‘Stephen Bruner’, singer, bassist and songwriter more formally known as Thundercat greets us with his third album ‘Drunk’. Over time, Thundercat has recently managed to pick up a lot of traction through his inputs in Kamasi Washington’s, Flying Lotus’ and Kendrick Lamar’s discography. Within these contributions, not only was he able to provide improve his public figure and following but these ventures allowed him to take home his first Grammy for his Kendrick Lamar collab, To Pimp a Butterfly’s “These Walls,” was awarded the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration trophy (now in the present having won a Grammy for his first own album ‘It is What It Is’ in 2021).
Along with his impressive additions to other recognized artists work Thundercat has this ability to stun and allure through his extremely impressive live performances around the world. Through his musical exploration Thundercat has managed to masterfully conjure and express sounds from within Jazz, Electro-Funk and Soul music to create the album ‘Drunk’.
Thundercat manages to compose an eccentric, amusing, yet depressive and purposeful album somehow all at once. The album contains noticeable features from Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins and Wiz Khalifa.
We the listeners are welcomed to the record through the introductory song ‘Rabbit Ho’, this track helps establish the melodic and harmonic material related to the main body of the albums tracks. The song seems to make reference to the death of his close friend and collaborator Austin Peralta in 2012, and the experience of the aftermath of the event, Bruner makes reference to his own future and lacking direction and awareness of what is to come. Furthermore, the introductory song definitely gives implication to Thundercat delving down into the metaphorical ‘rabbit hole’ that being this album and his subsequent music being more exploratory and conceptual.
Yet, on the next song ‘Captain Stupido’, Thundercat communicates a clearly more humorous and whimsical approach. With the lyrics of the chorus being “I feel weird Comb your beard, brush your teeth Still feel weird Beat your meat, go to sleep” with the final repeat of the chorus being followed up with adlibs/sound effects that I personally couldn’t help but smile and laugh at.
I have clumped together the songs ‘Bus in these streets’, ‘Jethro’, ‘Day & Night’ and ‘Blackkk’, as I feel personally these songs don’t particularly stand out individually. Yet, collectively they amplify, reiterate and endure the concept and overall experience of the album to an exceptional level.
In my own view ‘A Fan’s Mail (Tron Song Suite III)’, and ‘Lava Lamp’ are the best, and my favourite songs on the album. They are considerably more comforting and warming than some of Thundercat’s bigger hits, but still involve his signature characteristics. This is a bit of ‘Sloppy Ploopy porridge’ (cringe) take, yet these two songs they really matter to me, they just create this feeling inside me that is so unique and irreplaceable. Whether it’s the constant innuendoes, metaphors or anecdotes within the songs or the hypnotising and alluring base lines, they are just so impressionable. These songs just create such a unique sensation that cant be overlooked.
Image Source: Getty / Douglas Mason / Contributor
In the wake of my two favorite songs is the track ‘Show You The Way’, this track features two the fairly prolific 1980s artists. Singer and songwriter Michael McDonald and singer, songwriter and guitarist Kenny Loggins, they both bring a nostalgic feel to song, yet their verses don’t seem out of place and actually gel extraordinarily well considering the circumstances, in my opinion Kenny Loggins verse is slightly better but not to the extent it is particularly noticeably. ‘Show You The Way’ feels as if it is a far tamer and soothing song giving of the more ‘funky soul’ vibe more than Thundercat’s prior discography.
Following the previous features of Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, comes a unsurprisingly exceptional Kendrick Lamar feature on ‘Walk On By’. As the song emits a sense of loneliness; in which both Thundercat and Lamar display their regrets. Thusly creating a more melancholic and serious atmosphere. Additionally, there is a strong feeling of cohesion and compatibility between Thundercat and Kendrick Lamar. As mentioned in the overview, both of the artists have worked previously together on Lamar’s ground-breaking album ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’.
As a consequence to the seriousness and content of ‘Walk On By’, the following few tracks on the album display more of happy and playful atmosphere. For example, the song ‘Tokyo’ is a very entertaining love song. Yet, it neglects the more common themes of love within musical representations, with the song illustrating his love for Japan’s capital city and culture. The production and tempo of the song is facilitated by this nostalgic ‘retro’ arcade, anime, gaming synth and sampling.
The lyrics and language further reinforce this entertaining and jovial atmosphere. For instance:
“From the Champs Élysées to the Gundam Café, Gonna eat so much fish I think I'm gonna be sick, Gonna blow all my cash on anime (yes) Don't try to stop me 'cause I'm over nine thousand, Just point me to the pachinko machines, I'm think I'm Kenshiro, I think that I'm Goku ,Can I just stay one more day?”
not only display does this display the love of the city itself, but the culture it has created in its development (if you didn’t get the anime references, … well … your just uncultured =) .). Yet Thundercat does go on further to make illicit references to some of its imperfections and differences with western society which is potentially yet another reason why he loves it so much, overall this song is pretty refreshing and enjoyable.
‘Jameel’s Space Ride’ reiterates this fun ambience, yet it brings up relevant racial and societal question. Generally, this song feels like a it could feel perfect accompanying ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’ as they both implicate a comedic freedom to space and astronomy.
Additionally, the songs ‘Friendzone’ and ‘Them Changes’ are a more conventional display of the typical ‘love’ songs, yet the mediums and formats in which these are achieved are far from commonplace within the music industry. With ‘Friendzone’ outlining … well the developments and process of ‘friend-zoning’ with a near constant theme of normalisation through gaming references (all of which I whole heartedly support), actually tangible events and storytelling. ‘Them Changes’ is a bit more musically centred around the guitar and bass rifts that give of the metaphorical heart based lifeline, which heavily links to the songs lyrical content, in which they specifically project the feelings of heart brake and love loss. The lyrical power and mesmerizing guitar based backing displayed within the song produce a very strong and cohesive overall message and sound, hence this leads to this being Thundercat’s most listened to song (212,303,580 listens on Spotify, at the time of this review), yet is it his best ? Well I will leave that for you to discuss below (leave a comment, on what you think Thundercat’s best song is and why?). Personally, the enjoyment of this song has been slightly ruined by its use in TikTok trends, but it is still in my in Thundercat’s top 5 released songs.
Although the following group of songs are aesthetically pleasing, they all present a very similar impact and influence of emotional extrapolation, although this is achieved differently on each track. On ‘Where I’m Going’ the sense of belonging is displayed through a fast pace tempo symbolising and mirroring the yearning for belonging and sexual accompaniment with the lyrics quite obviously displaying a sexual relationship and process. ‘Drink Dat’, is a great example of the perfect anecdotal song. The way in which the Thundercat’s hook flow into Wiz Khalifa’s verses feels so effortless and this smoothness exemplifies the story and the subsequent emotions of accompaniment. Not only does the topic of drinking and smoking lean into Wiz Khalifa’s bravado, but this topic ironically juxtaposes display of Khalifa’s versatility on this track.
‘Inferno’ is quite a hard song to analyse in my opinion apart from the constant fire and heat based metaphors, even present in the title.
I find it hard to quantify and give this song a place in my personal and societal experiences but it could possibly be a take on the downward spiral of something specific or something far broader like society or the worlds environment, yet this song still sounds good and resonates with me to degree via the aspect they we are entering a tough and dark future. The conceptual consistency in the song however is very unique and the song ultimately acts as a very prominent symbol of Thundercat’s creativity and understanding of literature (as the song almost feels like a poem).
The final 4 tracks on the album display a clear sense of mental and emotionally instability. With ‘3 AM’ presenting this through the idea of ‘something’ being an emotional or mental block that is keeping him awake until 3AM, the song is one of the more musically weak tracks, yet is still effective in its purpose. In contrast to this, the song ‘Drunk’ is far more musically compelling. Similar to many of Thundercat’s songs on the album, the titles of the songs within it are purposeful and effective in surmising and symbolizing the song. In the case of ‘Drunk’, Thundercat presents the use of alcohol to diminish the effect of emotional and mental feelings and insecurities. Next, ‘The Turn Down’ displays a far more depressive and pessimistic take on the environmental and societal situation and the act of the elites and normal individuals neglecting the environment to further our own selfish goals
“Makes me wonder, makes me think, Everything we do is weak, Turn down ,Oh 'cause look at the mess we've made, Who's gonna clean it up? Oh my God, where's Captain Planet? Perception, what you see, Compared to reality, so far away”
,well at least that is what I think Thundercat is trying to display. Musically, the layering of vocals in regards to certain lines having the first word echo and continue whilst the rest of the line or sentence are being finished is very sensually provoking. Pharrell Williams, bolsters this pessimistic view on society but applies it to more racial and societal events that occur that we no longer witness due to their constant presence numbing their actual effects and significance. Finally, DUI acts a great ending and conclusion to the album as it creates an effective cyclical structure to the album as it uses the same beat and background production as the first track ‘Rabbit Ho’ and symbolically ends the album with a deeply impacting crescendo that fades to silence.
Thematically and musically this album is a borderline ‘masterpiece’. It acts as a funky encapsulation of current life that is applicable and resonates with most people’s current life journeys. I generally, really like this album and wish Thundercat will produce a follow on album that builds upon these new and unique sounds and concepts he created in ‘Drunk’, that is better and more substantial than ‘It Is What It Is’ (2020, and most recent album, that ultimately couldn’t live up to its predecessor). I couldn’t resit including a comment about his relatively recent Star Wars (Book of Boba Fett) cameo, at first I had to take a second glance to confirm that it was Thundercat, although it is very cool to be included and be a part of the Star Wars universe (very jealous), I reckon he should be a tad more selectively in the quality of the content he appears in, as ‘Book of Boba Fett’ was a load of hot stinky arse.
8/10
By Gus. B Waight
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