All of the Lights

Kanye's maximalist manifesto arrives as a fanfare, not a beat — the whole thing scored like a coronation that curdles into a custody hearing. The opening is all brass stabs and timpani, layered with an orchestra Jeff Bhasker piled into a wall of horn and drumline percussion, so dense that the low end nearly disappears and the mid-range does all the shouting. Rihanna's hook rides above it like a searchlight sweeping a stadium, while a chorus of unnamed guests — Elton John, Alicia Keys, Kid Cudi, John Legend, Fergie, The-Dream — bleeds into a single blurred choir, credited nowhere in the mix, an anonymity that is itself the point. Kanye raps the story of a man who lost his family through his own violence and pride, visiting his daughter, watching another man take his place, and the grandiosity of the arrangement makes the shame louder rather than smaller. Kid Cudi's wordless moan sutures the sections. Released in 2010 as the centerpiece of an album about celebrity as a self-inflicted wound, it defined a decade of hip-hop's turn toward orchestral scale. Best heard loud, in a car at night, when the horns can fill a space large enough to hold the contradiction.