Love Him or Hate Him, He's Making Hip-Hop Worth Listening To

All opinions aside about his personal life, arrogant nature, stupid outbursts (see Taylor Swift incident at the Grammy's two years ago), or whatever else you may not like, Kanye West is hip-hop's saving grace.  In a genre where anyone with a decent copy of music-editing software could replicate 95% of it's music, Kanye is setting the bar higher and making music that is not just fun to listen to, but can actively engage you.  I didn't think it possible until his most recent album.

So I'm mostly concerned with Kanye's most recent album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.  I'm going to say right now that if you are sensitive about explicit lyrics and subject material, run far away from this alubm and don't give it another look.  It is definitely not for the faint of heart.  At times the lyrics can be down-right disgusting.  All that said, WOW, what a great album!

Some have referred to it as the "Sargeant Peppers of Hip-Hop."  I think that remains to be seen in about another decade, considering The Beatles probably didn't know they had quite the masterpiece we know it as today within a few months of Sargeant Pepper's release.  Nonetheless, if you actually sit down with a good set of headphones and just solely listen to the music (I like to do this with good albums as I lay in my bed), you'll be surprised at how intricate, heart-wrenching, and meticulously crafted this album is.

I say heart-wrenching because you can hear the pain mixed with bitterness in a lot of tracks.  It's what makes it such a good piece of art.  He doesn't carelessly throw these songs together.  Granted, you could maybe make the case for a couple of tracks on the album, but shoot, out of 13 almost all of them make you want to go back and listen as soon as they end.

So if you aren't offended by explicit content, give the album a go and see what you think.  Don't go in with any pre-conceived notions of what hip-hop or rap is.  Just listen to it as a piece of art.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

*Here is a cool video from the album.  It's kind of lame via YouTube because it's edited, therefore it sounds kind of awkward at times, but still really cool.*