My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Digital release. Due to its x-rated nature, the cover was banned in retail stores.
Studio album by Kanye West
Released	November 22, 2010 (2010-11-22)
Recorded	2009–2010
Studio	Avex (Honolulu, Hawaii) Electric Lady (New York City, New York) Glenwood Place (Burbank, California) Platinum Sound (New York City, New York)
Genre	Hip hop prog-rap pop
Length	68:36
Label	Def Jam Roc-A-Fella
Producer	Andrew Dawson Bink DJ Frank E Emile Jeff Bhasker Kanye West Mike Caren Mike Dean No I.D. Plain Pat RZA S1
Kanye West chronology
VH1 Storytellers (2010) My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010) Watch the Throne (2011)
Alternate cover
Physical release sold in retail stores.
Singles from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
"Power" Released: July 1, 2010 "Runaway" Released: October 4, 2010 "Monster" Released: October 23, 2010 "All of the Lights" Released: January 18, 2011

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the fifth studio album by American rapper and producer Kanye West. It was released on November 22, 2010, through Def Jam Recordings and Roc-A-Fella Records. Following a period of public and legal controversy, West retreated to a self-imposed exile in Hawaii in 2009. There, he worked on the album in a communal recording environment involving numerous contributing musicians and producers. The recording sessions featured guest appearances from: Bon Iver, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Kid Cudi, Nicki Minaj, John Legend, and Raekwon, among others. Designed by American contemporary artist George Condo, the album's accompanying artwork illustrates West as a "monster" in nude being straddled by a nude armless winged female.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was recorded in sessions at Avex Recording Studio 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 produced mainly by West, along with a variety of high-profile producers such as: Mike Dean, No I.D., Jeff Bhasker, RZA, S1, Bink, and DJ Frank E. Music journalists have noted the album features a maximalist aesthetic and opulent production quality with elements of West's previous works, including soul, baroque, electro, and symphonic styles, as well as progressive rock influences. Thematically, the content explores West's status as a celebrity, consumer culture, race, and the idealism of the American Dream.

Prior to the album's release, West debuted "Runaway" in live performance at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. To help further market the album, West released free songs through his GOOD Fridays weekly free music release series and four singles: "Power", "Runaway", "Monster" and "All of the Lights", which were all top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. West also released the short film Runaway set as a compilation of music from the album. In its first week of release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with sales of 496,000 copies. It has sold 1.3 million copies in the United States and was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was an immediate and widespread critical success, and was named the best album of 2010 in many publications' year-end lists, including the annual Pazz & Jop poll of American critics nationwide. The album also won Best Rap Album at the 54th Grammy Awards but was not nominated for Album of the Year, which was viewed as a "snub" by several media outlets. It has since been ranked in several professionally curated lists as one of the greatest albums of all time and is widely considered as West's best album. Numerous publications also ranked it as the best album of the 2010s, including Billboard, New York Post and Rolling Stone. Condo's artwork has been ranked as among the greatest album covers of popular music.

Background

The album was conceived during West's self-imposed exile in Oahu, Hawaii, following a period of legal and public image controversy. He said later that fatigue from overworking led to his controversial outburst after Taylor Swift was awarded Best Female Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. He was disgusted with the ensuing media response, which led to a hiatus from recording. Amid the widespread negative response to his behavior, his scheduled tour with recording artist Lady Gaga to promote his previous album, 808s & Heartbreak, was cancelled on October 1, 2009, without explanation.

Recording and production

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was recorded in sessions at Avex Recording Studio 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 over $3 million provided by his record label Def Jam to record the album, making it one of the most expensive albums ever made. He later explained the initial recording process to Noah Callahan-Bever, Complex editor-in-chief and West's then-confidant, who said "he'd holed up in Hawaii and was importing his favorite producers and artists to work on and inspire his recording. Rap Camp!" Artists who were reported to have participated in the sessions for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy included: Raekwon, RZA, Pusha T, Rick Ross, Charlie Wilson, Big Sean, Cyhi the Prynce, Swizz Beatz, Dwele, Nicki Minaj, T.I., Drake, Common, Jay-Z, John Legend, Fergie, Rihanna, The-Dream, Ryan Leslie, Elton John, M.I.A., Justin Vernon, Seal, Beyoncé, Kid Cudi, Mos Def, Santigold, Alicia Keys and Elly Jackson. Record producers who participated in the sessions with West included: Q-Tip, RZA, DJ Premier, Madlib, Statik Selektah, and Pete Rock. Madlib said he made five beats for the album, while DJ Premier said his beats were ultimately discarded.

Control room (top) and tracking room (bottom) of Avex in Honolulu, where the album was recorded

West, who had previously recorded 808s & Heartbreak at Avex, block-booked the studio's three session rooms simultaneously for 24 hours a day to work on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. According to Callahan-Bever, who visited West during the recording sessions, "when he hits a creative wall ... he heads to another studio room to make progress on another song". West never slept a full night at the "glass-enclosed mansion" he had rented, opting instead to take power naps in a studio chair or couch 90 minutes at a time. Engineers worked around the clock, as West bounced from room to room. This assiduous work ethic led to him employing two private chefs, one for hot and one for cold food. Before recording in the afternoon, West and most of his 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 worked out in the weight room. West held breakfast each morning at his Diamond Head residence for his crew.

Throughout the album's development, West solicited other producers and musicians to weigh in on its music with conversations and contributions at the studio. Observing discussions among them during his visit, Callahan-Bever noted: "Despite the heavyweights assembled, the egos rarely clash; talks are sprawling, enlightening, and productive ... we are here to contribute, challenge, and inspire". In an interview with Callahan-Bever, Q-Tip described the process as "music by committee" and elaborated on its significance to the sessions and West's work ethic:

He'll go, 'Check this out, tell me what you think.' Which speaks volumes about who he is and how he sees and views people. Every person has a voice and an idea, so he's sincerely looking to hear what you have to say—good, bad, or whatever ... When he has his beats or his rhymes, he offers them to the committee and we're all invited to dissect, strip, or add on to what he's already started. By the end of the sessions, you see how he integrates and transforms everyone's contributions, so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. He's a real wizard at it. What he does is alchemy, really.

Pete Rock said of his studio experience with West, "He's definitely hip-hop, his roots, I was testing him on joints ... He takes it to another level which is dope. He had these musicians and this song, they played around my little raggedy beat and made it real. I love the way he works – he goes from one room, writing rhymes then goes to another beat and goes to another room and does something else – I love what he's done". Rapper Pusha T characterized the album as "a collage of sounds" and found West's recording methods unorthodox, saying that: "We could easily be working on one song, thinking we're in a mode, and he'll hear a sound from someone like [producer] Jeff Bhasker and immediately turn his whole attention to that sound and go through his mental Rolodex to where that sound belongs on his album, and then it goes straight to that song, immediately". DJ Premier said of the production in comparison to West's previous work, "Well, first of all, if you look at all of Kanye West's output, he actually did a lot to bring back sampling and make it cool again, even though he's more of a mainstream artist ... but his new album is strictly hard beats and rhyme. He's totally done with electro. You're gonna be surprised what you hear".

To prevent any of the material leaking onto the Internet, West made the album's recording as secretive as he could; he instituted a "No tweeting, no talking, no e-mailing" rule for others at the sessions. Pusha T recalled West's attitude in an interview for Rolling Stone, saying that "then there happened to be a leak, and I remember Kanye ranting and raving, like, 'Fuck this! We're not going to ever work there again! We're going to work in hotel rooms!'" West subsequently recorded in hotel rooms for Watch the Throne, his 2011 album with Jay-Z.

Musical style

Various writers have noted that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's music incorporates elements from West's previous four albums. Entertainment Weekly's Simon Vozick-Levinson perceives these elements "recur at various points", and include "the luxurious soul of 2004's The College Dropout, the symphonic pomp of Late Registration, the gloss of 2007's Graduation, and the emotionally exhausted electro of 2008's 808s & Heartbreak". Sean Fennessey of The Village Voice writes that West "absorb[ed] the gifts of his handpicked collaborators, and occasionally elevat[ed] them" on previous studio albums, noting collaborators and elements as Jon Brion for Late Registration ("arranging orchestral majesty"), DJ Toomp for Graduation ("adapted DJ Toomp's oozing menace"), and Kid Cudi for 808s & Heartbreak ("Cudi's moaning melodies became elemental").

The music was described as maximalist by Jon Caramanica of The New York Times, who also took note of East Coast hip hop elements. Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork deemed it the "culmination" of West's past work: "Musically, [the album] largely continues where 2007's Graduation left off in its maximalist hip-hop bent, with flashes of The College Dropout's comfort-food sampling and Late Registration's baroque instrumentation weaved in seamlessly". AllMusic's Andy Kellman views it as the "culmination" of those albums, while noting "it does not merely draw characteristics from each one of them. The 13 tracks ... sometimes fuse them together simultaneously. Consequently, the sonic and emotional layers are often difficult to pry apart and enumerate". Kellman feels "All of the Lights" denotes the album's "contrasting elements and maniacal extravagance". Conversely, Robert Christgau of MSN Music comments that the music eschews the "grace" of The College Dropout and Late Registration in favor of "grandiosity" and "the sonic luxuries of this world-beating return to form".

The album has been described by music journalists as a work of prog-rap music, with Carl Williott of Idolator musing if it was "the world's first". HotNewHipHop writer Samuel Allan regarded it as "a massive, paradigm-exploding piece of pop maximalism and prog-rap", and Rolling Stone's Christopher R. Weingarten called it "a Pink Floyd–sized, King Crimson–sampling 68-minute prog-rap behemoth in the age of shrinking budgets". Eric Sundermann of Noisey also referenced the album as prog rap, and fellow contributor Phil Witmer regarded the album as "an unprecedented retreat by a hip-hop artist into the weird world" of 1970s progressive rock.

Lyrics and themes

[West is] the pop star for our morally implicated times; an instinctive consumer with a mouthful of diamonds and furtive bad conscience, a performer who lives the American Dream to its fullest with a creeping sense of the spiritual void at its heart. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy captures that essence in full. It's an utterly dazzling portrait of a 21st-century schizoid man that is by turns sickeningly egocentric, contrite, wise, stupid and self-mocking.

—Alex Denney (NME, 2010)

Throughout the album, West's lyrics explore themes of excess, celebrity, decadence, grandiosity, escapism, sex, wealth, romance, self-aggrandizement, and self-doubt. Andrew Martin of Prefix Magazine notes the album's ethos as "more is more", describing it as "a meditation on fame" where West decries the burden that it entails. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also features more open references to drinking and drug use than on West's previous albums. Nathan Rabin of The A.V. Club describes it as "darkly funny, boldly introspective, and characteristically fame-obsessed", noting "manic highs and depressive lows emotionally" on the album. Christgau finds the album's themes of insecurity and uncertainty to be West's "heart, his message, the reason he's so major", noting the tracks "Hell of a Life" and "Runaway" as examples. Greg Kot, writing in the Chicago Tribune, said West displays a transparency and "almost pathological allegiance to expressing his emotions, unfiltered".

In the opinion of Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is "a hedonistic exploration into a rich and famous American id". Chris Martins of Spin says it is an alternately grandiose and eloquent production that "owed as much to the artist's self-aggrandizing ego as to the voracious id that would destroy it publicly". Music writer Ann Powers interprets the predominant theme on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to be "the crisis of the jet-lagged cosmopolitan ... the exhausted cry of one who's always new in town, chasing whatever goal or girl is in the room, fueled by consumer culture's relentless buzz, but finally left unsatisfied". Powers views the songs work "as pornographic boasts, romantic disaster stories, devil-haunted dark nights of the soul" and perceives West's "uncertainty about his own place in the world" to be connected to the subject of race, stating: "The rootlessness West celebrates and despairs of on Fantasy belongs to someone who feels unwelcome everywhere. This isn't just a personal problem. It's the curse of what the author Michael Eric Dyson has called 'the exceptional black man', embraced for his talents but singled out for the color of his skin".

Songs

The album begins with "Dark Fantasy", opened by Nicki Minaj narrating in an English accent a retelling of Roald Dahl's poem Cinderella. The song introduces themes of decadence and hedonism, with West musing how "the plan was to drink until the pain was over / But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?". The track's lyrics contain musical and popular culture references, including: the song "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)", the Lamborghini Murciélago sports car, rapper Nas, fashion designer Phoebe Philo, the short story "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", the song "Sex on Fire", singer Leona Lewis, and television character Steve Urkel. "All of the Lights" incorporates drum 'n' bass breaks and brass fanfare. West's lyrics contain a reference to the death of Michael Jackson in the opening lines and present the narrative of a character who abuses his lover, does prison time, scuffles with her new boyfriend, and subsequently mourns his absence from his child's life. West enlisted 11 guest vocalists, including Alicia Keys, John Legend, Elton John, Tony Williams, Elly Jackson for the song; Rihanna sings the song's hook. In an interview with MTV, Jackson said of the song's vocal layering, "He got me to layer up all these vocals with other people, and he just basically wanted to use his favorite vocalists from around the world to create this really unique vocal texture on his record, but it's not the kind of thing where you can pick it out".

"Devil in a New Dress" is built on a sample of Smokey Robinson's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow". Its lyrics are about lust and heartache, with sexual and religious imagery described by one critic as "part bedroom allure, part angelic prayer". It is the only track without production by West but features his characteristic style of manipulating the pitch and tempo of classic soul samples. "Runaway" features a piano-based motif comprising a series of sustained descending half and whole notes, with a coda that incorporates light strings and vocoder-singing by West. The narrator's self-critical lyrics reflect on his personality and character flaws. Sean Fennessey cites the song as the point in the album where "self-laceration overtakes chest-beating", noting West's sung-line: "I'm so gifted at finding what I don't like the most". Inspired by his two-year relationship with model Amber Rose, "Hell of a Life" contains a psychedelic rock sample and a narrative about marrying a porn star. According to critic Ryan Dombal, the song "attempts to bend its central credo—'no more drugs for me, pussy and religion is all I need'—into a noble pursuit ... The song blurs the line between fantasy and reality, sex and romance, love and religion, until no lines exist at all. It's a zonked nirvana with demons underneath; a fragile state that can't help but break apart on the very next song". "Blame Game" is a low-key track about a painful domestic dispute. It features a sample of the piano composition "Avril 14th" by Richard D. James, additional vocals by John Legend, and a profane skit by comedian Chris Rock.

"Lost in the World" features tribal drums and samples Bon Iver's "Woods", a song originally written about alienation, applied by West "as the centerpiece of a catchy, communal reverie." It features several musical changes, beginning with Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon's faint vocals, followed by 4/4 drums, gospel-styled chorus, and increased tempo, and a final measured tempo. "Lost in the World" transitions into the closing track "Who Will Survive in America". It serves as the album's coda and is built on a sample of Gil Scott-Heron's "Comment No. 1", a blunt, surrealist piece delivered by Scott-Heron in spoken word about the African-American experience and the fated idealism of the American dream. Scott-Heron's original speech, which criticized the 1960s Revolutionary Youth Movement for failing to recognize the more basic needs of the African-American community, is edited to a reduced version on the track that, according to music writer Greg Kot, "retains its essence, that of an African-American male who feels cut off from his country and culture". By contrast, Sean Fennessey interprets it as "a too-serious denouement for an album that is more about the self's little nightmares than some aching societal rejection".

Title and packaging

Visual artist George Condo, who designed the album's artwork

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was formerly known as Good Ass Job and then tentatively titled Dark Twisted Fantasy. GOOD Music artist Big Sean was the second person to announce the album's title was Good Ass Job. On July 24, 2010, a banner appeared on West's blog that read "My Dark Twisted Fantasy Trailer". On July 28, 2010, West announced on his new official Twitter account that: "The album is no longer called 'Good Ass Job' I'm bouncing a couple of titles around now." The official title, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was announced on October 5, 2010; the title Good Ass Job will be used for West's upcoming collaborative album with Chance the Rapper.

On October 17, 2010, West revealed through Twitter that My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy had been rejected by certain stores because of the cover art. The artwork, by George Condo, shows West as a "monster" being straddled by an armless winged female (a phoenix). Both are nude, and one of the phoenix's nipples and her buttocks are visible. Condo said that West wanted a cover image that would be banned. The painting is centered with a thin yellow border on a red background. The artwork follows along the apparent theme of the album, as well as West's music film Runaway. This is one of five covers; all of them were included with its purchase. Due to its x-rated nature, it was banned in retail stores. A second cover, with a painting of a ballerina by Condo, was posted on the Amazon.com pre-order page. It was intended to be the original artwork for Runaway, but West used a photograph of a ballerina instead.

Condo and West met for several hours and listened to tapes of his music. Over the next few days Condo made eight or nine paintings for the album. Two of them were portraits of West, one in extreme closeup, with mismatched eyes and four sets of teeth. Another showed his head, crowned and decapitated, placed sideways on a white slab, impaled by a sword. There was also a painting of a dyspeptic ballerina in a black tutu, a painting of the crown and the sword by themselves in a grassy landscape, and a scene of a naked West on a bed, straddled by a naked white female creature with fearsome features, wings, no arms, and a long, spotted tail which was used as the original album cover. According to New York magazine, a new painting for the album, The Priest was completed by Condo, who described it as an attempt to bring depictions of religious figures into the modern world. In 2015, Billboard named it the 30th best album cover of all time. Elsewhere in 2017, NME listed it as the seventh best album artwork of the 21st century so far.

Marketing

West performing at the SWU Music & Arts Festival in Brazil, 2011.

Before the album's release, West initiated the free music program GOOD Fridays through his website on August 20, 2010, offering a free download of previously unreleased songs each Friday; some were included on the album. Titled after his imprint label GOOD Music, the program generated considerable publicity in the months leading up to the album's release. Online marketing coordinator Karen Civil said of the program in retrospect, "It's a genius idea. He did something no one had ever done before, and at a point when he was the most hated person in music, he brought excitement back with his Friday releases". G.O.O.D. Fridays was originally intended to continue through December, but West extended it through January 2011.

On September 12, 2010, West premiered "Runaway" in live performance at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Three weeks later, on October 2, he performed the song on Saturday Night Live, along with "Power". Two days later, the album's release date was announced for November 22. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was released for digital download on Amazon at a list price of $3.99. This coincided with the site's $3 discount promotional offer on MP3 purchases made valid through the release week.

Following the release of the album, West performed headlining sets at several large festivals, including SXSW 2011, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, and Coachella 2011; the latter was described by The Hollywood Reporter as "one of the great hip-hop sets of all time." To further promote the album, West performed at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Four singles were released from the album and became top 40 hits on the US Billboard Hot 100 — "Power" (released July 1, 2010, charted #22), "Runaway" (released October 4, charted #12), "Monster" (released October 23, charted #18), and "All of the Lights" (released January 18, 2011, charted #18). A 35-minute film — Runaway, featuring the titular song's official music video — was directed by West and released on October 23, 2010. Filmed in Prague over a period of four days during Summer 2010, the film stars West and model Selita Ebanks and features a script written by Hype Williams with the story written by West. West described the video as an "overall representation of what [he dreams]" and a parallel to his music career. At one of his screenings in Paris, the film seemed to represent a lot emotionally for him as he broke down in tears. Later after another screening, West said his music and "art" and how it affects people is the reason he continues to create music.

Sales

In its first week of release, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and sold 496,000 copies in the United States. The entry blocked Nicki Minaj's debut studio album Pink Friday from the top spot with 375,000 sales, with the week marking the first time in two years that the Billboard 200 has seen two albums bow with more than 300,000 units. This gave West his fourth consecutive US number-one album and was higher than the 450,000 first-week sales of his previous album 808s & Heartbreak, with the debut week becoming the fourth-best sales week of 2010. The album's first-week digital sales of 224,000 units marked the fourth-highest sales week for a digitally-downloaded album. In its second week on the Billboard 200, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy descended six places to number seven and sold 108,000 copies, marking a 78% sales decline. The album spent 115 weeks on the chart, and by July 2013, had sold 1,351,000 copies in the US, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. On April 18, 2018, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was certified double platinum by the RIAA for two million shipments in the US. Upon the release of West's ninth studio album Jesus Is King in 2019, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy made an appearance at number 136 on the Billboard 200.

The album was also a chart topper in Canada, standing as West's fourth number one album on the Canadian Albums Chart. In its second week on the chart, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy fell down 12 places to number 13. The album appeared at number 114 on the Canadian Albums Chart upon the release of Jesus Is King in 2019. This was 75 places higher than My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's position of number 189 the previous week, and the album experienced a 30% increase in consumption units. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy experienced lesser performance in Denmark, reaching number four on the Danish Albums chart. Similarly, the album opened at number six on the ARIA Albums chart.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.8/10
Metacritic	94/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	A
The Guardian
The Independent
MSN Music (Expert Witness)	A
NME	9/10
Pitchfork	10/10
Rolling Stone
Spin	9/10
USA Today

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. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy 8.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

In a rave review of the album, Andy Gill of The Independent hailed it as "one of pop's gaudiest, most grandiose efforts of recent years, a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza in which any notion of good taste is abandoned at the door". Ann Powers, writing for the Los Angeles Times, found the music "Picasso-like, fulfilling the Cubist mandate of rearranging form, texture, color and space to suggest new ways of viewing things". It was also called 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 combine diverse elements. Dan Vidal of URB highlighted the rapper's ability to bring the best out of his collaborators, finding it comparable to the work of Miles Davis. In Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield called the album West's best and most wildly inspired record to date, claiming that no other artist was recording music as dark or uncanny, while Sputnikmusic critic Channing Freeman regarded it as "the first album in which he's truly lived up to his potential in every way – as a rapper, as a lyricist, as a songwriter". The Village Voice's Sean Fennessey found it overwhelming and skillfully produced because of the way each song transitions over "like some long night out into the hazy morning after".

In a less enthusiastic review for The Guardian, Kitty Empire was critical of West's lyrics calling women "ruthless money-grabbers" on an otherwise "herculean" and "flawed near-masterpiece". AllMusic's Andy Kellman found his rapping inconsistent on what was nonetheless "a deeply fascinating accomplishment" in West's catalogue: "As fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted, [the album] is an extraordinarily complex 70-minute set of songs ... As the ego and ambition swells, so does the appeal, the repulsiveness, and – most importantly – the ingenuity".

Top-album rankings

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy appeared on numerous year-end top albums lists. Many critics named it the best album of 2010, including Billboard, Time, Slant Magazine, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, and Spin. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was voted best album in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll for 2010, winning by the largest margin in the poll's history. The singles "Power", "Runaway", and "Monster" were voted in the top-10 of the Pazz & Jop's singles list. Metacritic, which collates reviews of music albums, named it the best-reviewed album of 2010.

Review aggregate site Metacritic called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy "the runaway consensus pick of music critics for the best album of 2010".

According to Acclaimed Music, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is the 62nd most critically acclaimed album in history, the second-highest ranking for any hip hop album. In 2012, Complex included it on their list of 25 Rap Albums From the Past Decade That Deserve Classic Status. In October 2013, Complex named it the best hip hop album of the last five years. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In August 2014, the song "Runaway" was ranked in third position on Pitchfork's list of the 200 "best tracks" released since 2010. During the same week, the publication named it the best album of the 2010s decade—between 2010 and 2014—commenting, "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. The list ends here because it's where the decade truly begins." Veteran music critic Robert Christgau later ranked it as the eighth-best album of the 2010s, saying it remains "perversely superb". According to Chris Lambert of Forbes in 2019, the album "has maintained a consistency of recognition" as West's best album.

Publication	Country	List	Year	Rank	Ref.
The A.V. Club	United States	50 Favorite Albums of the 2010s	2019	1
Beats Per Minute		The Top 130 Albums	2013	1
Billboard		100 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	1
Cleveland.com		100 Greatest Albums of the 2010s	2019	1
Complex		The 100 Best Albums of the Complex Decade (2002–2012)	2012	7
		Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	1
Consequence of Sound		Top 100 Albums of the 2010s	2019	3
Entertainment Weekly		Greatest Albums of all Time	2016	8
Esquire		The Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	10
GQ		The 21 Albums from the 21st Century Every Man Should Hear	2014	1
Insider		The 15 Best albums of the Decade (2010–2019)	2019	6
The Mercury News		50 Best Albums of the Decade (2010–2019)	2019	2
Metacritic		The Best Albums of the Decade (2010–2019)	2019	6
New York Post		Best Albums of the Decade (2010–2019)	2019	1
Noisey		The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	20
Odyssey		30 Best Albums of the Decade (So Far)	2016	1
Paste		The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	4
Pitchfork		The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far (2010–2014)	2014	1
		The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	2
Rolling Stone		500 Greatest Albums of All Time	2012	353
		100 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	1
Spin		The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)	2015	8
Stereogum		The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	4
Uproxx		The Best Albums of the 2010s	2019	2
Vibe		The Greatest 50 Albums Since '93	2013	6
Clash	United Kingdom	The Top 100 Albums of Clash's Lifetime (2004–2014)	2015	1
Crack Magazine		The Top 100 Albums of the Decade (2010–2019)	2019	23
The Guardian		The 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century	2019	3
NME		The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time	2013	21
		25 Best Albums of the Decade (So Far)	2014	2
The Quietus		The Top 100 Albums of the Quietus' Existence (2008–2018)	2018	12

Industry awards

At the 2011 BET Hip Hop Awards, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was awarded CD of the Year. The album earned a nomination for Top Rap Album at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards, ultimately losing to Recovery by Eminem. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy won the awards of both Album of the Year and Reader's Choice: Best Album at the 2010 HipHopDX Awards. At the 2011 NAACP Image Awards, the album was nominated for Outstanding Album.

At the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in 2012, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy won in the category of Best Rap Album. "All of the Lights" was also nominated for Song of the Year, Best Rap Song, and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, winning in the latter two categories.

Grammy Award for Album of the Year rejection

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 Watch the Throne — West's collaborative album with Jay-Z — for that category. Writing for Time in December 2011, music journalist Touré deemed West's nominations in minor Grammy categories "booby prizes", and stated, "MBDTF is by far the best reviewed album in many years: the critical community flipped out over it like nothing since Radiohead’s zenith. And it sold well, over 1.2 million so far. So what happened? How is it Grammy overlooked Kanye's magnum opus and gave noms to four sonic widgets and Adele's 21?" He explored possible reasons for the Academy to snub West, including split votes between My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Watch the Throne, concerns over West's past controversies, and more commercially appealing nominees, but ultimately stated:

What I think may be going on is a lack of respect for hip hop and its complexity from people who care about music but don't know much about hip hop ... Predictably, Grammy tends toward pop-friendly hip hop that's easily understood by those who don't understand hip hop. Pop in this regard is not meant as an insult, it's merely music palatable to non-aficionados of the genre ... But now that he's released his most mature work, [West is] being ignored.

In the Los Angeles Times, Randall Roberts was critical of the nominations for the 54th Grammy Awards, particularly for the Album of the Year category, noting 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. West, who was vocal in his displeasure with past award snubs, responded onstage during a concert on the Watch the Throne Tour, saying: "That's my fault for dropping Watch the Throne and Dark Fantasy the same year. I should've just spaced it out, just a little bit more."

Track listing

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Dark Fantasy"	Kanye West Robert Diggs Ernest Wilson Jeff Bhasker Mike Dean Malik Jones Jon Anderson Mike Oldfield	RZA West No I.D. Bhasker[b] M. Dean[b]	4:40
2.	"Gorgeous" (featuring Kid Cudi and Raekwon)	West Wilson M. Dean Jones Che Smith Corey Woods Scott Mescudi Gene Clark Roger McGuinn	West No I.D. M. Dean	5:57
3.	"Power"	West Larry Griffin, Jr. M. Dean Bhasker Andwele Gardner Ken Lewis Francois Bernheim Jean-Pierre Lang Boris Bergman Robert Fripp Michael Giles Greg Lake Ian McDonald Peter Sinfield	S1 West Bhasker[b] M. Dean[b] Andrew Dawson[b]	4:52
4.	"All of the Lights (Interlude)"	West Bhasker Jones Warren Trotter Stacy Ferguson	West M. Dean	1:02
5.	"All of the Lights"	West Bhasker Jones Trotter Ferguson	West Bhasker[a]	4:59
6.	"Monster" (featuring Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver)	West Shawn Carter Patrick Reynolds M. Dean William Roberts II Onika Maraj Justin Vernon Bhasker	West M. Dean[b] Plain Pat[b]	6:18
7.	"So Appalled" (featuring Swizz Beatz, Jay-Z, Pusha T, Cyhi the Prynce and RZA)	West Wilson M. Dean Carter Terrence Thornton Cydel Young Kaseem Dean Diggs Manfred Mann	West No I.D. M. Dean[a]	6:38
8.	"Devil in a New Dress" (featuring Rick Ross)	West Roosevelt Harrell M. Dean Roberts II Jones Carole King Gerry Goffin	Bink M. Dean[b]	5:52
9.	"Runaway" (featuring Pusha T)	West Emile Haynie Thornton Bhasker M. Dean Jones John Branch	West Emile[a] Bhasker[a] M. Dean[a]	9:08
10.	"Hell of a Life"	West Mike Caren Wilson M. Dean Sylvester Stewart Tony Joe White Terence Butler Anthony Iommi John Osbourne William Ward	West Caren[a] No I.D.[a] M. Dean[a]	5:27
11.	"Blame Game" (featuring John Legend)	West Justin Franks Chloe Mitchell M. Dean John Stephens Richard James	West DJ Frank E M. Dean[b]	7:49
12.	"Lost in the World" (featuring Bon Iver)	West Bhasker Manu Dibango Vernon Gil Scott-Heron	West Bhasker[a]	4:16
13.	"Who Will Survive in America"	West Bhasker Scott-Heron	West Bhasker[a]	1:38
Total length:				1:08:36

iTunes Store bonus track

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
14.	"See Me Now" (featuring Beyoncé, Charlie Wilson and Big Sean)	West Sean Anderson Beyoncé Knowles Charles Wilson	West No I.D. Lex Luger	6:03
Total length:				1:14:39

Deluxe edition bonus DVD

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Director(s)	Length
1.	"Runaway" (short film)	Hype Williams	West	35:00

Track notes

• ^{^a} signifies a co-producer
• ^{^b} signifies an additional producer
• "Dark Fantasy" features background vocals by Nicki Minaj and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, 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, Kay 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 Oldfield.
• "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 by Richard James, and performed by Aphex Twin.
• "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 samples of "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)
• Elton John – piano (track 5)
• 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)
• Andy Gathercole – trumpet (track 5)
• Tim Anderson – French horn (track 5)
• Tom Rumsby – French horn (track 5)
• Richard Ashton – French horn (track 5)
• Mark Frost – trombone (track 5)
• Philip Judge – trombone (track 5)
• Chloe Vincent – flute (track 5)
• Kotono Sato – violin (track 5)
• Jenny Sacha – violin (track 5)
• Rachel Robson – viola (track 5)
• Chloe Mitchell – poem (track 11)
• Alvin Fields – chant vocals (tracks 3, 12, 13)
• Ian Allen – handclaps (track 3)
• Wilson Christopher – handclaps (track 3)
• Uri Djemal – handclaps (track 3)
• Chris Soper – handclaps (track 3)

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)
• Tommy D – 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

Chart (2010–12)	Peak position
Australian Albums (ARIA)	6
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	2
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)	21
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)	43
Canadian Albums (Billboard)	1
Czech Albums (ČNS IFPI)	30
Danish Albums (Hitlisten)	4
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)	17
Europe (European Top 100 Albums)	19
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista)	42
French Albums (SNEP)	28
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)	19
Greek Albums (IFPI)	39
Irish Albums (IRMA)	18
Japanese Albums (Oricon)	15
Mexican Albums (AMPROFON)	87
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)	10
Norwegian Albums (VG-lista)	7
Scottish Albums (OCC)	24
South Korean International Albums (Gaon)	9
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)	97
Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)	19
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)	10
UK Albums (OCC)	16
US Billboard 200	1
US Top Catalog Albums (Billboard)	26
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)	1
US Vinyl Albums (Billboard)	1

Chart (2019)	Peak position
Canadian Albums (Billboard)	114
US Billboard 200	136

Year-end charts

Chart (2010)	Position
Australian Albums (ARIA)	67

Chart (2011)	Position
Australian Albums (ARIA)	49
Canadian Albums (Billboard)	21
US Billboard 200	11
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)	4

Chart (2012)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	45
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums (Billboard)	81

Chart (2015)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	60

Chart (2016)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	57
US Billboard 200	186

Chart (2017)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	56

Chart (2018)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	48

Chart (2019)	Position
Australian Urban Albums (ARIA)	37

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)	Platinum	70,000^
Denmark (IFPI Danmark)	Platinum	20,000‡
United Kingdom (BPI)	Gold	100,000^
United States (RIAA)	2× Platinum	1,351,000
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

Release history

Region	Date	Format(s)	Label	Ref.
Various	November 22, 2010	Digital download	Def Jam Roc A Fella

See also

• 2010 in hip hop music
• GOOD Fridays
• List of hip hop albums considered to be influential
• List of number-one albums of 2010 (Canada)
• List of Billboard 200 number-one albums of 2010
• List of number-one rap albums of 2010 (U.S.)
• List of Billboard number-one R&B albums of 2010
• Runaway (2010 film)

External links

• Official website
• My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at Discogs (list of releases)