Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Universal)

Kanye – hip-hop icon, Louis Vuitton fanatic, Taylor Swift adversary – has lost the plot …and it’s fantastic.

Loved and loathed in equal quantities, the egocentric villain/hero – recently booed by spectators at Macy’s 84th Annual Thanksgiving Day Parade – has no doubt endured both ups and downs of late.

With the release of Fantasy, it’s time for an ‘up’. “Can we get much higher?” – I don’t think so.

From the charged-up epic, All of the Lights (featuring Rihanna), to the self-deprecating and hauntingly beautiful Runaway (that incessant piano key is a stroke of genius), this near-perfect album is surely one of the best of the year, perhaps only second in the hip-hop realm to Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty.

It’s no wonder star contributors, Q-Tip, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi and Nicki Minaj, were keen to jump aboard.

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