My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

The comeback setup

After he interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 VMAs, Kanye was the most hated man in music. He left the country for a while, then set up in a studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, with a rotating crew of producers, rappers and singers. The goal was simple: make something so good people had to talk about the music again.

GOOD Fridays

In the months before release, he gave away a new song every Friday for free. Fans treated each one like an event. It was a rollout strategy years before everyone else did it.

The album

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out on November 22, 2010. It's huge and maximalist: choirs, orchestras, rock samples, and songs about fame, ego and self-destruction.

• "Power" is built on a sample of King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man".
• "Monster" has Jay-Z, Rick Ross and Bon Iver, and a Nicki Minaj verse that a lot of people call the best guest verse ever.
• "Runaway" got a 35-minute film, directed by Kanye.

The reviews

Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10.0, which it almost never does for new albums. The cover, a painting by artist George Condo, was considered too graphic by some stores, so alternate covers were made.