Sure, that desire to go #1 was obvious before today. (It also helps that Taylor Swift did the same thing when her record came out at the end of October, as our comment section points out.) It took Sufjan Stevens to #7 ( after a lot of agonizing from his label, Asthmatic Kitty.) The fact that West–the most overdog artist out right now, bar none–is employing the same tactic that struggling indies have used this year to insert themselves into the conversation is indication of just how desperately he wants to sell a bunch of records this week. Letting Amazon sell their record for $3.99 took both the Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend to #1. But this has become the go-to strategy for making a sales splash in 2010.

They don’t do that without the label’s permission, and it’s not like plenty of people wouldn’t be more than happy to pay full price.

How badly? Today, you can cop West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for the low, low, low price of $3.99 on Amazon. And now– after the stellar reviews have come in, capped, we should note, by a perfect 10.0 on Pitchfork today–we know just how badly West wants it. There was a lot of speculation, earlier in the month, that West would look to do whatever he could to match or beat the woman with whom he’s spent the last year inextricably linked. You know who definitely noticed though? Kanye West. Many rap fans probably didn’t notice a couple weeks ago when Taylor Swift’s Speak Now debuted, selling over a million copies in its first week–the fastest sprint to that number since Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, in 2008.

Behold, the Amazon-pixelated artwork of a man who will stop at nothing to be #1.

Kanye west dark fantasy amazon