Thundercat on the greatest album of the last 25 years: “Still to this day it stands alone”
Some 25 years ago, a great twist in the diegesis of culture occurred when the internet arrived. Prior to that, music was a much more macrocosmic affair, with evident trends readily apparent. However, when the internet arrived, everyone scurried off down rabbit holes and left culture a far less lucid place with a whirlwind of genres all at once. Thundercat represents the best of this, meddling in any area that inspires him and cooking up a cornucopia of delights as a result.
As he said regarding his own inspirations, “Sometimes I practice to Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin, but I don’t just practice to jazz and jazz-fusion albums. I’ll practice to TV theme music – one of my favorites is ‘M*A*S*H.’ I’ll just play along with anything on the TV.” It’s this blending of culture-en-masse that makes Thundercat one of the most exemplifying performers of the modern era. In the same way that a band like Jefferson Airplane might have embodied the 1960s, Thundercat is a defining artist of the culture of today.
Thus, it is perhaps fitting that the album that he is most attracted to is one that proves to be an outlier – a force so singular that it has never truly been assimilated into pop culture. In 1999, Slipknot dropped their self-titled classic, and it instantly sent playgrounds into a perturbed frenzy. Unlike most explosive influences, it had no place in the mainstream. However, by virtue of how fun it was, the mainstream simply had to make room for it.
Thus, the album exploded. As the band’s late drummer, Joey Jordison, explained: “It made all of our dreams come true, and the overall reaction from the fans almost collapsed venues and stadiums worldwide. We didn’t expect it, but it absolutely exploded! We were so determined, hungry, and ready to take on the world and we did. We feared no one, and it showed when we took the stage. It was just ‘that’ time. Total mystery it was.”
As for the record, he opined that “there’s nothing out there quite like it”. Decades later, this is still something Thundercat champions about the record he crowns his favourite from the last 25 years. “I remember discovering this album with Cameron and Taylor Graves, Ronald, and Kamasi around the same time,” he told Pitchfork. “We were teenagers, of course, and it sent us (more so Cam, Tay, and I) on a metal quest that actually led them (Cam and Tay) to play in the band Wicked Wisdom with Jada Pinkett Smith.”
“The cool thing about discovering this album,” he explains, is that “there never being anything like it before or after, and still to this day it stands alone.” Part of this is the unique way, much like Thundercat himself, that the album assimilated different influences and collided them with a sense of joy and no second-guessing, as Corey Taylor explains: “I can’t speak for the rest of the band, but I know to me some of our influences on that album were bands like Faith No More, Neurosis, Korn, Obituary, Acid Bath, Public Enemy, Anthrax, NWA.”
This singularity imbued the album with an outlaw spirit, which also made it connective as well as musically innovative. Thus, it has also always been part of Thundercat’s life, as well as an inspiration. “When my daughter came of age,” he adds, “I hand-passed that album down to her (Sanaa, my daughter, who I have given a nickname ‘Derp Cobain’ lol), and it’s awesome to watch her ears and mind expand and grow from hearing the awesomeness that is Slipknot.”
