Kanye gets ready to drop new album

In the last few months (and the last few years), Kanye West has been everywhere. His tweets have become the must-read literature of the year for their ridiculously egotistic nature (sample tweet: “Hotel robe got me feeling like a sheik”).

He’s released several controversial album covers, performed at the VMAs and apologized to George Bush on national television for his infamously accusatory comments during the Hurricane Katrina telethon.

Perhaps his most perplexing and most creative artistic move was the strangely captivating 45 minute film he released on his website entitled Runaway.

All of this promotion and media attention will lead Kanye to the release of his fifth studio album on Tuesday, entitled My Beautiful Dark, Twisted Fantasy. Based on the official track list of the album, many of the songs have already been released as free downloads through Kanye’s weekly G.O.O.D. Friday promotion on his website or previewed in Runaway.

As followers of the free releases know, almost all of these songs are feature-heavy (and almost all feature former Clipse rapper and newest G.O.O.D. music member Pusha T, whose lyrics about dealing cocaine are only tolerable for so long).

With all of these free releases it will be interesting to see how many fans flock to the stores (digital music stores count, too) for the album release. Acts such as Radiohead and Girl Talk have already proven that there’s still money to be made if an album is given away mostly for free, but it remains to be seen how many albums Kanye West will sell this Tuesday.