{"product_id":"kanye-wests-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-9781623565428","title":"Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the first decade of the twenty-first century, Kanye West created the most compelling body of pop music by an American artist during the period. Having risen from obscurity as a precocious producer through the ranks of Jay Z's Roc-A-Fella records, by the time he released \u003ci\u003eMy Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (MBDTF)\u003c\/i\u003e in late 2010, West had evolved into a master collagist, an alchemist capable of transfiguring semi-obscure soul samples and indelible beats into a brash and vulnerable new art form. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e A look at the arc of his career, from the heady chipmunk soul exuberance of \u003ci\u003eThe College Dropout\u003c\/i\u003e (2004) to the operatic narcissism of \u003ci\u003eMBDTF\u003c\/i\u003e, tells us about the march of pop music into the digital age and, by extension, the contradictions that define our cultural epoch. In a cloud-based and on-demand culture - a place of increasing virtualization, loneliness, and hyper-connectivity - West straddles this critical moment as what David Samuels of \u003ci\u003eThe Atlantic \u003c\/i\u003ecalls \"the first true genius of the iPhone era, the Mozart of contemporary American music.\" In the land of taking a selfie, honing a personal brand, and publicly melting down online, Kanye West is the undisputed king. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Swallowing the chaos wrought by his public persona and digesting it as a grandiose allegory of self-redemption, Kanye sublimates his narcissism to paint masterstroke after masterstroke on \u003ci\u003eMBDTF\u003c\/i\u003e, a 69-minute hymn to egotistical excess. Sampling and ventriloquizing the pop music past to tell the story of its future - very much a tale of our culture's wish for unfettered digital ubiquity - \u003ci\u003eMBDTF\u003c\/i\u003e is the album of its era, an aesthetic self-acquittal and spiritual autobiography of our era's most dynamic artist.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eKirk Walker Graves\u003c\/b\u003e is a writer from Tennessee at work on his first novel. A graduate of Princeton University, he lives with his wife and son in Nashville.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Academic","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50629525897490,"sku":"9781623565428","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_07b94c8a-7b78-48e9-8c1c-672088078df2.jpg?v=1732730686","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/kanye-wests-my-beautiful-dark-twisted-fantasy-9781623565428","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}