Drunk
Thundercat
Recommended for:
People who enjoy a sense of humor in their music
Fans of dope bass playing
Fans of funky jams
Pros:
Fantastic bass playing
Humorous lyrics
Some real jams on here
Cons:
Somewhat messy album flow
Contains some fillers
Pathetic excuse of a feature from Wiz Khalifa
Bass virtuoso Stephen Bruner, aka Thundercat, has released his new full-length LP Drunk. While Thundercat released an EP in 2015, Drunk is Thundercat’s first full-length album in four years, following his critically acclaimed album Apocalypse. Other than being known for ripping on the bass, Thundercat is well-known for his numerous contributions on numerous amazing albums. The list of artists he’s worked with includes Erykah Badu, Flying Lotus, Mac Miller, Kamasi Washington, Childish Gambino, and of course, Kendrick Lamar. Drunk contains features from Flying Lotus, Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Pharrell, and somehow Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins.
Thundercat comes back to us with this fun and funky little ride of an album. Returning fans of Thundercat are going to be returning to a nice, warm, familiar place. However, I’m guessing there are going to be many new fans of Thundercat listening to this album regarding the success of To Pimp a Butterfly and how much Thundercat’s collaborations with Kendrick influenced the album. To those people, I say welcome. There’s still everything on here that one would expect from Thundercat: virtuosic bass playing, quirky lyrics, deep grooves, it’s all here. However, this is far from a flawless album unfortunately.
Drunk starts on a good foot. With the first two songs, the tone of the rest of the album is set pretty well. The last line of the opener “Rabbot Ho” reads, ”Let’s go hard, get drunk, and travel down a rabbit hole.” This song is followed by “Captain Stupido,” that includes Mr. Bruner tearing it up on the bass, Flying Lotus production, and tight, dope vocal harmonies singing lines like “Beat your meat, go to sleep,” “I think I left my wallet at the club,” and “Jesus take the wheel.” Like I said, it’s everything that we expect to hear from Thundercat. The next song “Uh Uh” features some of the most burning bass playing on the album, although the song itself doesn’t add much depth to the album. Thundercat also throws in a curveball on the album getting yacht rock kings Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins to be on the song “Show You the Way.” And sure enough, this happens to be a standout track. McDonald and Loggins crush their guest spots, delivering buttery, soul-soothing vocals after being ironically announced by Thundercat. This song is almost sarcastic, yet produces a satisfyingly smooth and well-made song in the style of the style it’s making fun of. That’s something Frank Zappa would be proud of. The bumpin’ jam “Friendzone” is Thundercat’s most grooving since “Oh Sheit It’s X.” We get to learn insight of Thundercat’s obsession of anime in the hilarious tribute to Tokyo entitled, well, “Tokyo.” There are definitely a large handful of quality songs on Drunk.
While there are some awesome songs on here, there are unfortunately some major downfalls on this album. One downfall is the form or structure (or lack of structure) of it. This thing is 23 songs long, yet it’s 51 minutes long. This means all of these songs are quite short. In fact, the longest song is only 4 minutes long. Unfortunately, like most albums with this amount of tracks, some are really not necessary at all. Songs like “Day and Night,” “I Am Crazy,” and “Jameel’s Space Ride” are very, very short songs that may work in a setting where they are coming after super long, epic jams and are giving a cushion for the next song. But, this is not the case here. These songs are following 2 minute songs that are leading into more 2 minute songs. So all these songs do is leave you wondering why they’re there. The worst part about including these songs is that they have potential to be really cool songs if they were fully formed, especially “Day and Night.” Instead the only effect this song has is making me go, “huh.” Another limiting factor on this album is one that’s on all of Thundercat’s releases: his vocals. The majority of this album is sung in falsetto by Thundercat, which can get old anywhere from half the album in to only a quarter into the album. After that, the vocals start to come off a little uninspired, and ultimately start to take away from the songs. Lastly, Wiz Khalifa’s feature; good fucking God. On “Drink Dat” Wiz presents to us one of the lamest, most cliché, laziest verses I’ve ever heard in my life. To open up his feature he lays down the lines, “The night is almost over/But we still wanna party/Ain’t no one in here sober/The weed I’m rolling’s gnarly.” Pure poetry, dude.
Overall, Drunk is a funny, quirky ride, even if it is a mixed bag of an album. While it has its flaws it still has some super dope tracks on it that will surely get even the most cold-footed people busting a move. For a little chunk of the album, you’ll be in a place between somewhere that isn’t bad, but isn’t great either. But for most of the album, it will be good. And when this thing is good, it’s real good, which is good. When it’s bad, it’s because you’re listening to Wiz Khalifa’s verse.
Favorite Songs: “Them Changes,” “Friend Zone,” “Show You the Way,” “Tokyo”
7/10
