Kanye West – Runaway

Call it pretentious if you want. “They missed the word Ego after Runaway in the title”. Whatever. This is an event in popular music, the likes of which only Lady Gaga has matched in recent times. Believe it or not, at one point in time the most popular artists in the world weren’t averse to taking creative risks, and this resurgence is surely a good thing for music fans as a whole. Fair enough there have always been artists pushing the boundaries, even more so than the likes of Kanye or Gaga, but being weird to an audience of 15 year old metal heads is different to being “weird” on MTV. The video in question is roughly about a man who falls in love with a phoenix (yes, a phoenix) who crashes onto earth. He shows her his world, only for her to be revolted at how we “try and change what we don’t understand”, and promptly goes back to her home. Offering snippets of what are presumably album tracks (although some are from Kanye’s free “G.O.O.D Music” project), there’s a lot to be excited about. Equal parts enjoyable, impressive and hilarious (intentional or not), this video is worth 30 minutes of your time, even if you only have a passing interest in the artist’s music. If nothing else, the phoenix is really fit.