the high reviews its getting but at the same time don’t give a man praise just because he is making maniac inspired music. Go back and listen to the past albums and give them the ratings they deserve. I am no critic, I am a fan and I would like to hear the music I became a fan of in the first place. It is okay to experiment with your music but make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.