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The song was promptly removed from his website and replaced with another track, with "Monster" being uploaded as a digital single onto iTunes. In the first week West released onto his website a remix of the album's first single, " Power", and "Monster" was released on the second week. The intention was to release a free new song every Friday for a few months, and the weekly tracks generally featured various rappers from his label, GOOD Music, and other artists he usually collaborated with. To promote his upcoming fifth album, West launched GOOD Fridays, a weekly free music giveaway. The video has been criticized for its portrayal of women, and the content of the video was described as weird and disturbing. The music video was widely controversial, being banned from MTV. The music video had several references to horror films and featured extensive horror imagery, with zombies, decapitated corpses and heavily atmospheric cinematography. "Monster" was promoted with an accompanying music video, directed by Jake Nava. The song debuted and peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at position 18. The song was listed amongst the best tracks of 2010 by publications, with NME placing it at number 53 on its list of the "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". However, critics were mixed in their assessing of who had the better verse between West and Jay-Z. It was met with mostly positive reviews from music critics, with Minaj's verse receiving widespread acclaim, and West's production being well received. Originally released through West's GOOD Friday initiative, a weekly free music giveaway he started to promote My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, "Monster" was later confirmed to be featured on the album, and was released as a digital download on October 23. The song contains an atmospheric, drum-heavy composition.
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Lyrically, the song expresses often disturbing, horror film-influenced concepts, with some comparing the song's eerie aesthetic to the Michael Jackson track " Thriller". All five credited acts have writing credits on the posse cut, with the production handled by West and Mike Dean. The song features rappers Jay-Z, Rick Ross, and Nicki Minaj, along with indie folk group Bon Iver. " Monster" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West, released as the third single from his fifth studio album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (2010).
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