808 twisted fantasies

I know I'm not alone when I say that I've been doing my best to follow Kanye's every move recently. Kanye is dropping a weekly free single with everyone from Kid Cudi to not such a kid Curtis Mayfield, and for the most part, they have been AWESOME. Good Fridays have been one of my favorite internet-music-pop culture phenomenons yet. Since we're not quite ready to free weezy, the internet is gracing us with some free yeezy. And needless to say, all this Runaway and Monster action is getting the world beyond excited for the album he is dropping in 20 days and counting.

This album--titled My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy--is going to be amazing. I can say this pretty confidently considering I have heard a pretty large percentage of the songs that are going to be on it. That's the only frustrating thing about the internet releases, is that between leaks and GOOD Fridays, I have heard 7 out of the twelve songs on the album, and I don't even have intense internet hacking skills. Ye keeps saying that the production quality will be leaps and bounds better on the album itself, so I'm looking forward to hearing the real deal, but frankly, I don't think "Lost in the World" ft. Bon Iver could get much better.

Before My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy drops, let's think about how far the Louis Vuitton Don has come since his last album has dropped. He didn't exactly let tay tay finish at the VMA's '09, and somehow got invited to perform and steal the spotlight again this past September, when he introduced the world to "Runaway" and his pink suited pal Pusha T.He went on a twitter rampage so epic it received New York Times Coverage. He stayed kind of off the radar, or at least as off the radar as Kanye can be. He didn't come out with anything on his own for a while, but collaborated with old buddy Jay Z on his Blueprint 3 hit "Run This Town" and "Hate".

808's and Heartbreaks was the album Kanye dropped in November 2008, the first album he had released since his mother passed away. At the time, I could barely tolerate the album, and most critics felt the same way. I remember thinking "Heartless" was catchy, but that was about it. A lot has happened to hip hop since 2008. Mash ups, samples, and genre crossing are now significantly more popular than they were two years ago. Electronic music and hip hop are the new vodka and red bull, and 808's and Heartbreaks is a Four Loko before its time. If 808's dropped after Kid Cudi became extremely popular, or after the rise of Dubstep, or after Raekwon and Justin Bieber collaborated, who knows what peoples' reactions would have been.

One song in particular on 808's I fell in love with on second listen is "Welcome to Heartbreak" ft. Kid Cudi. In this song, we hear the old self conscious Kanye we all fell in love with in The College Dropout days. The opening lines of the song could fit neatly alongside "we all self conscious I'm just the first to admit it." The video, featured below, isn't too shabby either.

Runaway fast as you can,

G