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My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, though... I feel like it's a more poppy album really, even though it's the very essence of maximalism & experimentation. But for all of it's bells and whistles and oddities, it's a more "normal" hip-hop album than Yeezus. It's full of big guest spots, and catchy choruses. It plays like the ideal hip-hop megahit, only without all the sketches and extended breaks in the action that most artists fluff their albums up with.
Yeezus is a deliberate, raging, iconoclastic challenge to both the listener and the media. It's as inaccessible and non-radio friendly as most post-punk albums... And to be honest, I think it's so far ahead of its time that it foreshadows what "post-hip-hop" will sound like whenever it becomes a thing.
And as much as I favor experimentation to normality, I can't help but prefer MBDTF, which is like an entire album's worth of "Hold My Liquor"-quality songs.
Every time I hear it is like the first time all over again, and each song pulls a different emotion out of me... Power is simply empowering, perfect for driving to work, where you waste your life as a corporate accountant, hated by most of your subordinates and superiors. All of the Lights is an epic ballad of a poverty stricken man, chillingly realistic and heavy handed as hell. Runaway is simply one of my all time favorite songs, irrespective of genre. Top ten, easy. It's also probably the most artistic and abstract hip-hop single to place on the billboard hot 100. If you're a dude and you can't relate to that song , you simply haven't had enough sexual relationships to understand the contradicting impulses that arise when monogamy is attempted. It's beautiful, and it has one of the nastiest little rolling grooves I've ever heard. You can feel it in your freaking veins when that bass kicks in.
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