Imagine you're a musician who, after damaging your reputation, spent a year away plotting your creative comeback. What do you do to prove you're different? If you're Kanye West, you direct and star in a 34-minute epic music video where you romance a bird.
In "Runaway", West falls in love with a phoenix, played by former Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks, who wears little more than a few feathers. West takes the phoenix to his home, to a parade and to a dinner party, trying to domesticate her — to little avail. The inter-species relationship comes to an end when the phoenix says she must "burn" to go back to her world. It's easy to overanalyze; for example, the phoenix could represent West's creative energy, and the onlookers at the dinner party could represent his critics. No matter the analysis, it's definitely one of the biggest-budget vanity projects we've seen in a while.