Five years ago, Kanye West did what Kanye West does best: He changed the way we think about music. On November 22, 2010, he released his opus, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. It’s one of those records you remember where you were when you first heard it. Me? I was just an intern blogging my little heart out about movie casting news at an unnamed celebrity website. The album leaked about a week and a half before its release, and I secretly torrented it on my employer’s internet. Thankfully, I didn’t go to jail—both for breaking the law by stealing the record and for karate chopping my desk in half the first time I heard “Gorgeous.”
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Why was this album so important? Because it’s bigger than just an album. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is, arguably, the moment when Kanye became fucking Kanye. With Kanye’s first three pop rap records crowning at Graduation, he became a pop star, before heading into introspective destruction with 808s & Heartbreak. But with Dark Fantasy, he emerged triumphantly as an auteur and the defining artist of our generation. On top of MBDTF being a gorgeous, explosive, and demented listening that would almost immediately be named one of the greatest albums of all time, Kanye’s public antics surrounding the album’s release perhaps caused more of a stir than the actual release. Remember that VMAs performance of “Runaway,” when he dressed in all red and surrounded himself with ballerinas? Remember the tweet about water bottles? Remember when he decided the album wasn’t called Good Ass Job anymore? Remember Kanye tweeting in general? Of course you do, because this was the moment in culture when everybody started to pay attention to everything Kanye did. It’s why, now, #Kanye2020 isn’t that absurd of an idea. Think about that: A guy who once wore neon-colored shutter shades to the Grammys is now a more reasonable candidate for president than the current candidate leading the Republican Party.
To gain momentum for the record, Kanye launched what he called G.O.O.D. Fridays, in which he promised a new track every Friday, starting in August. But because this was Kanye, and because he controlled the cultural conversation, this wasn’t as simple as just somebody dropping a new song on SoundCloud. This became a movement. This was the loving Jesus but learning a lot from Satan. This was that Christian Dior denim flow. This was a beat that deserved Hennessy, a bad bitch, and a bag of weed: the Holy Trinity.
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This month, we’re celebrating the glorious cultural moment that was everything surrounding My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with our own version of G.O.O.D. Fridays. Every week throughout November, expect a couple beautiful pieces examining the cultural impact of this record. We’ll compile them below in this post throughout the month.Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Noisey G.O.O.D. Fridays.Eric Sundermann Editor-in-Chief, Noisey---
From the remix of "Power" to celebrating "Christmas in Harlem," the Noisey Staff analyzes every single one of Kanye West's 15 G.O.O.D. Friday tracks. Sorry, it's hard for us to be humble when we're stuntin on a jumbotron.---
The best prog-rock songs were clusterfucks, piling demented instrumental solos on top of disorienting polyrhythms and fairytale gibberish and leaving you to explore the splatter painting it all creates. Sound familiar? This is how Kanye's prog rap revolution took shape.---
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