I got these

Really neat (Really neat, really neat)

Very beautifully

Alliterated

Little battle raps for you

Samurai

OK, so mark it down: this is the first album that I’ve come to so far that I’ve rated way too low. This album’s fucking mega! And thirty-fucking-second?? Geddafuggardahere! Trust me, there are some stinkers lower down on this list.

Well… not stinkers, but… y’know…

‘Cowboy Carter’ is still to come? Geddafuggardahere!

I have to say, ‘concept albums’ give me a bit of an ick. If you’re going to go all in, dress up a smurfs, sing all the lyrics in n’avi, and get James Cameron to pilot you to the bottom of the ocean to record the whole album in one whole live take before the deep ocean pressure causes the submarine to explode, killing everyone on board, instantly, that I can respect. Like, I don’t even know what ‘concept’ you’re going for there, and I guess it’s a shame you didn’t survive to edit the Genius entry, but by gahd I respect the dedication!

But generally ‘concept’ albums are so half-hearted and vague. The most famous concept album ever is ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club’ band, but how much does that record really nail the ‘concept’? The first song is like “Alright everyone, we’re Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band, have a good time, enjoy the show, and please enjoy the LSD on offer”, then a bunch of Beatles songs just happen, then the second last song is like “Alright, cool, that was Sgt. Pepper’s band and shit, honest, they did all of that. See you later”. Then A fucking Day In the fucking Life just happens! Is that the encore? Is that this Pepper band just really zoning out backstage?? If so, what the fuck were the Peppers doing beforehand?? They’re giving the audience Getting Better and Lovely Rita when they have this in the pocket?? I think the ‘concept’ of the album is essentially what if the Beatles had a different name. Weeeeeeeeeeeeak.

Look at this list on greatest ever concept albums. ’69 Love Songs’?? One of the greatest albums of all time, and one I’m planning to rank next year, but the ‘concept’ of doing a sex number amount of love songs?? That’s not a ‘concept’, that’s just an elevator pitch. That’s just, like, what the album is. ‘Kid A’?? First of all – seriously, fuck Radiohead – secondly they can’t even agree what the ‘concept’ is! The ‘concept’ is “Dude, being in a band sucks!”?? That’s the concept of literally every band’s second album!! ‘Since I Left You’?? First line of explanation: “The Avalanches reportedly abandoned the concept early in production”. Right. So shut up then. Next! ‘What’s Going On’??? Famously with the concept of… singing about things that are wrong in the world…? Mate… That’s just how albums work. ‘Electra Heart’???? Yeah, alright. We cool, Rolling Stone, we cool.

And, spoiler alert, there are a lot of concept albums on the 2024 countdown. We’ve already passed one with a concept so vague and loose that I didn’t even feel it was worth mentioning. Dua Saleh’s ‘I SHOULD CALL THEM’ is apparently a dystopian tale of two lovers meeting, breaking up, and then falling in love again, while the world crumbles around them. Like, OK, but you know the world is actually crumbling around you? And take out the odd lyrical nod to buildings falling down and shit, it’s actually just a bunch of songs about falling in love, breaking up, and then falling in love. Again, that’s literally every album ever made.

I keep coming up with battle raps and they’re just pouring out of me. Like Wu-Tang stuff, but really neat, very beautiful alliterated little battle raps. So next time you wanna come for me and have a battle rap-off, I’m gonna kill you. Because I’m a samurai.

Amy Winehouse voicemail featured in the 2015 ‘Amy’ documentary

Lupe though? Lupe has always been more of the n’avi speaking, submarine imploding kind of artist. They goes hard or they don’t go at all. They watched the above mentioned ‘Amy’ documentary, and discerned a great affinity between the late artist and Lupe’s own dedication to their craft. “I admire her songwriting ability, her tone, her manipulation of different genres… how she kind of put her signature on top of it and the depth at how she created has always been fascinating to me”. He heard the above voicemail that she left to the record producer Salaam Remi, and thought to themselves “Hmmm… What if Amy Winehouse was a rapper…?”.

So that’s the concept: Amy Winehouse becomes a rapper.

And it’s an extraordinary project. Lupe manages to never lose sight of the overarching narrative of the album, with nary a song or even line lazily betraying the premise in order to just stick a few standard Lupe Fiasco tracks on it. There’s no song where the concept is that someone is doing an album about Amy Winehouse but also does songs that aren’t about Amy Winehouse. The premise is helped by the refreshing brevity of the album: Lupe knew that it would be difficult to properly and effectively tell the story over much longer than 30 minutes, so… the album’s eight tracks and thirty one minutes. Lupe has been accused in the past (sometimes unfairly. Sometimes very fairly) of being prone to overindulgence, never knowingly stopping at a 40 minute album when a 79 minute album is always an option. Here, however, they’re focused, they’re lean and they’re astonishing. The premise of the album, while never being abandoned, also lets Lupe jump off and indulge in their favourite hobby: complaining about the manipulations and the abuses of the music industry! But it also allows them to wax lyrical on the meaning of true art and its importance to the soul. And the wonderful thing about the premise, is that it gives Lupe the chance to really show off his own skills. “So, Amy’s the best rapper in the world? Well, I guess that means she’d sound a lot like this:”

Because Lupe is the best rapper in the world. I’m sorry, I know I’m not allowed to say that, and the Guardian reading, tofu munching, wokerati will remind me that it’s illegal not to say Kendrick Lamar. They won a Pulitzer, y’know?? That means their bars and their flow are up there with Donna Tartt!! Whatever: in terms of technical skill, writing ability both on the micro and macro level, and simply in terms of how well they can use the instrument that is their voice, Lupe wins hands down. And yes, nobody gives a shit about Lupe anymore as they take their music into more niche and artistically interesting places, and it’s been a while since they’ve put their name to a certified banger of a song, but this is still the hill I’ll die on.

Until their next record absolutely stinks.

2018 #11

2017 #16

2015 #9

The Album Title As AI Image

Fuck. Yes.

THE SIMPSONS DID IT!

Oh, and I know saying how much you like The Beatles is the lamest and most normy thing ever – oh really? You like the biggest and most universally beloved musical at ever? Daring today aren’t we sir? Are you also a fan of eating food and defecating? – but I do really like Sgt. Pepper. And I love Lovely Rita. It’s no A fucking Day in the fucking Life though, is it?