What My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy proves, first and foremost, is that Kanye West is quite simply working at a different level of consistency and creative progress than every other recording artist today. I'll write at greater length about the specifics of this strange, masterful, and indeed very beautiful record in the near future, but after three start-to-finish listens and several more of early favorites, I'm hard-pressed to imagine a better album than this materializing before the year's end. And yet, perhaps most remarkably, it's only--and this verdict, admittedly, will very possibly shift with further and closer listening--my third-favorite Kanye album, though part of a trifecta that I'd unreluctantly call masterpieces followed by two exceptionally fine records that are fairly close (my list, at the moment goes: 808's, Late Registration, My Beautiful Dark..., Graduation, College Dropout, with the classic early mixtape Kon the Louis Vuitton Don meriting mention).
That's personal particulars, granted, but with the consensus forming around this one (the question, at this point, isn't whether it'll win Pazz & Jop but how huge a margin), it certainly begs the question of when the last time an artist or group maintained such an impossibly high standard over a stretch of five or more albums and roughly a decade. PJ Harvey in the '90's comes to mind, but Polly was always basically a cult/critics' artist, which in no way diminishes the accomplishment of her run but it does render it somehow less awe-inspiring and seemingly unlikely. Prince in the '80's, maybe? Or even, the Beatles in the '60's?! That's the league we're talking about here, suggesting that Kanye's legendary ego, however off-putting, maybe isn't too far off the mark. I mean, is it even bragging when you're just that good?
