[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/my_beautiful_dark_twisted_fantasy_6491.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''No one man should have all that power!'']]

->''"Let's have a toast for the douchebags\\
Let's have a toast for the assholes\\
Let's have a toast for the scumbags\\
Every one of them I know"''
-->-- '''"Runaway"'''

''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' is the fifth album by American rapper and musician Music/KanyeWest, released on November 22, 2010.

The album was initially planned as a continuation of his series of college-based albums (''Music/TheCollegeDropout'', ''Late Registration'', and ''Graduation'') to be named ''Good Ass Job'', but the concept was eventually discarded. The story behind its production is now something of music legend.

By the end of 2009, Kanye was likely the single most hated person in American pop culture on account of him infamously interrupting Music/TaylorSwift at the MTV Video Music Awards of that year. In the face of the titanic public backlash and negative media coverage, the latter of which disgusted him particularly, Kanye cancelled a scheduled tour with Music/LadyGaga for his previous album ''808s & Heartbreak'' without explanation, instead going on a self-imposed exile in Oahu, Hawaii.

The album was recorded across 2009 and 2010 primarily at Avex Recording Studio in Honolulu, where Kanye block-booked the three session rooms indefinitely and worked practically around the clock, with additional sessions at Electric Lady Studios and Platinum Sound Recording in New York and Glenwood Place Studios in Burbank, with the help of a {{long list}} of rappers, producers, singers, engineers, and session musicians ([[SerialEscalation more than 90!]]). Alongside single releases, the album was marketed through a weekly series of free music releases entitled ''GOOD Fridays'' alongside a 35-minute short film named after the track "Runaway", directed by and starring Kanye.

''My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy'' debuted at #1 on the US ''Billboard'' 200 (eventually going triple platinum) and received rave reviews, becoming both a go-to for the #1 spot of many publications' year-end lists and a recurring name in lists of the best albums of the 2010s and of all time, with individual songs like "All of the Lights", "Runaway", "Power", and "Monster" taking equally high positions in song rankings.

The album won three UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s for Best Rap Album, Best Rap Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration ("All of the Lights" winning both of the latter two). However, there was mass controversy over the album not being nominated for Album of the Year alongside ''Watch the Throne'' (a collaborative album between Kanye and Music/JayZ), which many felt was an AwardSnub. Kanye has stated that, due to releasing the two albums less than a year apart, he believed this was his own doing.

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!! Tracklist:
# "Dark Fantasy" (4:40)
# "Gorgeous" (5:57)
# "Power" (4:52)
# "All of the Lights" (Interlude) (1:02)
# "All of the Lights" (4:59)
# "Monster" (6:18)
# "So Appalled" (6:37)
# "Devil in a New Dress" (5:51)
# "Runaway" (9:07)
# "Hell of a Life" (5:27)
# "Blame Game" (7:49)
# "Lost in the World" (4:16)
# "Who Will Survive in America?" (1:38)
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!!My Beautiful Dark Twisted Tropes:
* AlbumFiller: "Blame Game" is stretched up to seven minutes, due to comedian Creator/ChrisRock delivering a telephone conversation with the supposed past lover of Kanye West, which goes on for two and a half minutes, full with profanity and sexual comments. This is amusing to listen to the first two times you play the song, but can get rather tedious afterwards. Arguably justified, though - it's the phone conversation Kanye refers to in his last few lines.
* AutoTune: This album uses it in a great example of Administrivia/TropesAreTools. "Runaway" uses the software to distort Kanye's voice heavily for the last three minutes or so to mimic a guitar solo (it's been compared to Music/KingCrimson's Robert Fripp). A number of critics have speculated that this is intended to be a metaphor for Kanye's difficulties in expressing himself verbally.
* BadassBoast[=/=]BlasphemousBoast: [=CyHi=] da Prynce claims in "So Appalled":
--> ''If God had an iPod, I'd be on his playlist.''
* BodyHorror: One of the images in assocation with ''MBDTF'' is [[http://www.heavemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Kanye-West-My-Beautiful-Dark-Twisted-Fantasy.jpg a bear with five different mouths, in particular, the same "Dropout Bear" from Ye's first 3 studio albums]]. As if that wasn't enough, [[http://archive.dailycal.org/photos/20101130/111373-Kanye-west-power1-03.jpg there's a Kanye equivalent]].
* BookEnds: The album begins and ends with instances of SpokenWordInMusic, similarly to Kanye's debut ''The College Dropout''. There are also two thematically important questions asked by other performers: "[[Music/MikeOldfield Can we get much higher?]]" and "[[Music/GilScottHeron Who will survive in America?]]".
** "Gorgeous" begins and ends with Kid Cudi's verse.
* ConceptAlbum: Considered to be this with unifying themes of the nature of celebrity, intense introspection and SelfDeprecation, and primal emotions.
* DrowningMySorrows: "Dark Fantasy"
-->''The plan was to drink until the pain was over\\
But what's worse, the pain or the hangover?''
* EpicInstrumentalOpener: "All of the Lights" is prefixed by a minute-long piano/cello [[RearrangeTheSong rearrangement]] of the song.
* EpicRocking: 10 of the 13 tracks are longer than or around 5 minutes long, with the longest being the 9-minute "Runaway".
* FadingIntoTheNextSong: The final two tracks are SiameseTwinSongs; "Lost in the World" transitions perfectly into "Who Will Survive In America".
* HeelRealization: "Runaway" is this ''in spades''.
* IgnoredEpiphany: In "Runaway", Kanye protests his own proclivity for this.
* IndecipherableLyrics: Invoked with the outro of "Runaway", which has Kanye singing into a vocoder designed to make his words barely intelligible, which symbolically represents his troubles expressing himself verbally.
* LoudnessWar: [[http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/post/16170857817/my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-won-the-loudness-war A really bad case.]] Nearly every song gets clipped.
** A saving grace is that the video clips on youtube (for example) don't have this loudness issue, as such they sound and look fantastic.
* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: The music video for "Monster" is full of horror images and was apparently so frightening and racy at the same time that MTV banned it.
* OneWordTitle: "Gorgeous", "Monster", "Power", "Runaway".
* ProgressiveRock: Believe it or not, a major influence on this album. There's a good reason "Power" samples Music/KingCrimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man" from ''Music/InTheCourtOfTheCrimsonKing''.
* RearrangeTheSong: "All of the Lights (Interlude)" is a piano/cello rearrangement of "All of the Lights".
* QuestioningTitle: "Who Will Survive In America?"
* ProductPlacement: "Runaway"
--> ''Invisibly set, the Rolex is faceless''
* RecordProducer: [[Music/ATribeCalledQuest Q-Tip]], [[Music/WuTangClan RZA]], DJ Premier, Mike Dean, Madlib and Pete Rock helped with the recording sessions.
** Kanye himself was involved in the production of all but one song on the album - that song, "Devil in a New Dress" being produced by Dean and Kanye's fellow former Roc-a-Fella producer Bink.
* {{Sampling}}:
** "Dark Fantasy" interpolates the chorus of "[[Music/{{Crises}} In High Places]]" by Music/MikeOldfield.
** "Gorgeous" has samples of "You Showed Me" by Music/TheTurtles.
** "Power" has a sample from "It's Your Thing" by Continent Number 6 and "21st Century Schizoid Man" from Music/KingCrimson's ''Music/InTheCourtOfTheCrimsonKing''.
** "So Appalled" has samples from "You Are-I Am" by Music/ManfredMann's Earth Band.
** "Devil in a New Dress" has a sample from "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" in the version of Smokey Robinson.
** "Runaway" has a sample of "Ecpo '83" by K.B. Ranch.
** "Hell of a Life" has a sample of "She's My Baby" by GarageRock band The Mojo Men, "Stud-Spider" by SingerSongwriter Tony Joe White and "Iron Man" by Music/BlackSabbath from ''Music/ParanoidAlbum''.
** "Blame Game" contains elements from "Avril 14th" by Music/AphexTwin.
** "Lost in the World" has samples from "Soul Makossa" by Manu Dibango, "Think (About It)" by Lyn Collins, "Woods" by Music/BonIver and "Comment No. 1" by Music/GilScottHeron, who is sampled again during "Who Will Survive In America?"
* ShoutOut:
** The album begins with Music/NickiMinaj imitating a British storyteller, directly referencing the opening of Creator/RoaldDahl's ''Literature/RevoltingRhymes'' retelling of ''Literature/{{Cinderella}}''. Dahl's poem isn't directly referenced, but the line delivery is very similar.
** "Dark Fantasy" references "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" by Music/MarvinGaye from ''Music/WhatsGoingOn'', ''Literature/TheLegendOfSleepyHollow'', the song "Sex On Fire" by Music/KingsOfLeon, Music/CelineDion, Music/LeonaLewis and Steve Urkel from ''Series/FamilyMatters''. The chorus also interpolates that to [[Music/{{Crises}} "In High Places"]] by Music/MikeOldfield.
** "Gorgeous" contains the lines "Pulled over with [[Series/ThirtyRock 30 rocks]], the cop look like Creator/AlecBaldwin" and "choke a ''South Park'' writer with a fishstick", which is a shout-out to a shout-out, referencing the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' episode "Fishsticks", in which West was spoofed.
* SiameseTwinSongs: "Lost in the World" and "Who Will Survive In America", which are connected by the same beat and share the same theme.
* SpecialGuest: The album features appearances by [[Music/WuTangClan Raekwon]], [[Music/WuTangClan RZA]], Pusha T, Music/RickRoss, Charlie Wilson, Music/BigSean, Cyhi the Prynce, Swizz Beatz, Dwele, Music/NickiMinaj, Music/{{Drake}}, Teyana Taylor, Music/JayZ, Music/JohnLegend, [[Music/TheBlackEyedPeas Fergie]], Music/{{Rihanna}}, The-Dream, Ryan Leslie, Music/EltonJohn, Music/{{MIA}}, [[Music/BonIver Justin Vernon]], Music/KidCudi, Music/{{Beyonce}}, Music/AliciaKeys, [[Music/LaRoux Elly Jackson]], Creator/ChrisRock and Tony Williams. [[Music/ATribeCalledQuest Q-Tip]], DJ Premier, Madlib and Pete Rock helped with the recording sessions.
* SpokenWordInMusic: The album ends with an extensive sample of a Gil Scott-Heron spoken-word poem.
* TakeThat: In "Power", Kanye references UsefulNotes/BarackObama, who called him a "jackass" for claiming that Music/TaylorSwift hadn't won her award fairly during the Creator/{{MTV}} Awards.
--> ''They say I'm the abomination of Obama's nation...well, that's a pretty bad way to start the conversation.''
** In the same song, he delivers one to ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'':
---> ''Fuck [=SNL=] and their whole cast''
---> ''Tell 'em Yeezy said they can kiss my whole ass''
---> ''More specifically, they can kiss my asshole''
---> ''I'm an asshole? You niggas got jokes!''
* TextlessAlbumCover: Aside from the "Parental Advisory" label (itself absent from the "clean" version), all of the cover variants lack text.
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