#1 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Kendrick Lamar

January 31, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

There was a noticeable shift in my music listening in 2024. I used to be a dabbler in hip hop and rap, enjoying it from time-to-time but putting it in my speakers infrequently. This year those habits changed. What was a low percentage of my overall listening became a majority, especially in the latter half of the year. I attribute that shift to one man: Kendrick Lamar. No musician — in any genre — commanded my attention more in 2024 than he did. And that shift is carrying into 2025, as we are just over a week out from Lamar’s performance on the Super Bowl LIX stage on February 9, 2024. I couldn’t be more excited.

GNX, Kendrick Lamar’s sixth album, dropped unexpectedly on November 22, 2024. It is a great album, and taken without any of the additional context I’m about to share below, it would likely have been my #1 album of 2024 anyway – but I obviously can’t know for sure. I will dive into the merits of the album from my (decidedly naive, considering it’s hip-hop) perspective in a bit. But first, I must share the additional context.

Prior to the release of GNX, hip hop was already dominating my 2024, thanks in part to Doechii’s Alligator Bites Never Heal, released on Aug 24 (#18) and Tyler, the Creator’s CHROMAKOPIA, released on October 28 (#12), but mostly due to Kendrick, who had a seminal verse on one track and subsequently released five non-album singles between March and September 2024. If we had gotten to the end of the year without an official album from him, I would have been put in the very strange position of having listened to a lot of new music in 2024 by and because of an artist despite them not having released an album. I don’t know what I would have done, because I feel so compelled to capture Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 in my own words, so I can better understand it, and I can pass that understanding on to you (whether you wanted it or not). Here goes nothing.

Where’s The Beef?

You may have heard of The Beef. Not the TV show (although it was enjoyable), but the escalating series of events, the rap feud if you will, between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. It was this feud, the way it played out, the speed at which both artists recorded and released music, and how the feud resolved (or continues to resolve) itself that I found intensely engrossing. Drake, the Canadian rapper very close to being the most popular musician in the world (I believe he is #2 only to Taylor Swift’s #1 all-time streaming record), versus Kendrick Lamar, the Pulitzer-prize winning incendiary West Coast Compton-born rapper.

At its core, the beef is about what makes a rapper legitimate. That, in and of itself, has been a long-time rap staple — if you didn’t grow up in the hood, if you haven’t been somehow related to gang violence or had to successfully avoid it to survive, then you aren’t deserving of any stature in the rap world. Of course this kind of base thinking doesn’t only happen in rap, but I would argue it comes up more prominently here than in any other genre. That is the foundation upon which The Beef is built: that Lamar believes Drake is a poseur, and his unprecedented popularity has taken the rap industry down the wrong path. His hyper-polished, overproduced, and sanitized music, his non-American nationality, and even how he carries himself, do not represent rap how it should be represented in popular music. He has caused the rap industry on the whole to sour, and something needs to be done about it.

And Kendrick is not entirely wrong in this stance, but you have to squint at the numbers to have it make sense. In 2018, hip hop became the streaming world’s #1 genre, thanks to both men, but Drake much more than Kendrick. Since then, it has remained the #1 genre, but until 2024 that buffer that had been built up between hip hop and other genres had been slowly declining. Taylor and her minions likely had a lot to do with that shift away from hip hop. But in 2024, thanks to Kendrick going on the offensive, calling out Drake and the industry on the whole over the course of a year, he drew my and a whole slew of other people’s attention back to (or for the first time to) the genre. Hip hop’s popularity climbed back up to a commanding lead in 2024.¹ Carrying the weight of an entire genre on your shoulders back to greatness is itself a feat to be recognized. Now let’s talk about how he did that.

Where The Beef Began

Drake and Kendrick have a long history together, and it started out on a positive note when Lamar featured on Drake’s “Buried Alive Interlude” in 2011. 2013 saw the first lyrical shots fired between the men, when Kendrick rapped on Big Sean’s “Control” that he had love for Drake and a number of other popular rappers at that time, but he wanted to “murder” them when it came to rap. A couple weeks later, Drake’s response came in an interview when he said “I know good and well that [Lamar]’s not murdering me, at all, in any platform.” Over the next ten or so years, there were various lines that they both delivered in verse and in interviews that, while not overt, were interpreted as “sneak disses.”

In October, 2023, Drake and J. Cole released “First Person Shooter,” in which J. Cole states that he, Drake, and Kendrick are the “Big Three” greatest rappers in modern hip-hop. This was apparently the start of the end for Kendrick, who disliked being lumped together with the other two as “the greatest” – not only because he considered himself, alone, to be the sole title holder for “greatest,” which I feel he has a legitimate claim to, but also because J. Cole had the audacity to claim that Cole and Drake were “the greatest” in any capacity. Kendrick’s official response came five months later, with a verse on his, Future, and Metro Boomin’s single “Like That,” in which Kendrick raps “Motherfuck the big three, n****, it’s just big me,” elevating himself above Drake and Cole. Innocent enough as a diss, but knowing the history behind it and Lamar’s intent to not only boost himself but to also cut down Drake is key.²

Full-blown Diss Tracks

Drake took the bait, creating the first complete song in The Beef whose sole focus was to take down the other man. “Push Ups” first leaked online on April 13, with Drake claiming many artists are better than Kendrick, including 21 Savage, Travis Scott, and SZA. On top of that, he made fun of Lamar’s physical presence, saying, “How the fuck you big-steppin’ with a size-seven men’s on?” and calling him “your little midget ass.” Lamar is only 5' 5", and I’m sorry, it’s all fun and games until you make fun of something out of a person’s control, like their height. That’s below the belt, and believe that likely went a long way to push Kendrick over the edge. But Drake felt he had the upper hand, looking down from his mountain, so he took the shot. “And that fuckin’ song y’all got did not start the beef with us. This shit been brewin’ in a pot, now I’m heatin’ up.”

Six days later, the official version of “Push Ups” came out, along with a second song, “Taylor Made Freestyle.” The latter song featured unauthorized AI versions of Tupac and Snoop Dogg dissing Kendrick, as well as a diss on Kendrick’s ties to the music industry in general, claiming that those ties were keeping Kendrick from responding to the leaked “Push Ups” because he didn’t want to interfere with the concurrent release of Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, which also came out on April 19 (hence the “Taylor” in the name of the song). Tupac’s estate threatened to sue Drake, stating their support for Kendrick in their response: “The unauthorized, equally dismaying use of Tupac’s voice against Kendrick Lamar… who has given nothing but respect to Tupac and his legacy publicly and privately, compounds the insult.” Drake took the song down from streaming services a week later.

After two unanswered songs calling him out, Kendrick finally responded in full on April 30, with “Euphoria.” At 1,400 words, the 6+ minute track is non-stop hit-after-hit on Drake. Lamar calls Drake a bad father, raising his son poorly. And that his abs are fake. But more importantly, he makes the first real dig at Drake’s legitimacy in the rap business. “How many more fairytale stories ’bout your life ’til we had enough? How many more black features ’til you finally feel that you’re black enough? I like Drake with the melodies, I don’t like Drake when he act tough.” He goes on, “I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress… I even hate when you say the word “n****,” but that's just me, I guess.” The song ends with a repeated refrain “We don’t wanna hear you say ‘n****’ no more.”

Five Songs Across Five Days

From there, with Kendrick having released a verse, Drake two songs, and then Kendrick with one song over the span of just over a month, the creative output and nastiness of the disses kicked into high gear. Over the next five days, Drake released two more songs, and Kendrick three, volleying back and forth with deeper, more scathing digs without sacrificing musical quality (at least on Kendrick’s part, but I’m biased by this point). On May 3, Kendrick followed up “Euphoria” with “6:16 in LA” – mocking a common Drake song-title structure – non-coincidentally produced by none other than Jack Antonoff (one of Taylor Swift’s lead producers). The instagram-only track is not as overt as “Euphoria,” instead choosing to target Drake’s OVO Records crew and Drake’s penchant for internet memes as more fodder for why he’s not street enough.

14 hours after “6:16,” Drake released “Family Matters” and proceeded to go ballistic. At 1,700 words and 7.5 minute in length, the song is the longest, most dense track in The Beef. Drake not only calls out Lamar, he lashes out at many other well-known artists like Future, Rick Ross, A$AP Rocky, Kanye West, producers Metro Boomin’ and Pharrell Williams, and singer the Weeknd. He pushed things further into chaos by claiming Kendrick was a domestic abuser against his wife, Whitney Alford. “On some Bobby shit, I wanna know what Whitney need,” comparing Lamar to Bobby Brown attacking Whitney Houston. He claimed one of Kendrick’s kids may actually be fathered by producer and filmmaker Dave Free (a point which becomes more relevant later on).

20 minutes later, Kendrick’s “meet the grahams” hit YouTube. Drake’s last name is Graham, so you can see where this is going. Less song and more spoken-word poem, it starts “Dear Adonis, I’m sorry that that man is your father,” Lamar makes it very personal by speaking directly to Drake’s son. “I look at him and wish your grandpa woulda wore a condom. I’m sorry that you gotta grow up and then stand behind him.” Then he addresses Drake’s parents, Sandra and Dennis. “You raised a horrible fuckin’ person, the nerve of you, Dennis. Sandra, sit down, what I’m about to say is heavy, now listen. Mm-mh, your son’s a sick man with sick thoughts, I think n****s like him should die. Him and Weinstein should get fucked up in a cell for the rest they life.” Just brutal.

He goes on, claiming Drake has a secret daughter. In the final verse, addressed directly at Drake, Lamar explains why he’s cutting so deep. “This supposed to be a good exhibition within the game. But you fucked up the moment you called out my family's name. Why you had to stoop so low to discredit some decent people? Guess integrity is lost when the metaphors don't reach you.”

The Death Blow

The next morning, roughly 14 hours after the previous song, Lamar releases the piece de resistance, “Not Like Us.” A classic right out of the gate, the song famously features production by Mustard (whose birth name is Dijon McFarlane – get it?). It became the song of the summer, and was hands down my favorite song of 2024. It is four minutes and 33 seconds of straight-up bliss.

The song picks up the story where “meet the grahams” left off, diving further into filth. He calls Drake a pedophile, rapping “Say, Drake, I hear you like ’em young. You better not ever go to cell block one.” and “Why you trollin’ like a bitch? Ain’t you tired? Tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A minorrrrrr.” (I cannot wait for that line to be sung by literally everyone at the Super Bowl.) Not stopping there, he raps “And Baka got a weird case, why is he around? Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophiles” – naming Baka, a member of Drake’s security team who had been, according to Wikipedia, legitimately arrested and charged with sex trafficking, assault, and robbery of a 22-year-old woman he allegedly forced into prostitution in 2014 (but was only convicted of assault and a weapons charge), and name dropping Drake’s Lover Boy album.

He then refers back to a line Drake had in “Family Matters” where Drake said “Always rappin’ like you ’bout to get the slaves freed,” flipping it around. He accuses Drake of exploiting Atlanta-based artists for his own gain, akin to slavery. He runs through a litany of Atlanta stars who have guest appeared on Drake’s songs, including Future, 21 Savage, and 2 Chainz. The final verse ends with “You run to Atlanta when you need a few dollars. No, you not a colleague, you a fuckin’ colonizer.”

After that pinnacle of a song, Drake followed up the next day with the lackluster effort “The Heart Part 6” – mimicking Lamar’s “The Heart” song series titling. In the song, Drake goes fully on the defensive, denying he’s a pedophile a handful of times, and that he doesn’t have a hidden daughter, giving legitimacy to lines that were clearly not realistic when they were first rapped by Lamar, but now elevated to new heights by having been acknowledged by Drake. He should have left well enough alone, or picked new roads to go down. Instead, Drake continued attacking Lamar with the domestic violence and illegitimate fatherhood notes from previous songs.

Not only had Kendrick released the phenomenal “Not Like Us” just 24 hours earlier, “The Heart Part 6” was widely panned, hitting an ignominious 1 million dislikes achievement on YouTube. The general consensus is that this is where Drake unequivocally lost The Beef. Kendrick had proven his lyrical and musical prowess, and Drake had to move on. Of course things didn’t really end there, and it has yet to prove if it has had any material affect on Drake’s popularity, but it has certainly helped Kendrick achieve greater heights. And he is not letting anyone forget it.

Begin the Victory Laps

Kendrick hosted a concert on Juneteenth – another indirect slavery dig at Drake – called “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends.” The concert lasted over three hours, and featured over 25 West Coast artists, including Tyler, the Creator. It was split into three “& Friends” sets, with DJ Hed leading the first set: a showcase of up-and-coming LA rappers. Act II was led by Mustard and featured a long set of Mustard-produced tracks with special guests singing their own songs. Act III was Kendrick’s time to shine. He opened with “Euphoria” with some new lyrics dissing Drake, and proceeded to play other Drake diss tracks “Like That” and “6:16 in LA.” After 15 songs, with Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and ScHoolboy Q all making appearances, Kendrick brought Dr. Dre out on stage to perform “Still D.R.E” and “California Love,” which Dre had performed originally with 2Pac. Dr. Dre then got the crowd to quiet down, and whispered the opening line to “Not Like Us” – “Psst, I see dead people.” Which led to Kendrick performing “Not Like Us“ five times back to back, each with a little bit different set of flair.

On the 4th of July, Kendrick released the music video for “Not Like Us,” which featured at the beginning of it a snippet of a then-unknown song, later to be revealed as the fantastic “Squabble Up” from GNX, shown in the video at the top of this post. The “Not Like Us” video notably celebrates West Coast and LA rappers. It closes the door on the accusations made by Drake across a few of his diss tracks by showing Kendrick’s entire family happily dancing together in the video, and having the video co-directed by none other than Dave Free.

On September 11, Kendrick released an untitled, Instagram-exclusive song that has come to be known as “Watch the Party Die.” In it, he references The Beef, but does not overtly diss Drake, concentrating instead on the cultural relevance of influencers, materialism, and celebrity culture on the hip hop industry in general. It was posted at 8pm, just when the 2024 Video Music Awards were starting, likely intentionally calling out the award ceremony.

And that is Kendrick Lamar’s 2024, up to the release of GNX on November 22. But first, to give full consideration of The Beef up to current day: Drake is not ready to give up. On November 25, Drake filed a petition against Universal Music Group and Spotify, claiming they had conspired to artificially inflate the popularity of “Not Like Us.” A day later, Drake filed a 2nd petition against UMG, claiming defamation for them not having stopped the release of a song falsely accusing him of being a sex offender, as well as UMG creating an illegal payola scheme with iHeartRadio. On January 14 of this year, Drake dropped the petition against UMG and Spotify, but the defamation claim remains. A day later, Drake filed a formal lawsuit against UMG, “the music company that decided to publish, promote, exploit, and monetize allegations (in “Not Like Us”) that it understood were not only false, but dangerous.” It is not likely the active lawsuit will keep Lamar from playing the song at the Super Bowl, but it does make the upcoming experience a little bit contentious and exciting.

What Were We Talking About? Oh Yeah, GNX.

On the morning of November 22, around 8:30am PST, Lamar released “GNX,” a one-minute video without any description, and ending in a simple white-on-black treatment of the letters “GNX.” The snippet of song in the video has not appeared in any other recording from Lamar, giving clear indication that there is still more to come (maybe before the Super Bowl?). Thirty minutes after the release of the video, the album GNX hit streaming services, and within 20 minutes of the release I’d seen a notification somewhere and was downloading the album to immediately put in my ears. Having watched all of The Beef happen in near real time, I was more than primed for the album’s majesty, and it did not disappoint.

From my untrained ears, GNX is more approachable, and simpler, than Lamar’s past efforts. Aside from the names mentioned elsewhere in this novel of a post, GNX was mainly produced by Sounwave and Jack Antonoff (he’s everywhere), to great affect. I didn’t have Lamar’s first two albums (2011 and 2012) on the Top 31. All of his other albums have made an appearance, from To Pimp a Butterfly at #29 in 2015, DAMN. at #22 in 2017, Black Panther: The Album at #21 in 2018, and finally Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers at #16 in 2022. All of them are masterpieces in their own way, but none of them have been a mainstay in my daily listening like GNX has been.

It is a perfectly sequenced album. The first track “wacced out murals,” references The Beef a few times, but chooses to rise above the direct attacks on Drake, choosing instead to put everyone to task. “It used to be ’Fuck that n****,’ but now it’s plural. Fuck everybody.” He gets straight to the point, intentionally. “This is not for lyricists, I swear it’s not the sentiments. Fuck a double entendre, I wan’t ya’ll to feel this shit.” No more beating around the bush.

From there, Kendrick goes into the bouncy “squabble up,” which starts with the fantastic line “Woke up lookin’ for the broccoli, high-key, keep a horn on me, that Kamasi,” referencing Kamasi Washington, an American jazz saxophonist who also has production credits on the album. Rhyming “broccoli” with “Kamasi,” how can you not smile? The third song, “luther” is a beautiful, slow duet with SZA (#7 in 2022³), evoking similar feelings to “All the Stars,” their duet on the Black Panther Soundtrack.

“Man at the garden” is the fourth song from the album. It’s a slower, downbeat song that Lamar uses to give a complete and thorough description of why he is deserving of any and all accolades that are directed at him. He refers to The Beef, ending the song with a very impassioned “Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker.” Song 5, “hey now (feat. Dody6)” gives me my favorite guest appearance of the album. The song starts with Kendrick rapping in the low register. Over the song he slowly gains volume and energy, climbing an octave and driving more anxiety as he does it. When Dody6, an up-and-coming West Coast LA rapper, joins the fray, his delivery is entirely unique. There’s a laid-back Snoop quality to his bars, but with an urgency underlying it all that is all his own. I will be looking out for more work by him.

The sixth song, “reincarnated,” is the heart of the album. In it, Kendrick draws connections to past extreme rises in fame paired with self-destruction, telling the stories of (without naming) John Lee Hooker and Billie Holiday before turning the magnifying glass on himself, all in an attempt to keep his own extracurriculars in check. The song culminates in a crazy back and forth where Kendrick is talking to God, voiced by himself. “tv off (feat. Lefty Gunplay)” is a high energy song that gave the world “MUSTAAAAARRRRD,” that I’m sure you’ve heard many times by now.

“Dodger blue (feat. Wallie the Senset, Siete7x, and Roddy Ricch)” slows things down again, with a 90s-esque R&B slide beat that will have you boppin. “peekaboo (feat. AzChike)” is an odd outlier that is deceivingly simple, repeating “What they talkin’ ’bout? They ain’t talkin’ ’bout nothin’” over and over again, with a few other lines that start with the word “peekaboo.” Still, it is an addictive listen.

“Heart pt. 6” (where Kendrick reclaims the title of the song back from Drake), marks the first time he includes a song from the series of The Heart songs on a proper full-length album. It is beautiful. The next song, the title song, featuring Hitta J3, YoungThreat, & Peysoh, is carried by a back-masked beat that drives the song quietly forward while the lesser-named kids take a chance at the rhymes. The twelfth, and last, song on the album, “gloria,” is another duet with SZA. The two of them have such clear chemistry musically, and this song is no different.

It’s been announced that SZA will be appearing in the Super Bowl Halftime show with Kendrick, as well as double-billing with him on their summertime stadium tour. I cannot wait to see what else the future holds for Kendrick Lamar that we’ll get to enjoy. It’s all but a given that there’s another album coming this year. And seeing he and SZA live on stage in May here in Seattle is going to be huge. Maybe something more will come from Drake’s lawsuits, who knows. But one thing is for sure, I’m now a fully committed Kendrick Lamar fan, and I’m here for whatever he brings next. Thanks for reading along.

^{1. I’m sorry I can’t point you to the exact data points I’m referencing – I swear I read exactly what I’m reporting here recently, but I can’t for the life of me find that reference now. Nonetheless, it makes for a good story, so I’m sticking with it.↩}
^{2. On April 5, J. Cole was the first to respond to Lamar’s dig, on his own “7 Minute Drill.” In it, Cole blasts Kendrick’s album To Pimp a Butterfly, among other things. But two days later, Cole publicly apologized onstage for releasing the song and removed it from streaming services, effectively removing himself from the building melee. ↩}
^{3. On December 20, SZA released a new deluxe version of her stellar 2022 album SOS, called LANA, featuring 15 new tracks added to the front of the album, and including a duet with Kendrick Lamar.↩}

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#2 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Waxahatchee

January 30, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

Tigers Blood by Waxahatchee

It is surprisingly difficult to reread my review of Waxahatchee’s last album, Saint Cloud, my #1 album of 2020. That album came out March 27 that year, just as the world was locking down. This was the first year of Covid, with (only) 400,000 deaths. Saint Cloud was the blanket that kept us warm, the unexpectedly bright star in that darkness. 2024 wasn’t nearly as dark, as Covid is mostly controlled, having left the world scarred and scared. And here as I write this at the end of January 2025, we’re in a different kind of dark times, unsure where the world is headed. “Unsettled,” as a vibe.

We’re so lucky to have Katie Crutchfield and her band to help prop us up and give us the energy we need to carry on. Like Katie to her sister Alison, Tigers Blood is very much a twin to Saint Cloud. Crutchfield brought back Brad Cook to produce the album (he also plays bass on every song aside from one). His ability to bring the coziness of the recording space into these songs is impeccable as always. You could easily play both albums back to back and have no real indication where one album ends and the other begins, aside from one notable exception: the backing vocals of one MJ Lenderman.

You may recall Lenderman, whose recent solo album was featured at #9 this year. His dry drawl is a perfect lower-register match to Crutchfield’s strong twang. Lenderman’s guitar appears across every song on the album, and he provides exquisite harmonies on four of them, often singing an unexpected harmonic tone underneath but not hidden from the forefront. The first single from the album, “Right Back To It” has Lenderman’s voice so prominent that he received a “ft. MJ Lenderman” credit in the song title. Released just over two months before the album came out, it was a strong indication of where Waxahatchee was headed.

Another highlight of Lenderman’s backing vocals is the “title song,” a slow, depressing-in-a-good-way dirge that ends with the entire band lending their voices to the chorus. I challenge you to zone in on Lenderman’s voice when you can pick it up underneath Crutchfield. The choices he makes for the harmony line are entirely unique and surprising. It makes me want to go back and give his band Wednesday’s 2023 album Rat Saw God another proper listen.

The highlight for me on the album is also the most sparse, “365.” I first truly fell for Waxahatchee on her song “Chapel of Pines” from the 2018 EP Great Thunder. It’s a simple song, just an acoustic guitar and Crutchfield’s strong, dripping-with-emotion voice planted firmly in your ear. This is where Waxahatchee shines brightest, when she is at her most intimate. “365” is similar in tone – simple acoustic baritone guitar from Brad Cook, organ from his brother Phil, Lenderman on a second acoustic guitar, and drummer (and Jeff Tweedy’s son) Spencer Tweedy playing a lone cymbal, everything drawn back to let Crutchfield’s voice proceed unhindered. The song is a gut punch, describing a person whose whole being is wrapped up in their broken-beyond-repair partner:

“I catch your poison arrow. I catch your same disease. Bow like a weeping willow, buc-kle-in’ at the knees, beg-gin’ you ‘please.’ If you fly up beyond the cosmos, it’s a long way to fall back down. Ya always go ’bout this the wrong way, and I’m too weak to just let you drown. So when you kill, I kill, When you ache, I ache. We both haunt this ol’ lifeless town When you fail, I fail When you fly, I fly, And it’s a long way to come back down.”

Crutchfield’s own voice doubles up her lead vocals, going up even higher on the verse above. It is such an unbelievably wrenching baring of emotion, you can feel throughout your entire being this person’s anguish at being stuck in this situation.

There is not a bad song on Tigers Blood. You can watch videos for the much more amped up and rocking “Bored,” evoking sounds of Rilo Kiley¹, and the more traditional slow country “Much Ado About Nothing.” Better yet, you should watch Waxahatchee’s latest “NPR Tiny Desk Concert” from December, 2024. This is their third appearance in the series, having appeared back in 2013, young, solo on guitar, and rough around the edges, and again with a special “Tiny Desk (Home) Concert” in April 2020, with her boyfriend Kevin Morby (another Top 31 alum – #3 in 2022²).

Waxahatchee has been on a massive wave since I started following them shortly after the release of their 2018 EP. The audience keeps getting bigger, and Crutchfield’s reach keeps getting wider. This year she’s been nominated for a Grammy, for best Americana album. The category is full of names I don’t recognize, aside from the heavy hitter T. Bone Burnett, who I imagine would be a lock with the Grammy voters. But maybe we’ll be able to see Katie sharing that stage with Beyoncé or Taylor Swift or Kendrick Lamar on February 2. If not, I’m fairly certain this won’t be her only opportunity. Here’s to looking forward to the next one!

^{1. I’ve learned today that Rilo Kiley, led by Top 31 alum Jenny Lewis (#24 in 2014) is reuniting and touring this summer – I’m going to assume Waxahatchee leading the currently indie rock scene into alt.country heaven is what has made that happen.↩}
^{2. Crutchfield showed up in 2022 as well, as half of the duo Plains with Jess Williamson on their fantastic I Walked With You a Ways at #13.↩}

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#12 on the 2024 Bacon Top 31 — Tyler, The Creator

January 20, 2025 by Royal Stuart in Top 31, 2024

Chromakopia by Tyler, The Creator

At the end of 2023, many music-related news outlets started declaring that hip-hop was dying or perhaps even dead. The genre had experienced a major surge throughout the 2010s, so great that it beat out rock-n-roll to become the #1 listened-to genre in music in 2018. It’s been able to maintain that ranking every year since, just as streaming music has become the only game in town, but the sizable lead it built up over the other genres has been declining in recent years. The number of chart topping hip-hop songs had dropped significantly while the genre became a reflection of the results of streaming on the whole: there’s less concentration on two or three huge artists while everyone finds and follows their own lane. Popular music on the whole was becoming homogenized.

Amazingly, that wasn’t the end of the story. In 2024, hip-hop saw popularity coalesce around a handful of artists (see Doechii at #18). With that focusing of excitement came the artists driving #1 songs and albums throughout the year, reinvigorating the genre. Tyler Okonma, otherwise known as Tyler, the Creator, was one of this artists that caused the turnaround of events with his phenomenal eighth studio album Chromakopia, coming in at #12.

I’ve been sleeping on Tyler for pretty much his entire career. I mean, I’ve known about him for a long time, but I’ve had very little bandwidth for hip hop on the whole, so I hadn’t paid him much attention. In past years when I’ve latched on to acts like Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020, #28 in 2014), they essentially fulfilled my hip-hop allotment for the year (I’m not proud, it’s just the truth). Not so in 2024 — I listened to more hip hop this year than I have since I first dabbled in the genre as a high school freshman trying to figure out his particular flavor of rebellion by listening to NWA and The Geto Boys in the late 80s.

There’s a few reasons I’ve listened to more hip hop in 2024 than in any previous year, and “the music just got better!” can’t be one of them, no matter how much it may feel like it’s true to me. The simple truth is I seem to have unintentionally allowed hip hop to have a bigger presence in my life. 2024 started with a birthday surprise from my wife, taking me to a listening party centered around Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange. (I’d loved his Blonde album, (#4 in 2016) but hadn’t been able to give the earlier album much love, so I re-listened to it a lot in January of 2024.)

Secondarily, the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar leapt over the cultural divide and became a minor obsession for me. There were other smaller beefs (Charlie XCX and Lorde, Tyler and Childish Gambino), but the rift that grew between Drake and Kendrick that began in March of 2024, or back in 2011 depending on where you draw the line, slowly filled every bit of idle time I had, with me reading articles and podcasts (such as the always wonderful Dissect) and other non-music related content. Not only was I listening to more hip hop as a result, I was reading and learning more about it, too.

And likely the biggest reason for there being more hip hop in my life in 2024: my 16-year-old child has found a new love of hip hop, and has been listening to a lot of it recently. Having your teenage child grow into their own musical tastes that are separate from (but hopefully influenced by) your own, and then feeling compelled to talk to you about what they’re finding and listening to — that’s where the magic is. As a proud father who loves music, I’ll fall over backwards to accommodate any music-related ambition from my children. If they love Tyler, the Creator, I’ll be damned if I don’t love Tyler, the Creator, too. If they love Tyler’s past albums, I’ll love those, too (I’m looking at you, IGOR, which is cued up in my earbuds to listen to next).

Thankfully, Tyler is easy to love. Chromakopia is a rich, leaning-forward-into-the-momentum album that is a compelling listen. The number of guest stars on this album is astounding, including Top 31 past favorites Childish Gambino, Thundercat, Doechii, and Inflo, as well as future favorites GloRilla, Lil Wayne, ScHoolboy Q, Santigold, Willow, Daniel Caesar, Sexxy Redd, Teezo Touchdown, and Solange, and at least 20 other people. The production on the album, done by Tyler himself, along with the songwriting and arranging, is all-encompassing.

Hit play on the video above, for the song “NOID,” and you’ll get a taste of what I mean. The song, autobiographically concerned with the paranoia Tyler feels as his fame grows ironically larger, prominently features a sample of the Nambian band Ngozi Family’s song "Nizakupanga Ngozi,” from their 1977 album 45,000 Volts to great effect. Watch closely and you’ll see Ayo Edebiri from FX’s The Bear acting disturbingly psychotic with a gun. “NOID” is my favorite song on the album, so it’s convenient that it’s the only song for which Tyler made a video. “Balloon” featuring Doechii (#18 this year) is my 2nd fave, specifically because of Doechii’s appearance. That girl can do anything.

Nearing the end of the year, on Christmas Day, Tyler released “THAT GUY” – a freestyle remix of “Hey Now” from Kendrick Lamar’s 2024 album GNX, which only itself came out on November 22. Tyler seems to me that he’s mimicking Kendrick’s delivery style on the song. Or maybe my untrained ears are adding something where it’s not needed. Either way, I really like that beat, and Tyler’s verse on top of it is fantastic.

Chromakopia is wonderful. It’s still full of swears, but it’s much less than you’ll find on the Doechii album, if for some reason you found that a bit off-putting in her album. I am looking forward to giving IGOR a chance to ascend my “greatest regrets” list, for having not appeared on the Top 31 of the 2019 list when it really should have. And as for you, if you’ve not heard this new album yet, you know what to do.

Hop to it.

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#2 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Beyoncé

January 30, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé

There are megastar pop stars, and then there is Beyoncé. Of the pile of the musicians you could claim are “on top of the world,” from Kendrick Lamar to Taylor Swift, Queen Bey is standing atop that pile with her flag firmly planted. She has won 28 Grammys from 88 nominations across her 25 year career, making her the most honored singer ever (across both of the outdated male and female categories). As a solo artist and as part of the groundbreaking Destiny’s Child, her albums have sold a combined 260,000,000 times worldwide. That is nearly enough sales so that every American, from your 100-year-old grandma to that newborn who was just born yesterday, could have their own Beyoncé record.

She’s achieved this level of fame and glory not by following the path of those who came before — Madonna, Janet Jackson — but rather, defining the path for those to follow. Beyond her pace-setting music, she is a vocal advocate for Black Lives Matter, going so far as to appear at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show with back up dancers dressed up as Black Panther Party representatives. She has put her excessive cultural weight behind other groups as well, such as when she spoke out against those (including our 45th president) who would remove the rights of transgender youth throughout public schools.

RENAISSANCE, her seventh — and best — album, marries all of the above into a tour de force unlike no other. Simultaneously a “dazzling tribute to underground and under-appreciated Black culture” and “the sound of a once-in-a-generation superstar performing at her peak” (according to critics Kate Solomon from i and Vernon Ayiku from Exclaim! respectively), RENAISSANCE is the strong dose of dance-infused medicine our Covid-19 stricken society needed. This isn’t Lemonade part 2 (#6 in 2016) – there are no genre-hopping scorned lovers on this record. As Julianne Escobedo Shepherd from Pitchfork said:

“Renaissance is inherently about bodies undulating in the dark, under strobes; sexual agency; and the Black queer and trans women who are both politicized and the most endangered people among us.”

Despite oozing sex appeal throughout her career, this album is Beyoncé at her most carnal. Shepherd goes on to say “Beyoncé has never been this horny in public,” and I concur. Nor has Beyoncé ever been this vulgar. I have a staunch “no clean versions” policy in the music I listen to. My children have grown up in a house that revels in all language, from Macklemore to Run the Jewels to Lizzo. But all those are tame when placed next to RENAISSANCE, to the point that I gave pause a couple times when putting the album on. The album opens with a quickly repeated “Please, motherfuckers ain’t stopping mе.” “Might I suggest you don’t fuck with my sis” is heard prominently shortly thereafter. “We getting fucked up tonight. We gon’ fuck up the night” is the repeated chorus just a couple songs later. And we’ve only made it four songs into the 16-song, hour-long set. It’s gloriously raunchy.

At its heart, this is a dance album from the drop. Songs blend from one to the next, as if a DJ was eloquently spinning one hit after another together at the best dance night you’ve ever been to. But these aren’t existing songs — these are expertly assembled, sampled, historically-, culturally-, and musically-significant artists pulled together to represent a whole that is a million times greater than its individual parts. Grace Jones next to Skrillex, trans black television personality Ts Madison up against Right Said Fred — the whole album is a true marvel. What sounds like a glorified Girl Talk album on paper is something completely different. Just listen to “CUFF IT” blend into “ENERGY” and then bleed into the album’s first single, “BREAK MY SOUL”¹. Be sure to check out the video above — Beyoncé’s team pulled it together for when RENAISSANCE was certified platinum. The video is a quick-cut collection of TikTok and other fan-made videos of people of all shapes and sizes, genders and sexuality dancing to “BREAK MY SOUL,” and it’s so damn empowering, you’ll find yourself fighting back happy tears.

RENAISSANCE is a phenomenal record. If you’ve not heard it yet, I command you to do so. Nobody can deny the greatness of it. It’ll be surprising to my wife (and potentially others) that it’s not my #1 album this year, given how much we played it in our house. Any artist able to beat Queen Bey this year had to go to extraordinary lengths, and indeed, the artist at #1 did. You’ll read exactly how tomorrow. For now, put RENAISSANCE on repeat, crank the volume, and I’ll see you tomorrow, sweaty and exhausted.

^{1. This is the first downfall I’ve seen when it comes to YouTube Music – each of these three videos has a disclaimer at the beginning regarding the dangers of flashing lights for some people. It’s a few-seconds pause at the beginning of the song, thereby preventing the listener from going seamlessly between the tracks of this album. This is a fairly significant downside, given how this album is meant to be heard as one can’t stop, won’t stop, non-stop beat.↩}

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3. This Is a Photograph by Kevin Morby
4. Lucifer On the Sofa by Spoon
5. Palomino by First Aid Kit
6. We've Been Going About This All Wrong by Sharon Van Etten
7. SOS by SZA
8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#7 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — SZA

January 25, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

SOS by SZA

You won’t find the amazing album at #7 on my list on any other Top Albums of 2022 lists, but not because you’ve not heard of it. It’s because it came out on December 9, right when all the prominent music magazines and blogs were already publishing their best-of lists. This album likely won’t appear on any of those lists at the end of 2023, either, because it would be strange to feature an album that came out in 2022 in a Best of 2023 list. It took me a few years of compiling my own Top 31 lists to figure it out: if your album comes out in December, or really even in November, it will be hard or impossible to rank it in any meaningful way. So compilers of lists are left with either making a wild assumption (“I’ve heard this album for a day, it’s definitely better than X number of albums already considered the best this year”), a flat out guess (“Two songs have been released from this album that is supposed to come out in the next week. It will be better than these X albums”), or simply not listing them at all. That’s the only option for any reputable publication.

Or you can do what I do: wait until the year is, you know, complete before ranking the albums from the full year. Or maybe just call your list “The Top 50 albums from the first 11 months of 2022.” Delaying like I do is still not perfect — an artist releases an album on December 30, chances are I’m not going to hear it or be able to include it in my Top 31. I’m not sure what drove the decision to release the long-awaited SZA album on December 9, but I have to believe it was a calculated business decision. So much business is wrapped up in a SZA release, there are lots of players, weighing lots of options, and I suppose making it onto the Best Of lists is not how the money is made. I just checked, and this album has been #1 on the Billboard charts (meaning it has sold more than any other album) for the last five weeks (that’s the last 2 weeks of December, and the first 3 of 2023).

So, clearly people are finding SOS, SZA’s 2nd full-length album, and first since her 2017 debut, Ctrl, despite it not appearing on any end-of-year lists. But at least it’s appearing on my list. I can feel confident in the exceedingly modest number of streams I’ll have been personally responsible for for the megastar. At just over an hour long, this album is jam packed with 23 amazing songs spread across numerous genres, from R&B to hip hop, pop to grunge. Rather than feeling like the work of a single artist, it plays more like a really good Top 40 yet commercial-free radio station, cycling through the hits of the day¹.

SZA, whose full name is Solána Imani Rowe, was born in St. Louis. Despite having only two full length records to her name, she is an international pop sensation who has been making popular music for the last 10+ years. She connected early with the likes of Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar, and while I’m confident her songwriting prowess and phenomenal voice would have propelled her to stardom eventually, having the door opened by those two can‘t hurt. My first taste of SZA came on the Black Panther soundtrack (#21 in 2018). The duet she sings with Lamar, “All My Stars,” is the best song on that album, in no small part because of the powerful chorus led by SZA. I didn’t listen to Ctrl, although I wish I had.

The best comparison I can make for this SZA release is to Frank Ocean’s Blonde (#4 in 2016). Like SOS, Blonde bounces all over the place, has strange digital artifacts thrown in throughout, and is a fantastic hip hop / R&B-based album. If you loved that album like I do, you will love SOS like I do.

Rumors and announcements about the release of SOS came out as early as 2019. A mix of pandemic buying patterns, production shifts, and a massive outpouring of talent from SZA herself no doubt slowed up the release all the way to nearly missing 2022 entirely. A few singles had been released well before the album came out. “Good Days,” was the first to be released, in 2020, a great song whose video features SZA as a dancing mushroom² (I’m not sure what business decisions forced the single that preceded this one, the great “Hit Different,” was not included on the SOS release.) The next single, “I Hate U,” came out in December 2021, just over a year prior to the release of the album, and with a video starring LaKeith Stanfield. The official version of her song “Shirt,” was released as a single just over a month prior to the album release. The video stars SZA alongside LaKeith Stanfield, in a bloody shoot-em-up video, a la Quentin Tarantino. On January 6, SZA released the single for my favorite song on the album, “Nobody Gets Me,” which is eerily reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” and probably why I like it so much. And finally, SZA released the single for “Kill Bill,” on January 10, 2023. The video is amazing in its ability to recreate key scenes from the pair of movies, recast with SZA in the seminal Uma Thurman role.

My favorite non-single from the album is “Ghost in the Machine,” on which Bacon Review favorite Phoebe Bridgers (#3 in 2020) sings along with SZA. Bridgers and SZA are similar in a couple key aspect: they’re not shy about guest starring on someone else’s song; and they make any song they appear on better. I will (and have) go out of my way to track down “with SZA” or ”…Bridgers” songs, and am continually rewarded for doing so. As long as they keep producing their own songs, I’m all for them spreading the love around.

I’ve written more than enough about this album. If you’re not convinced by now, there’s nothing else I can say that will sway you. Listen to this album, all 67 minutes of it. You’ll see.

^{1. There is exactly one song I cannot stand on the album. I’m such a dedicated fan of the form, I don’t usually single out any one song and say “this is not for me, I’m skipping it.” The song in question is the lone rock pop song, “F2F,” which SZA wrote with Bacon Review favorite Lizzo (#1 in 2019). Check it out for yourself, but you’ve been warned.↩}
^{2. As I write this, we’re two episodes into the great new HBO series The Last of Us, and seeing SZA as a mushroom here gives me entirely different feelings than it would have two weeks ago.↩}

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8. Wet Leg by Wet Leg
9. Chloë and the Next 20th Century by Father John Misty
10. Big Time by Angel Olsen
11. Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road
12. Waterslide, Diving Board, Ladder To the Sky by Porridge Radio
13. I Walked with You a Ways by Plains
14. The Last Goodbye by Odesza
15. A Light for Attracting Attention by The Smile
16. Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar
17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#16 on the 2022 Bacon Top 31 — Kendrick Lamar

January 16, 2023 by Royal Stuart in Top 31

Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers by Kendrick Lamar

Despite it being called the best album of 2015 by Rolling Stone, Billboard, Pitchfork, and almost every other popular-music–ranking service, Kendrick Lamar’s How to Pimp a Butterfly barely made the Bacon Top 31, sneaking in at #29 that year. I ended my review of the album saying “I can’t say I love it, and I doubt I’ll listen to it a lot going forward.” Oh how very wrong I was.

What I didn’t understand then was that my taste in music was still maturing, still growing. I wasn’t ready for Kendrick Lamar in 2015, but it laid the groundwork for my love of Frank Ocean’s Blonde, (#4 in 2016). I still couldn’t find the right groove for Lamar’s next album, 2017’s DAMN. which came in at #22 that year, but he opened the door wide with his stellar Black Panther: The Album. My love for the form continued to grow in 2020 with Run the Jewels (#6 in 2020). And that’s how we get to today, with my and Kendrick’s relationship in much better shape.

I listened to Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers more than I have to any other Kendrick Lamar album, and I would have listened even more if it didn’t conflict with my family’s musical tastes. (There has to be a limit somewhere on the amount of cursing I can tolerate around my five year old, right?) The double album, 1 hour and 19 minutes in length, is fantastic. But that doesn’t mean the music is free of difficulty and controversy. For instance, “We Cry Together,” towards the end of the first half, is an abrasive, spoken-word, emotionally violent duet between Lamar and actress Taylour Paige. The couple in the song is arguing angrily, devolving into a yelled chorus: “fuck you n****, nah, fuck you bitch” back and forth. It’s brutal to listen to, but the video (NSFW at the very end) is highly compelling to watch because it is extremely well acted by the two.

Don’t miss the video for “The Heart Part 5” shown above. While Lamar lip-syncs the rap while standing in front of a deep-red background, the one-take video uses deepfake technology from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s studio Deep Voodoo to transform him into six other famous black men: O. J. Simpson, Kanye West, Jussie Smollett, Will Smith, Kobe Bryant, and Nipsey Hussle. The overall effect is mesmerizing. Each verse of the song as sung by the alter egos is written from their perspective, adding an additional meta layer to the song. “Heart” is technically not from Morale, but instead was released just prior to the album coming out as a teaser. It is included here because why the hell not.

There have been other videos from the album released: “N95,” “Rich Spirit,” and “Count Me Out,” (which features Helen Mirren, of all people). Lamar’s video output proves he’s a master of both sound and visuals. He took his myriad talents to the top of the mountain back on on October 1, when he performed three songs from the album on Saturday Night Live. He managed to pull off a feat I don’t know that I’ve seen before on SNL – he made the live performances have an element of music-video-ness to them. See the fantastic shadow-play in “Rich Spirit + N95 - live on SNL,” and watch the walls literally move in on him in “Father Time (feat. Sampha) - live on SNL.”

The steady progression of Lamar-produced albums moving up in the ranks of the Top 31 is more an expression of my changing musical tastes than his changing production. I don’t see myself leaving behind the usual dad-rock and indie-pop albums and artists I enjoy. It just makes for a more diverse list, a wider variety of music to tap into when the mood strikes. It also makes me more excited to hear what comes next.

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17. Inside Problems by Andrew Bird
18. Laurel Hell by Mitski
19. Full Moon Project by Phosphorescent
20. Skinty Fia by Fontaines D.C.
21. I Love You Jennifer B by Jockstrap
22. Too Much to Ask by Cheekface
23. Dripfield by Goose
24. Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief
25. And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow by Weyes Blood
26. NOT TiGHT by DOMi & JD BECK
27. Preacher’s Daughter by Ethel Cain
28. Live at KEXP, vol. 10 by Various Artists
29. All You Need Is Time by Daisy the Great
30. Cool It Down by Yeah Yeah Yeahs
31. CAPRISONGS by FKA twigs

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#21 on the 2018 Bacon Top 31 — Kendrick Lamar

January 11, 2019 by Royal Stuart

Black Panther: The Album by Kendrick Lamar

From one type of movie soundtrack at #22 to a completely different take here at #21. Black Panther was the highest grossing movie of 2018, and the Kendrick Lamar-produced soundtrack album of songs in and inspired by the movie holds up well to scrutiny. A movie soundtrack this good hasn’t come out since The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou came out in 2004.

This isn’t the first time that Lamar has been on the Top 31. His last album was #22 in 2017 and his seminal To Pimp a Butterfly was (erroneously) ranked all the way down at #29 in 2015. The man knows how to put the right people (producers, musicians, rappers) together to support his hard hitting, poignant lyrics, and this soundtrack is no different.

This being a Disney movie from the venerable Marvel Cinematic Universe, the album is most surprising in its apparent freedom from oversight. The album’s 14 songs are chock full of explicit lyrics and un-kid-friendly imagery. It’s an album that simply could not have been made five or ten years ago. Compare the Black Panther soundtrack to Prince’s Batman soundtrack from 1989 (incidentally, my first-ever CD purchase). This is Prince at his most-owned by his oppressive Warner Bros. contract, and the treacly, movie-sample laden songs, while massively popular when they were released, have not stood the test of time (have you tried to listen to it lately? It’s awful.)

But this Black Panther soundtrack, even though it includes some very similar movie samples within, is something different. This is a Kendrick Lamar album for an even larger audience than he’s already enjoyed, that just so happens to be tied to a movie. Full of interesting, cross-genre mashups (including SZA, 2 Chainz, The Weeknd and James Blake, just to name a few), the songs on this album radiate with energy. If you’ve not been a fan of Lamar’s work in the past, maybe this is your gateway into his genius. Give it at least one listen, if not more. You will not be disappointed.

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22. Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) by Thom Yorke
23. Merrie Land by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
24. Room 25 by Noname
25. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
26. God's Favorite Customer by Father John Misty
27. Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
28. For Ever by Jungle
29. Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz
30. Remain in Light by Angélique Kidjo
31. This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet by Moonface

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#22 on the 2017 Bacon Top 31

January 10, 2018 by Royal Stuart

DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar

And here we are again. If you recall, the last time I featured Kendrick Lamar on the Top 31 (his third album To Pimp a Butterfly was a reluctant #29 in 2015), I was conflicted. While I enjoyed listening to the music, it’s deep-seated (and appropriate) anger was too much for my liking, and pushed things too far.

And now DAMN. Every bit as angry and difficult as Butterfly, this album has done little to make Lamar’s music less confrontational to my core being. I’m convinced that most of my difficulty with it centers around my inherent white male privilege, and there’s nothing I can do about it. A white man talking about his privilege is in itself problematic, and I’m not proud of myself for leaning on that crutch, especially in this day and age.

This album is good. Lamar is clearly and infinitely talented. He’s even being tasked with producing the score to the new Black Panther movie, of which I am most excited. And I’m sure I’ll continue to listen to him, and continue to question everything about that action. Such is my lot.

Lamar has created many videos for this album. In addition to “Element,” above, you can watch the rest here:

I’m curious what you think about this album, and about him. Please share!

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23. Capacity by Big Thief
24. The Tourist by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
25. CCFX EP by CCFX
26. Woodstock by Portugal. The Man
27. MASSEDUCTION by St. Vincent
28. On the Spot by Hot 8 Brass Band
29. A Deeper Understanding by The War on Drugs
30. Planetarium by Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, & James McAlister
31. A Moment Apart by Odesza

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2009-2016 Top 31s

#6 on the 2016 Bacon Top 31

January 07, 2017 by Royal Stuart

Lemonade by Beyoncé

There’s a first time for everything. Yes, here at #6 is Beyoncé. If you’re questioning why, then that must be because you haven’t listened to Lemonade yet. This is a force of an album. Rolling Stone gave it ★★★★★, a rating the (somehow still relevant after all these years) magazine has given to only 22 other albums in its history.

I think you could have guessed that I didn’t used to be a Beyoncé fan. I didn’t actively dislike her or her music, I just didn’t pay attention to her and her music. Of course I’d heard some of her songs, but before Lemonade I would have been hard pressed to name even one. I had forgotten that she was the former “centerpiece” of 90s phenomenon Destiny’s Child. What drew me to her? It was the hour-long video that went along with the release of the album. I missed it when it aired on HBO on April 23. But there was enough of a rumbling out there caused by its release that I sought out the video and watched it a few weeks later.

And that was all it took. One sitting, an hour long, running through all 12 of the albums tracks, with a stellar video performance for each one. From that point on, “Hold Up” — the 2nd song on the album — was stuck on repeat in my head. I bought the CD / DVD version of the album (yes, the CD, because it wasn’t available in vinyl or on the streaming services I subscribe to at the time), and then listened to it on repeat for a few weeks straight.

Every single song on this record kicks ass. It has guest appearances by a ton of people, like Jack White, The Weekend, James Blake, Kendrick Lamar, Diplo, and Ezra Koenig. It’s decidedly sparse in places, and pops in all the right ways. The lyrics are often pissed off and vulgar. In all ways, this album should be considered a stretch by Beyoncé, pushing her out of her pop music safe zone. Instead, it’s her best work yet, and it kills. You have not lived until you’ve heard this album. Get on that.

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7. Teens of Denial by Car Seat Headrest
8. Goodness by The Hotelier
9. The Mountain Will Fall by DJ Shadow
10. Junun by Shye Ben Tzur, Jonny Greenwood & The Rajasthan Express
11. The Hope Six Demolition Project by PJ Harvey
12. Amen & Goodbye by Yeasayer
13. Sea of Noise by St. Paul & The Broken Bones
14. You Want It Darker by Leonard Cohen
15. Painting Of A Panic Attack by Frightened Rabbit
16. Why Are You OK by Band Of Horses
17. Not To Disappear by Daughter
18. Sunlit Youth by Local Natives
19. I Had a Dream That You Were Mine by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam
20. ★ by David Bowie
21. Farewell, Starlite! by Francis and the Lights
22. This Unruly Mess I’ve Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
23. LNZNDRF by LNZNDRF
24. Puberty 2 by Mitski
25. Light Upon the Lake by Whitney
26. A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise
27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations

#29 on the 2015 Bacon Top 31

December 03, 2015 by Royal Stuart

To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

“I remember you was conflicted” — the first line of the poem that Kendrick Lamar repeatedly recites in a slow-reveal across the length of To Pimp a Butterfly — captures exactly how I feel about it. This album makes me angry. Angry at how unapproachable (in a jazz-based rap sorta way) a lot of the songs on the album are. Angry at how women are treated in all of the videos from this album. Angry at the myriad of difficulties and frustrations that Lamar is rapping about. Angry for being a middle-aged white American male, a major source of most of those difficulties and frustrations. Angry at being culturally disconnected here in my Pacific Northwest bubble, removed from that pain and unaware and unmotivated as to how I can most easily understand what it is that Lamar is rapping about. Reading Ta-Nehisi Coates only gets me so far. “Conflicted” is a perfect way to sum up how I feel about it all.

Musically, this album is alternately great and terrible. There are some fantastic songs, and Lamar is clearly a talented musician, but there are also songs that are patently unlistenable, that I end up skipping when I listen to the album. I can’t remember the last time I felt the need to skip a song on an album. I just don’t do it. But Lamar found a way to push me over the edge.

My favorite song on the album is “King Kunta,” but the video for that song made me more angry, and I couldn’t put it at the top of this post.¹ “Alright” is a great video, even if the song isn’t my favorite. I love watching Lamar float around, and balancing on that light pole. It’s black & white. Without the music it would still make for compelling watching.

This album clearly gets me thinking about a lot more than just music. I recommend watching this short interview with Lamar from MTV earlier this year. The dialogue Lamar kindles is the main reason Butterfly is on the Top 31. I can’t say I love it, and I doubt I’ll listen to it a lot going forward, but by bringing these conflicting issues to the fore, he’s opened up something we all should consider with ourselves at one point or another. Without it is to remain privileged, closed off, removed. I’m working on that. I hope you are, too.

^{1. You can watch the video for “King Kunta” here if you’d like. It’s generally safe for work, and clearly I have my own issues to work through (thank god for therapy). There are two other videos from the album available for viewing: “i” and “These Walls,” both of the same unwatchable ilk as “King Kunta.”↩}

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30. Live in Seattle by Moufang / Czamanski
31. High by Royal Headache

What is the Bacon Top 31?
Past years’ Top 31s