Let's have a toast for the douchebags...

Everybody -- glasses up. At least no one will accuse Kanye West of obliviousness. He’s well aware of what you think of him. America’s favorite speech crasher is staging a “comeback” of sorts -- not into the public eye, because he’s never been absent, but into the public heart. And it has been nothing if not revealing.

Because this is the Tale of Two Kanyes. More than any other pop culture figure on the current stage, West pushes a technicolor duality worthy of Hyde and Jeckyll. He’s a uniter/divider, rescuer/martyr, braggart/underdog, sensitive/boor, hero/zero, a celebrity artiste who’s too big for hip hop but too small for the playpen. Someone who thrives on conflict, from a Jesus Christ cover pose for Rolling Stone to declaring George Bush “doesn’t care about black people.” Someone who believes bum-rushing Taylor Swift at a celebrity awards show was “very punk rock and revolutionary and idealistic.” And in 2010/11, that makes him an almost perfect star.

Yes, he’s an egomaniac; but he's also a naif who believes the entire world wants -- no, needs -- to hear what he has to say and to see what he does. And on the latter, he is proving himself inarguably right. West has never met a risk he wouldn’t take, upending his formula at every turn. And even a hater would have to admit that he has the floor.

Kanye West as the least likely rapper turned trailblazer

Consider the trajectory. First, he came out of nowhere (Chicago, in rap terms) and got too big to be Jay-Z’s resident production/beats genius. Then he got too big for hip-hop, from the music to the britches. He blew up during a decade of thug rap, wearing boat shoes and sensitivity on his designer sleeves, talking about homophobia when the competition couldn’t get enough gunplay into their tracks. He seemed to respect no genre limitations in his re-imagining of hip-hop style and substance, and to enjoy pissing off everyone, including the people who like him. And this is a guy who obviously needs attention first, and close behind it, love. He needs to Versace’d and Gucci’d up with designer love. But mainly, West is clearly intent on transcending, beginning with musical boundaries.

Just a cursory look at the samples he’s used as both a beatmaker and hitmaker reveals an omnivorous palette. Sure, he uses the usual R&B, hip-hop and soul collection, from Ray Charles to Pete Rock, but then you hear "Five To One" by The Doors, "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson and everyone from Elton John to Steely Dan, Mountain to Pat Benatar, Graham Nash to… Bette Midler.

Along the way, he has changed the style and substance of his genre, even exploded it, dressing it up in pricey geekwear and forcing everyone else to follow in his wake. And when he says he wants to work with both Lauryn Hill and Thom Yorke, he makes rock stars seem like Bing Crosbys, offstage in a genre corner, unaware they’ve surrendered the cultural spotlight.

Kanye West defies the notion of genre

Now he wants to be too big for music, period. His latest lavish indulgence is the 35-minute "Runaway," probably the longest and most expensive commercial in history, and a bid for credibility as an art film director/actor.

Well, he said he would be bigger than Elvis -- how about Ingmar Bergman? Have you seen "Runaway?" Here’s a summary of this garish mood piece: expensive car crash/comet crash/lingerie-model-as-phoenix-in-appliqué-feather-underwear/fawns/sheep and bunnies/fireworks/African-American banquet in an aircraft carrier/upright piano/ballet dancers/phoenix horrified by main course/bad dialogue/expensive clothes. It’s set to excerpts of songs from the new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, and in here somewhere is a 10-ton metaphor for rebirth, rickety’d-up out of these clankety-clank symbols. It will be dissected in French arthouses over café au lait and faux absinthe, and it will collapse into a pile of angstistential nonsense.

So Visconti and Eisenstein will sleep soundly tonight. Still, there is no denying the crazed and unhesitant ambition, nor his wherewithal to pull it off. "Runaway" -- the song -- already sounds like a classic, opening with a stark, childlike piano figure over an old-school beat, and it's all so... him. Self-lacerating, and yet self-aggrandizing:

“And I always find, yeah, I always find somethin' wrong/
You been puttin' up wit' my shit just way too long/
I'm so gifted at findin' what I don't like the most/
So I think it's time for us to have a toast”

You’re not entirely sure what it means or how he means it -- if he’s lashing out at critics or celebrating his right to be an “asshole.” He likely wants it both ways. And you’re still there, hanging on every beat. Because that’s the thing about douchebags. They talk a lot of sh*t, but you can’t help raising your glass and leaning in to hear it.

Check out askmen.com