My 180 Dark Twisted Fantasy

I have a confession.  I downloaded Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy almost immediately when it came out in the fall of 2010, and I hated it.  I downloaded the whole thing because I liked “Power” so much.  “Power” was on my workout, running, and party playlists.  I vividly remember running to “Power” on the National Mall, looking at the Capitol, and thinking that this whole city, that building, all these people, are seeking the power that Kanye is rapping about.  The people of our nation’s capital are fueled by it.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to listen to the WHOLE album.  My first listen was on a long walk I had to the grocery store.  I started with “Dark Fantasy” and quickly started skipping to search for “Power.”  Listened to it.  Awesome.  Then I ran into “All of the Lights”  — damn that track was tight.  Then, um, I hated every other song.  I remember getting impatient and skipping after only hearing a few seconds of a few songs.  Then, and I can’t really remember why I did this, I decided that I was extremely disappointed and hated the whole album.  I never even gave it a second chance.  Well, until I did.  But only after inexplicably hating the album for over a year, making fun of Kanye for being a jerk and crazy, really disliking Watch the Throne (which I still do), and agreeing with our President when he said this.  What finally pushed me to give it another shot was not the 2,456 Grammies Kanye won, or the fact that “All of the Lights” had replaced “Power” on multiple playlists; but it was my fiance hearing “Dark Fantasy” and “kind of liking it,” and my sister’s boyfriend (music producer) telling me over and over again how good the album was.  Fine.  I’ll listen to it again.  Here is what happened over the past several months, song by song.  And maybe the other dope boy will finally give this album its first real listen.

Our Night With Grammy

The morning after the GrammYs, the other dope boy, my fiance, and I exchanged the following set of emails. 

Jules Winfield (JW):  Whitney Houston is dead?  Seriously, I don’t want to talk about her at all.  She did lots and lots of crack.  She had one of the best voices I’ve ever heard.  She did too much crack.  Can we talk about the rest of the night?

 

SoHo:  oh whitney…sigh.

 

JW:  I have a theory about Adele but I’d like to get your reactions before I explain — I think people like her more because she’s a little overweight.  This includes me.  But why is this?

 

Jonweberchicago:  (You realize that “JW” as an abbreviation for “Jules Winfield” is a little confusing with “Jonweberchicago”?)  I agree, but I think most people won’t articulate it like that.  My theory is that I think a lot of people are excited that somebody who looks a little different from the rest of the Hollywood crowd is making it big.  It’s similar to the American
Idol effect too.  Remember when that show first came out?  People were so psyched because it could be just a normal person who lived next door to you, but he/she had what it takes to be a star.  What’s your theory?  But on the real, Adele can just sing her fat ass off.

The Pink Bicycle Has No Seat

No Seat Here

When the other dope boy and I were in high school, we did not like poseUrs (besides the intelligensia — anyone know you spell poser like that?).  We didn’t have any more sense of ourselves than anyone else, but we didn’t pretend to.  It sure seemed like everyone else was pretending, and still does.  To reinforce our distaste for the frauds, we made up a joke to separate the poseUrs from the reals.  It went something like this, “A guy needs to go the pharmacy, but can only find a pink bicycle with no seat.  He rides the pink bicycle with no seat to the pharmacy, and the pharmacist says, ‘Sir, may I help you?’  and the guys says, ‘no thanks, I’ve already been helped.'”  Then we would laugh hysterically, and the poseUrs would laugh with us.  The reals would say, “I have no idea what that joke means, and I don’t get it.”  We would push the reals even further by mocking them, accusing them of not “getting it.”  Eventually, they’d be brought in on the truth.  So, in honor of the pink bicycle joke, below is a list of things that don’t make sense to me, but others pretend to like.