Crowning the BEST Album of the 21st Century | LAST SONG STANDING [Finale]

Summary

Dissect Podcast: Last Song Standing S4 Finale

Episode: Crowning the BEST Album of the 21st Century | LAST SONG STANDING [Finale]
Date: September 16, 2025
Hosts: Cole Cuchna, Charles Holmes
Producer: Justin Sayles

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Overview

The finale of "Last Song Standing" Season 4 embarks on an ambitious mission: to debate, bracket-style, and crown the single greatest album of the 21st century (so far). Hosts Cole Cuchna and Charles Holmes, together with producer Justin Sayles, pit iconic albums against each other—considering influence, artistry, cultural impact, and personal bias—winnowing down to the album that stands out as the definitive musical achievement of the past 25 years. The episode serves as a love letter to the transformative power of albums and the joy of music discovery.

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Major Segments and Key Discussion Points

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The Bracket: Albums in Contention

[00:53]

• Finalists:
  • Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
  • Beyoncé – Lemonade
  • Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP
  • Daft Punk – Discovery
  • Madvillain (MF Doom & Madlib) – Madvillainy
  • Frank Ocean – Blonde
  • Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
  • Solange – A Seat at the Table (Charles’s "cultural exchange" pick)
  • The Strokes – Is This It (Cole’s pick)

Charles:

“I think we have honestly as good of a list as we could have in terms of, like, matching influence and commercial impact with our own personal taste.” [01:31]

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Pep Talk Cameos: A Moment of Levity

[02:16] - [09:07]

• Friendly competition declared: Charles wins trivia, receives "digital hugs" in the form of personalized Cameos.
• Cole receives pep talk from former Sacramento Kings draft pick Jimmer Fredette; Charles receives a freestyle video from rapper Riff Raff.
• The hosts contextualize these playful interludes as moments that highlight their friendship and the lighter side of obsessive musical debates.

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Personal Top 10 Albums Revealed

[09:37] - [13:37]

• Both hosts share their (subjective) all-time favorite 21st-century albums before weighing cultural impact in the bracket debate.
• Charles’s picks range widely: Young Thug, Kanye, The Strokes, Fiona Apple, Rosalia, Usher, Arctic Monkeys, etc.
• Cole’s picks include Fiona Apple, Radiohead (two albums), Tyler, the Creator, Beyoncé, Daft Punk, Kanye, Frank Ocean, and Kendrick Lamar.
• Discussion highlights the tension between personal bias and broader cultural impact.

“It’s gonna show our biases going into the bracket... We can kind of check each other on trying to push for an album that we personally like and maybe losing some of the cultural context and stuff and being objective…” — Cole [09:37]

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The Shortlist & Honorable Mentions

[13:44] - [17:51]

• Albums deliberated but not included: J. Cole (2014 Forest Hills Drive), Childish Gambino, Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III, Missy Elliott, 50 Cent, Bon Iver, Outkast, Tame Impala, Amy Winehouse, Rihanna (Anti), Dilla’s Donuts, David Bowie’s Blackstar, Justice’s Cross, Death Grips, LCD Soundsystem, White Stripes, Charli XCX (Brat), and Taylor Swift.
• Debate on what makes an “album artist” and why popularity doesn’t always match with album influence.

"If this was the best song, best songs of the 21st century argument Outkast would have definitely been in there. But I think their best work was previous." — Charles [16:03]

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The Bracket Battles: Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Finalists

[18:10] - [54:39]

First Round

• Kanye West – MBDTF vs. Madvillainy:
  • Both hosts surprisingly agree: Madvillainy advances over MBDTF due in part to the way cultural attitudes toward Kanye have shifted, and Madvillainy’s unique lasting influence.

“I think Kanye west is the most important artist of the 21st century so far. But... I’m starting to value standing on your raps and standing on your art and standing on what you believe in…and I think we have learned in myriad ways that Kanye west doesn’t stand for anything at this point.” — Charles [21:19]

• Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly vs. Eminem – MMLP:

  • No contest: To Pimp a Butterfly wins on all fronts (ambition, cultural importance, artistry).

• The Strokes – Is This It vs. Daft Punk – Discovery:

  • Daft Punk’s Discovery “washes” The Strokes, serving as a pillar for electronic/pop music influence.

• Beyoncé – Lemonade vs. Solange – A Seat at the Table:

  • Deep debate: many argue Solange’s album is more influential sonically, yet Lemonade’s cultural monolith status is decisive.

Semifinals

• Madvillainy vs. To Pimp a Butterfly:

  • Madvillainy’s artistry is praised (Doom’s lyricism, Madlib’s beats), but To Pimp a Butterfly advances for its unparalleled impact, ambition, and thematic depth.
  • Reflection on how Kendrick’s art rises above the moment, becoming a multi-layered historic document.

• Daft Punk – Discovery vs. Beyoncé – Lemonade:

  • Both hosts ultimately agree Discovery deserves to advance—not only for its musical genius but for its far-reaching impact on the sound of the century.

Final Three: The Last Stand

• Frank Ocean – Blonde (automatic finalist)
• Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
• Daft Punk – Discovery

“A good survey as much as you can through three albums of the 21st century and the story of it. So I'm glad actually we landed right here. I think the only thing missing is rock.” — Cole [60:14]

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The Ultimate Showdown: Blonde vs. To Pimp a Butterfly

“Can an album that is dance and electronic forward, where what it is trying to do is different than a Blonde or a Pimp a Butterfly…compete?” — Charles [57:26]

On Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly:

• An explicit concept record, weaving the fabric of 21st-century American turmoil and black experience.
• Regarded as “a chapter from a history book” ([68:31])—an album that will define a cultural moment for generations.

On Frank Ocean’s Blonde:

• Described as genre-defying, universal, and deeply emotional—a record that captures the ineffable feeling of being alive and searching for oneself in a complex world.
• The hosts agree no album better encapsulates the essence of the human condition, love, loss, and identity.
• Blonde’s independence—Frank’s industry-defying maneuvers—play into the album’s mythos.

“I think R B is one of the most disrespected musical genres in America...when I like if you would have told me as a kid ...that one of the most important albums... would be made by a black queer man that is coming from an R B tradition. I never would have thought it...to do it on an album and then for that album...to be transformative—is just like. It's, it's. It's the reason I do. Like, it's the reason I wake up in the morning.” — Charles [60:40]

“I can't precisely articulate what Blonde does to me emotionally, but every time I listen to it, it makes me feel things consistently throughout the entire thing. That's why I love music...for precisely moments like that.” — Cole [89:44]

On Daft Punk’s Discovery (third place):

• Although musically unmatched and foundational for the sound of the era, in the hosts' view, it doesn't move the soul like Blonde or encapsulate the historical sweep of To Pimp a Butterfly.

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Decision: "The Last Album Standing" Is…

Frank Ocean - Blonde

[89:04]:

Cole: “Guys, I'm ready to call it. I'm going. I'm going. Frank Ocean's Blonde. Frank Ocean, last album standing.”
Charles: “I think we both agree that Blonde is the...has to be the last album standing of the 21st century so far.”

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamp Highlights

• On shifting perspectives:
  “Historically, that is something that you are saying right now, because I think at one point in time, Twisted Fantasy would be unassailably the favorite of this entire exercise.” — Cole [20:05]

• On honoring different legacies:
  “Blonde feels like the more universally timeless album...the beauty of life. And I know it's a cliche to say, but there's—he's...he's able to...I mean, it's all about nostalgia and recoloring your memories, you know? And I think the beauty of Blonde...you just get the feeling of that beauty in the song itself.” — Cole [70:56]

• On album artistry:
  “It is some of the highest emotional highs listening to music I can ever. I've ever experienced, you know?” — Cole [77:18]

• On the music that endures:
  “When we started this, I was like, man, you know, this is...This season might be really too easy. We're not going to argue. This has been the musketeer...I can't believe. How are you feeling? Like we did it, bro.” — Charles [91:05]

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Episode Structure – Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:53] – Full finalist album list is revealed
• [09:37] – Personal Top 10 albums shared
• [13:44] – Cut shortlists & Honors explored
• [18:10] – The bracket and its matchups are presented
• [18:28] – The first round of debates commence
• [40:03] – Semifinals: Madvillainy vs. To Pimp a Butterfly; Discovery vs. Lemonade
• [54:39] – Final round: Blonde, To Pimp a Butterfly, Discovery
• [60:14] – Discussion zeroes in on Blonde vs. To Pimp a Butterfly
• [89:04] – The decision: Blonde is crowned the winner
• [91:05]-[94:55] – Reflections, thanks, and closing remarks

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Concluding Thoughts

The finale is more than a competitive exercise—it’s a meditation on music’s purpose and the power of albums to mirror, shape, and transcend their era. The hosts weigh personal feeling, historic context, and technical mastery, admitting that any of the finalists could have worn the crown. Ultimately, Frank Ocean’s Blonde emerges not simply for its innovation or technical perfection, but for its stirring and transformative capacity to evoke the full spectrum of human feeling—a work both timeless and unmistakably of this century.

For newcomers and longtime fans alike, this episode is a potent reminder of the magic of a truly great album.

Transcript

[Charles Holmes]

Foreign.

[Cole Kushna]

Welcome, everyone, to Last Song Standing. I'm Cole Kushna.

[Charles Holmes]

And I'm Charles Holmes. And in this fourth season of Last Song Standing, Cole and I have been debating our way through some of the best albums of the 21st century in order to crown the last album standard.

[Cole Kushna]

Last Episode, Kendrick Lamar's Good Kid Mad City against Kendrick Lamar's To Bimpa Butterfly. Ultimately, to Bimpa Butterfly came out on top.

[Charles Holmes]

But on today's episode, it has all.

[Cole Kushna]

Come down to this.

[Charles Holmes]

It's all come down to this. It is finally the Royal Fucking Rumble. We are pitting the greatest albums of the 21st century so far against each other. Can I quickly go down the list of albums that have made it to the finale?

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Charles Holmes]

Connie West's My Beautiful Dark, Twisted Fantasy. Beyonce's Lemonade, Eminem's Marshall Mathers lp, Daft Punk's Discovery, Doom and Mad Lib's Mad Villainy. Frank Ocean's Blonde. Kendrick's the Pimpa Butterfly. And we had cultural exchange this entire season, so I brought in a seat at the table by. By Solange. That was an album that you gave me, so that's going to be my pick that I'm. That I'm putting in here.

[Cole Kushna]

And I'm picking strokes. Is this it for my cultural exchange assignment? So I'm feeling pretty. As balanced As a what9 album list can be. It feels.

[Charles Holmes]

I'm feeling so balanced. I'm actually. I thought I was going to be so mad looking at this list. And you can quibble here and there. I think we have honestly as good of a list as we could have in terms of, like, matching influence and commercial impact with our own personal taste. And it's. I'm very, very happy. But before we get to the Royal Rumble, we've been not just duking it out album versus album. We've had these trivia challenges, and unsurprisingly, you know the scholar of this podcast, the one who's always dissecting y', all, 1. Aka me, by half point.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. 0.5.

[Charles Holmes]

Now, if you guys have forgotten, our wonderful producer Justin Sayles was in charge of getting us gifts for this. Justin, are you. Are you ready to reveal what I have won? And if it's a hug from you, just a great. You've been doing such a great job during a busy summer, Charles. I would. I would love that. That.

[Justin Sayles]

You know what actually is funny? It's not a hug from me, but I figured I'd get you a digital hug from People that I thought were very important in both of your lives. So I went and I sprung and I lost the receipt. So I can't expense it for some cameos for some people who are very near and dear to your hearts for different reasons.

[Charles Holmes]

Oh, this is so exciting.

[Justin Sayles]

And Cole, you know, so Charles won. Yeah, but I got them personalized. Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

Fuck.

[Cole Kushna]

This is so.

[Charles Holmes]

This is so exciting. Wait, are you gonna play them right now?

[Justin Sayles]

Cole, I think we're gonna have to. We're gonna have to crowd around Cole's phone, and then we can put up the split screen I just sent you yours, and then I'm gonna send you Charles's in a minute.

[Cole Kushna]

Dude, this is Justin.

[Charles Holmes]

This is.

[Cole Kushna]

Touche, man. This is, like, way better than I could.

[Charles Holmes]

I know everybody walks around here being like, justin's too cool for school. He has. He has a heart of ice. But no, guys, he's a softy. This is amazing. I want to see this.

[Justin Sayles]

So it's pep talk, I should stress is a pep talk for heading into this because, you know, we're trying to crown the best album of the century, but, like, really, this is just, like, the eternal struggle between you guys. So.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Justin Sayles]

The pep talk that both of you need personally. Okay, so first up, we got Kohl's.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay. Cole. What's up, my man? Just wanted to say what's going on. I know that you have a real long battle against Charles, and just want to let you know that. Let's get locked in. Let's get locked in for this last final round. I know that you're a huge Sacramento Kings fan. You know, that's a good thing and a bad thing. Biggest thing here. Pep talk. Get yourself ready to go against Charles. It's time to go. Go crush it for Justin and the boys. And we appreciate you, man.

[Charles Holmes]

Good luck.

[Cole Kushna]

We'll talk to you soon. Let me know how it goes, because I want to hear about this. Let's go, Justin. Touche.

[Charles Holmes]

How are you feeling?

[Cole Kushna]

Let me contextualize for the listeners, because probably 99% of them are. Who the fuck is Jimmer for that, no offense. Jimmer for that, is one of the many draft picks. The SAC from Sacramento. Sacramento Kings are my favorite team. Unfortunately. I go to every single home game. Jimmer Fredette is historic in the lore of Sacramento Kings history. He's one of our many failed draft picks. We thought he was the next. He was supposed to be the Steph Curry before Steph Curry. Things didn't pan out, but he is a legend in Sacramento. We text me and my buddies that have a king's text message thread talk about him all the time. Way more than we should. So, Justin, I am incredibly impressed that your brain even went there. Beautiful job. Thank you so much.

[Charles Holmes]

You seem so happy. You seem beside me and my friend.

[Cole Kushna]

Me and my friends are going to have a ball.

[Charles Holmes]

Are you going to send this to the group chat?

[Cole Kushna]

Oh, hell yes. Hell yes.

[Justin Sayles]

Charles, as the winner, I. Look, I'm sending you yours right now. I'm texting it. I want to. I want to preface this by saying, before the season started, you said that you wanted to have a white boy summer.

[Charles Holmes]

Yes.

[Justin Sayles]

This is part of the white boy summer. I know that, like, we're getting into fall, but, like, I want you to, like, live your last moments of white boy summer.

[Charles Holmes]

Oh, man, the text just came through. The text just came through. Who is it? I'm nerd. Oh, wait. No, no, no, no, no. Justin, you didn't. You fucking didn't.

[Justin Sayles]

Look, Crayshawn isn't on there anymore, so I had to improvise.

[Charles Holmes]

Dantoni is from Justin and the last song, standing team. This goes for Charles Holmes.

[Cole Kushna]

Charles been talking reckless about how he wants to have them folks, them white boys for the summer. He says.

[Charles Holmes]

Also terrible takes in the last song standing team says that they don't like.

[Cole Kushna]

His selections and what he's talking about for music.

[Charles Holmes]

Also, he's been long debate with Cole and he's says he's going to win.

[Cole Kushna]

So there's the message on them folks.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, Dan, Tony. Okay, I'm literally about to start crying. Like, this is like the greatest gift I've been given in years.

[Justin Sayles]

Like, so does Jody High roller Riff Raff. Does he need more or less introduction on this podcast than Jim or Fredette?

[Cole Kushna]

You want to contextualize Charles?

[Charles Holmes]

I just. You know what? Instead of contextualizing who Riff Raff is.

[Cole Kushna]

Should we just play a little?

[Charles Holmes]

I want to play one of my favorite freestyles of all time. If I could find it for y' all that don't know. Riff Raff was a very popular rapper coming up in around the 2010s. He was whatchamacallit, the inspiration for James Franco's character in Spring break.

[Justin Sayles]

Spring breakers.

[Charles Holmes]

Spring breakers. Riffraff has. Has added a lot to Cult. And I am about to play Cole one of my favorite freestyles. Oh, the one on Sway of all time. What's now, man? Gotta.

[Cole Kushna]

You know I ain't tripping. No, I never to be tripping.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, man, especially I never. I normally wouldn't do it. But since Sway.

[Cole Kushna]

You know what I'm saying? Sway. But I got to.

[Charles Holmes]

This is one of my favorite freestyles of all time. Handshakes, hugs. You want me outside? You want to see me with pancakes and drugs. Take your fat ass to sleep. I'm jumping out the candy coated grim reaper jeep. I put you to sleep. I put you six feet deep Release in the ground. I blaze pine. I left my top down. I could have played for Washington Red skiing. Six points for a touchdown. I might give him bars. I love Riff Raff. Yo, Cole like Cole. This is this is why I love.

[Cole Kushna]

Doing this is this is a great cap on the season. Good job.

[Charles Holmes]

This is also why I love justice so much. Cuz he how did you know that Riff Raff was actually going to be.

[Justin Sayles]

The it just, it felt right that I actually had to struggle way more to think of someone for Cole than I did for you. I do want to point out that I, I, I told Riff Ra that you wanted to have a white boy summer and he said he'd be talking reckless about how he want to have them white boys for the summer.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, he did pause and was just like, I don't know if I co signed that Charles, but it was fine. Riff Raff, I want to have a white boy summer, but I got something better.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

I got the two most loving white boys.

[Justin Sayles]

You did have them white boys for the summer. Three if we count CT over here on the board.

[Charles Holmes]

Ct my man.

[Cole Kushna]

Ct. Four if we count Kevo.

[Charles Holmes]

Kevo. Four white boys. Damn. Guys, Shout out to white boy summer, man. Shout out Riff Raff. Yes. Oh, all right. Now, before we get into the meat and potatoes of this episode, you actually had a very, very fun idea. You wanted to reveal what our personal top tens were. And I think you, like, you describe why you thought that this would kind of be like, really, really cool before we go to the Royal Rumble and start battling it out.

[Cole Kushna]

Well, one, it's going to show our biases going into the bracket and the tournament so we can kind of check each other on trying to push for an album that we personally like and maybe losing some of the cultural context and stuff and being objective about our picks. So we're going to share our personal top 10 favorite albums of the 21st century so far. See how much overlap we have with our finalists. And I'm mine's actually kind of close to what what we ended up with. So I'm curious to hear yours first and then I'll share mine.

[Charles Holmes]

Okay.

[Cole Kushna]

And for the listeners, this Is subjective. Completely subjective. Taking cultural context. This is just our personal favorite.

[Charles Holmes]

Yes.

[Cole Kushna]

So let's hear it. And no order, right?

[Charles Holmes]

This is no order. This is just. I. I spent, I think, 10 minutes thinking and writing these down. So. Young Thug Rich, Homie Quan, Rich Gang, The Tour, Part 1 2. Kanye West, Yeezus, Strokes. Is this it? Future's Monster, Frank, Ocean's Blonde, Rosalia's Motomami, Daft Punk's Discovery, Usher's Confessions, Fiona's Fiona Apples, the Idler Wheel, and then the Arctic Monkeys. Whatever you say I am, that's what I'm not.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay. Pretty diverse list.

[Charles Holmes]

It's. I will say, writing the list, I'm just like. This is. Like, these are all popular albums, but it is also very chaotic.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. You have a more diverse taste than I think probably people imagine. So let me show you mine. In no order, but there is a lot of overlap with the season. I also have a Fiona Apple pick on mine, but it's Fetch the Bowl Cutters. But I love. I mean, talk about a flawless discography. Fiona Apple.

[Charles Holmes]

I just love me some Fiona Apple.

[Cole Kushna]

Oh, yeah. Okay. I got two Radiohead picks on mine. Of course I have in Rainbows, which we didn't talk about this season, but.

[Charles Holmes]

You know, Justice's Cross was about to make my list. This is actually an album we bond over. Yeah, I love. If. If we had more time to do this, I would have loved to do Daft Punk's Discovery first. Justice's.

[Cole Kushna]

Yes. Just that album changed me in so many ways. Came out a really pivotal time in my life. I love the album. Tyler. The Creator's Igor's on here for me. Lemonade's on here for me. Thanks to this season of Last Long Standing, Daft Punk's Discovery is now on my top 10 personal list. And it was not in there before. So thank you, Charles, for reminding me how good it is. Daft Punk may be the next season of Dissect. I don't know. I haven't talked to Justin about it, but I'm very excited about Daft Punk in this moment. And it's thanks to this season. I also have Kanye West, Yeezus, which.

[Charles Holmes]

Is interesting because even I think Justin was the first person who's just like, y' all are not doing Yeezus pick My Beautiful doctor.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Like, if this was just our season, we would have gone long on Yeezus.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Justin Sayles]

Jesus is my favorite Kanye record. I want to be clear. I just. I think it's College Dropout or My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for people, I think those are the two that, like, make the most sense for this exercise. Like, Yeezus is the one for me.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. But this is where I was trying to be more objective. My top three I've talked about pretty openly throughout my history on Dissect, but it's Frank Ocean's Blonde to Pimp a Butterfly and Kid A. So Kid A didn't make it, but.

[Charles Holmes]

In our hearts it did.

[Cole Kushna]

But it's right there. So justice is Cross is maybe the one regret of the season. I would have loved to talk to.

[Charles Holmes]

You about that album. I was like, if we had one more episode, I was hoping that you would try to sneak it in in a cultural exchange that is actually, like, even though it didn't make, like, my top 10, because I did also want to kind of just, like, pick some sort of, like, justice was in there. I had a bad. Bad Bunny has become an artist that I really, really like.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

So, yeah. But I was just like, also, Charles, just don't get too complicated. But with. With all of that out of the.

[Cole Kushna]

Way, should continue this a little bit in terms of, like, some honorable mentions.

[Charles Holmes]

Yes.

[Cole Kushna]

So.

[Charles Holmes]

So to give people backstory, though, a little bit. What was so fun about this season was we came up with, like, a long list of albums that we could do, and then it was a very, very intentional process of being like, I think the perfect one we can use is, like, how can we do this exercise and not talk about J. Cole? So I think for the first episode, we actually had one of our short. Two of our shortlist albums were 2014 four sales drive. And then because the Internet by Childish Gambino. And that actually crystallized how difficult of a task this would be. Because 2014 for sales drive, I think, is. I don't think I know is one of the most popular albums of. Of just the 21st century. But when we were doing, like, best song, worst song, deep cut, whatever, quickly we found that it fell apart and really couldn't compete.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's different weight classes to an album like J. Cole. And let's say Carter 3 by Lil Wayne was.

[Charles Holmes]

Was there for a while. So it's an album that I love. That mixtape run Wayne. Wayne was my favorite rapper for so many years. Young thugs. Barter 6 is something that would. Would make my personal list. But when you're going in in terms of, like, cultural impact and this st. Over time, you can. You can talk about the impact, but it was just like, yeah, can Barter 6 go up against. I don't know, mad villainy. That was. That was going to be more difficult.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. And so just. We'll just run through some of the ones so that they at least get a mention in this conversation. So we were thinking about Missy Elliot.

[Charles Holmes]

Which he's so addictive. 50 cents, get rich or Die Trying. Which Bon Iver album? Like, there's like, your favorite. Bon Iver is not my favorite. Bonnie.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, I like 22amillion. But for this discussion, I probably would have put. I probably would have vouched for, like, Emma forever ago.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, same, I think. I think that's the one that makes the most sense. Outkast Stankonia got very, very close, but we just felt that the highs are high. The songs are great. If this was the best song, best songs of the 21st century argument Outkast would have definitely been in there. But I think their best work was previous. Was previous. We had Tame Impala's Currents, Back to Black by Amy Winehouse, Anti by Rihanna. Kind of got close, but we also felt that it was a little bit. People are going to kill me for saying this. I love Rihanna. I love Rihanna. Traditionally speaking, I don't know if she's an album artist. She's like, the songs weigh heavily. Once again, if this was songs of the 21st century, Rihanna would be up there.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. Just look at our final list where we are definitely favoring album artists.

[Charles Holmes]

Yep. Donuts by Dilla, David Bowie's Black Star. We already mentioned Fiona. Fiona Apple was on both of our personal. We. We had talked about her Justice Cross, Money Store by Death Grips, this Is Happening by LCD Sound System, White Blood Cell, White Stripes and I, at one point, you guys would be disgusted how far Charlie XCX got. And here's disgusted.

[Cole Kushna]

We're talking brat.

[Charles Holmes]

Let me finish by saying this. I love Brat. One of my. One of my favorite memories of moving to LA in the beginning was going to a Brat night and just being welcomed by a million women who look like Charlie X, who was literally like, I died and went to heaven. But I was like, guys, three fucking dudes cannot be talking about Charlie X. Yes, Brat. They're gonna be, you old ass motherfuckers.

[Justin Sayles]

We'd have to. To discuss that album properly, we'd have to bring in every single one of Charles's recent hinge dates.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, let's not talk about the shoddies. Shout out all the shoddies. But that was our short list. Yeah. The only one that, like, you guys are probably like, you guys didn't talk about her at all is neither of us really fuck with Taylor. I think that much in terms of just, like, I feel like it would be disrespectful.

[Cole Kushna]

No one wants to hear us talk about Taylor Swift.

[Charles Holmes]

Like, I don't know if y' all want my opinion. Opinions, because my opinion, like, I've gotten canceled how many times for some of the opinions I have on artists that I love. Can you imagine ones? I'm just like, fine.

[Cole Kushna]

All right, so we acknowledge the honorable mentions, I think. Is it time to. To reveal the bracket? The bracket.

[Charles Holmes]

Let's get we guys. We're bringing in the whiteboard. So, yeah, we're going to reveal which albums are duking it out bracket style to get to the finale.

[Cole Kushna]

So let's take a quick break. We're going to come back with the actual physical bracket.

[Charles Holmes]

Yep.

[Cole Kushna]

All right.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, y'. All, we are back. As you can see, we have revealed the bracket. Cole did an amazing job. All right, so we are going to be going My Beautiful Dark Twisted Mad Villainy first. Okay. Then the second matchup of the day is going to be to Pimp a Butterfly versus Eminem's Marshall Mathers lp. Then we have Kid A. Versus Is this it? Last but not Lemonade versus A seat at the Table. And if you guys are wondering, what about Frank Ocean? Yes, he is at the top. He's automatically just. Just in there.

[Cole Kushna]

I think it was the. It was the one overlap of our top favorite. So we have a Frank Ocean bias that I think would probably plummet most of the albums on the board. So we're like, we know Blonde's gonna be there at the end. Let's just reserve it.

[Charles Holmes]

Let's reserve it.

[Cole Kushna]

And then let's see who's going against Blonde as maybe a slight favorite in the overall bracket. Are you ready to do this, Charles?

[Charles Holmes]

I am ready because I'm coming out the gate swinging.

[Cole Kushna]

Uh oh.

[Charles Holmes]

At no point in my life did I think that this was gonna be true. At no point. At one point, my beautiful dark Twisted Fantasy blew my fucking wig off. Runaway is one of my favorite songs of all time. Like, this album meant so much to me. Mad villainy is better, better.

[Cole Kushna]

Better.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, so let me. Not by much.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

But we.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, I'm actually not disagreeing, per se, but that.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, let me.

[Cole Kushna]

It is interesting that we are historically that. That is something that you are saying right now, because I think at one point in time, Twisted Fantasy would be unassailably the favorite of this entire exercise.

[Charles Holmes]

I think there was a Time where we would have Blonde would have been battling it out, and my beautiful dark twisted fantasy would be the one that were acts like which who's going to. But I said something to you when we were getting lunch. If this year has proved anything to me, it's that one of the most important things I don't think about all music but hip hop is you gotta stand on your shit. And if there is one thing that we have learned, I think Kanye west is the most important artist of the 21st century so far. But if we learned anything, like in the last couple years with him, with Drake, I'm starting to value standing on your raps and standing on your art and standing on what you believe in. And I think we have learned in a myriad of ways that Kanye west doesn't stand for anything at this point. And when I was a kid listening to a lot like Dark Fantasy into my mind's blanking, the next song.

[Cole Kushna]

Gorgeous. Huh? Gorgeous.

[Charles Holmes]

Gorgeous. Like the way he's rapping about the Police and this and that on Gorgeous. At one point in my life, oh, my God, Connie's saying this. Or like, I can't believe Jesus. Oh, he's taking on these.

[Cole Kushna]

It's a little different now.

[Charles Holmes]

It doesn't. It doesn't hold the same weight for me. It just doesn't. And I think I hate that that has to be the case. If I'm bugging you, tell me, well.

[Cole Kushna]

I would like to push back more. But what you're saying, in my heart, even though my mind tells me I should be able to separate art from the artist, and maybe we're still historically too close to everything that's happened, all the Kanye. But in my heart, I feel what you're saying is true. In this moment, 10, 15, 20 years from now, maybe that feeling is different. Maybe time allows us to create that separation. But in this moment, having this conversation, listening back to a Twisted Fantasy for this exercise, because I'm not listening to Kanye really much at all these days, and the album just not hitting me the same way that it used to, just. I can't change that as much as I want to. And it's hard to go. It is hard to stump for an album that I know is historically significant and by all accounts, a masterpiece. But I think if we're talking, if we're having a conversation about the 21st century and what album is going to define it so far, I just don't think it can be at this point in time when we're recording this. I don't Think it can be a Kanye west album.

[Charles Holmes]

Well, I also think it goes deeper because with My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, what I've been thinking a lot about is Connie with a college dropout, is labeled a conscious rapper. And for years, so many of his biggest songs. There is. There's a lesson in there. It's like he was before Kendrick. Like, he was very, very good at distilling themes about consumerism and beauty and race and this and that into these packages. Right. And with everything that's happened when I listen to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, what it reminds me of is I'm like, oh, the best thing that Kanye west ever was was a curator. A curator of production and samples and rapping and of sound. And even if he wasn't the best lyricist because he had a lot of help writing, he always knew how to cherry pick, make the collage, make the scrapbook, and then offer it up to the public in the most easily consumed package. And I'm gonna say that to get why. It's not just the fact that everything that's happened with Kanye is the reason I'm not picking it. It's everything that's happened with Doom. Where I think as a culture, when I listened to Mad Villain, when we were doing this exercise and I was listening to Mad Villainy, I'm like, all right, well, this is just as kaleidoscopic. And this is they're pulling from as much history and the sampling is just as good as what Connie's doing, and the production is just as good. The rapping is better. Doom is a better rapper. And I think this is also an age thing. I think I prefer listening to a record like mad villainy in 2025 over, like, I'm just saying, in a vacuum.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

What I like as a 32 year old man is a Mad Villainy.

[Cole Kushna]

I'm at this point in history, at this point in my life. That's true for me too. And I think if we're trying to honor hip hop specifically, and I think doom is very important, obviously, to a certain subculture of hip hop. The influence of the. We didn't. I mean, we kind of talked about the influence of Mad Villainy. I mean, we did, but it's like we should probably reinforce just the way it shaped so many rappers after him and continues to shape so many influenced song structure and approaches to beat making. Of course, you can kind of say the same thing about Kanye, but in this moment in time, I like the idea of honoring Doom in this conversation. So I'm.

[Charles Holmes]

I think that people will be like, you're just saying that because we've canceled. I was just like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I actually, like, would rather listen to Mad Villainy just as a. Even when we did that episode and you're breaking down, did you know? I was like, this is why I love that album. You know what I mean? Where it's like, the greatest artist and their music grow with you as you age. And I think, what? Mad Villainy. Mmm. Food. Operation Doomsday. I'm still learning new things about those albums and how great they are, especially on the production side and the lyrical side in a way where I don't even know on the best day if I'm learning that much from my beautiful, dark, Twisted Fantasy.

[Cole Kushna]

Justin, are we. Is this totally out of left field? Is this wild take that? We're not pushing back so much on this.

[Justin Sayles]

I think that you're accurately capturing how the vibes have shifted around this. I think, like, this 10 years ago, five years ago, my beautiful dog, Twisted Fantasy might have stormed through this entire exercise and been the album. But, like, it's not because of anything he said. It's not because of his, like, really, truly terrible beliefs. Like, let's. Yeah, it's not because of that. It's just. There's just something there. The luster of that album and Kanye. The whole Kanye experience has really worn off. And it'd be great if we could judge everything in a vacuum, but we're not judging everything in a vacuum. We're judging how we feel about it today, a quarter century in.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Justin Sayles]

I don't have a problem with this.

[Cole Kushna]

I wish for the day that we're able to revere the albums of Kanye west like we once did. I'm still hoping that he's somehow going to redeem himself, and I'm wishing the best for him. I hope he heals and gets well. But at this point in time, let's call it Mad Villain.

[Charles Holmes]

It's Mad Villainy, and I don't feel bad at all.

[Cole Kushna]

It's also, like, about Mad Villainy. Maybe we're not stressing that masterpiece.

[Charles Holmes]

So Mad Villainy wins.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, so next up to Pimple Butterfly verse, Marshall Mathers lp. I feel so bad for Epinem. It's not even close.

[Cole Kushna]

It's not even.

[Charles Holmes]

It's not even close. Like, we don't need to waste people's time. Like, I actually. No, no, no. Don't get me wrong. Eminem is one of the best rappers who is. Who has ever Walked the earth. And this is someone who has a complicated relationship with Eminem. And, like, I stumped for that album because I believe that it is good. I love Eminem. Um, but the Marshall Mathers LP isn't. What it's trying to do is not as ambitious as to Pimple Butterfly. And ambition doesn't always mean that it's the better album. But in terms of this, in terms of where we're at in the 21st century, this was never a fucking conversation.

[Cole Kushna]

I 100% agree. We honor Eminem. He's a giant. He's. He is hip hop to its core. But T Pimpa Butterfly is a. It's a. You can have a conversation about the 21st century, a more dynamic conversation about the 21st century through that album, through the prism of T Pimp and Butterfly, where when you start to talk about Marshall Mathers LP and Eminem, I think obviously he's done a lot for hip hop. It's a cultural moment in its own right. But there's something about Tipimpa Butterfly that transcends music in a way that I don't think Eminem has ever done in his. And I think when you're just looking at these two albums together, it feels like no contest. But, Justin, are we wrong to just breeze through this? Should we fight? Fight more for Marshall Mathers?

[Justin Sayles]

I think some people might even question why Eminem made it into the bracket. I think he put up a really strong showing by getting this far. Yeah, Beating Tyler, also one of the most important artists of the century, also someone that you can track a lot of the shifts in culture through. Yeah, really impressive for the big guy. But this is where it ends.

[Cole Kushna]

The silly little guy.

[Charles Holmes]

This is where. Hey, honestly, I'm glad he made it this far. I actually listening to the album, just like, we can't be prisoners of the moment. I think a lot of times we're. We get into this thing where it's like when an artist is no longer cool, we. We act like, yeah, they were never transformational, they were never groundbreaking. And I hate that. And that's why I kind of was being like, no, no, no. Eminem throughout the 2000s was the guy. That's why I made it that far. But we don't have to belabor it. It's to Pimp a Butterfly. Next up, easy the Strokes. Is this it? Like, we don't even need to talk about it.

[Cole Kushna]

Against what?

[Charles Holmes]

No, no, I'm saying is this. It wins. We don't even need to bring up Kid A.

[Justin Sayles]

This Is amazing. This is amazing.

[Charles Holmes]

I like. I. Here's the thing. We're. I get it. There's no way is this. It is going to be.

[Justin Sayles]

I don't think you get it.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah. You don't get it, Charles. That literally.

[Cole Kushna]

Charles.

[Charles Holmes]

You don't get it. You don't get it.

[Cole Kushna]

Take a look again at the board, Charles.

[Justin Sayles]

Take a look at the matchup that we're discussing.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait. It's Kid A versus the Strokes. Wait, wait. Where's Discovery?

[Cole Kushna]

Right behind it, Charles.

[Charles Holmes]

Wait until I sit. Whose idea was that?

[Cole Kushna]

Of course.

[Charles Holmes]

Whose idea?

[Cole Kushna]

Justin helped me, though.

[Justin Sayles]

I helped you conspire against Eclipse Episode. I owed him one.

[Charles Holmes]

You wanna know why it wasn't registering to me? Because I still don't believe that Discovery. I literally was just like, there's no way I'm gonna win with this. Oh, I hate you. I hate. I was literally like, fuck. Oh, my. I like Kid A. Okay.

[Justin Sayles]

Anyway, so the Strokes beat Kid A.

[Cole Kushna]

But the Strokes beat Daft Punk. You're gonna have to argue against yourself because I can't go at bat for Strokes. It's a fucking easy call for me. Daft Punk washes. But try to put up a fight for Strokes. But this is.

[Charles Holmes]

I listen to. Is this it? More. This is one of my favorite rock albums ever. It means so much to me. Last night. Someday.

[Cole Kushna]

Great songs.

[Charles Holmes]

Take it or leave it.

[Cole Kushna]

It's just harder, better, faster, stronger. Digital Love. Face to Face. One more time. What are we talking about, Charles? Easy.

[Charles Holmes]

I'm thinking. Don't do. Guys. All right, all right. I've listened to Aerodynamic before. I've listened to Digital Love before. I've listened to all. It's easy. It's Discovery. Like, it was. It was never a matchup. Yeah, but these are like my two kids, my two bad bitches against each other. Why are we pitting two bad bitches against each other?

[Cole Kushna]

Well, it's interesting, though. It's like one's the future and one is the. The last flame of a genre that had a great run.

[Charles Holmes]

That is the perfect way to put it. That is the. As someone who worked at a rock magazine that will go unnamed. It is very funny where I'm just like, no, no, no. You can literally track in real time. When rock, it was just like, this is. It's a rap.

[Cole Kushna]

It's a rap. We honored the heyday of rap in the, you know, early 21st century. Strokes killers. We talked. We mentioned, briefly, White Stripes.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

I mean, it had a last. A last moment, but I think it was the end of something that had a beautiful run. Maybe it'll make a return someday. I'm not sure.

[Charles Holmes]

But it's not happening. It's in the dirt. Discovery One. All right.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay. Lemonade versus Solange.

[Charles Holmes]

All right. The street's going to be mad at me for saying this. The street's going to be mad is easy. Solange needs to. Solange needs to advance.

[Cole Kushna]

You know what's funny about this? Okay. In a vacuum. In a vacuum. That's not a bad take. It's not.

[Charles Holmes]

I think A Seat at the Table is the better album, but not the more important album.

[Cole Kushna]

This is. This is the difficult part. I was. You know what I was thinking, and it's only because they're sisters, and I know that. So it's unfair. But can you imagine if Beyonce made a seat at the table, how revered a seat at the table would be? Can you imagine?

[Charles Holmes]

No, because I.

[Cole Kushna]

In my heart, it feels like a seat at the table is the better. If you're just song for song, it feels like the better album to me. But Lemonade, if we're in a cultural conversation about the 21st century, it's a fucking. It's a monolith. Lemonade is to me. And we're talking about. Wrapped up in this conversation as who's the more important artists. Maybe you can argue about their best album, but obviously Beyonce is.

[Charles Holmes]

So I will make this argument for why we should pick Solange. We're just talking about these two records. I actually think more artists have been inspired, have taken more from a seat at the table, I think a seat at the table. I actually don't think Beyonce could make a seat at the table. And that's not because she's not talented enough to make it, I think because of what. What Beyonce means to the culture. And I think I briefly touched upon this maybe in the SZA episode, her episode. Because what she has to do sometimes, she can't be as raw. She can't be as vulnerable. And people like, what are you talking about? Lemonade is very vulnerable out. I'm like, yeah, it's vulnerable, but it's not Mr. Morale, because it's just like she has to almost be like a political figure in the American imagination because she's Beyonce. She's the only black woman who has. Has gotten to that point in our culture. But it's. I'll put. If this was Renaissance against A Seat at the Table, I'd pick Renaissance.

[Cole Kushna]

But culturally. Culturally, though.

[Charles Holmes]

Culturally, I am telling you, in the streets, I think it's A Seat at the Table. I really, really do. I understand Lemonade might win, but I. I think A Seat at the Table is not only the better album. I think A Seat at the Table has pushed R and B farther, and there are more artists that I could be like, you're microwave. You're re microwaving a Seat at the Table, and they're not doing that with Lemonade.

[Cole Kushna]

It's an interesting conversation. Do you. You want to weigh in at all, Justin, about this? Because I do think it's closer than maybe.

[Charles Holmes]

People are probably acting like I'm crazy for.

[Cole Kushna]

I don't think. Well, if they. If that is the case, then go. Go back and listen to the Seat of the Table because it's fucking phenomenal.

[Charles Holmes]

It's a really good album. And I. I was for. I didn't even want to listen to it for this exercise. And listening back to it, I was like, oh, no. I actually forgot not only how potent it was, but just, yeah, unassailable. And just kind of like. I'm like, oh, this. This influenced a lot of people.

[Justin Sayles]

I am, quite frankly, sick of being called in to settle Beyonce debates. This is not something I signed up for.

[Cole Kushna]

Well, no, you're not going to. You're not. You're not settling it. Just add your two cents.

[Justin Sayles]

This is not how I wanted to spend my White boy summer. This. I don't know if I have the right answer, and it kind of is hypocritical compared to some other arguments that I have made in my heart. I vastly prefer the Solange album. Now, I don't. We are deciding on quality. We are deciding on what we believe to be the better album. But on some level, we're trying to define the century. And I think that Lemonade kind of stands as one of those. I've used this word a couple times. One of those, like, monolithic type albums in the century where Seat at the Table feels a little smaller in the grand scheme, but I don't think it's small enough that it should automatically be discounted for that reason.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay, let's bring this aspect into the conversation, though, because it is going to probably come up more as we get. As the matchups get harder, how much are we weighing our select ultimate selection on? It is from an artist that could define the 21st century. If we're forced to choose what artist has defined the 21st century so far, do we need to. How much are we honoring that aspect of the conversation versus albums in a vacuum? Because I will say I'll concede You know, I love Lemonade. You know, I love the Lemonade film. In a vacuum, I might prefer Solange.

[Charles Holmes]

I think we are all circling the same thing where it's like, critically for what we love about music. A seat at the table. And it's like, once again, we're talking about, like, the difference between, like a 98 and a 90. It's not. It's very close. But also I. It's probably just has to be Beyonce's Lemonade. It just. It feels wrong not to advance Beyonce just based off the fact of. Just like when you name the list of the top five most important artists of. Of. Of the 21st century so far, you can't tell the story without Beyonce. You can't tell it without Lemonade. Even if I don't like. Even if I like Renaissance better, even if I like 4 better, even if I like self titled better, Lemonade is the moment that Beyonce transcends just music and just becomes like a capital A icon that we will be talking about for the rest of our lives. Lemonade did that helped do that for her. It was. It has to be Lemonade. And eliminate. Guys, Lemonade is not bad. I just really wanted some.

[Cole Kushna]

No. Yeah, we needed to give her a flat because, God, it's such a great album. Okay, but let's not for labor. Lemonade advances. So let's take just a quick break. You won't even know where we're going because we're going to update the brackets and we'll come back with the final five matchups.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, so, guys, we are back. Now we have to discuss mad villainy vs Tapimba butterfly and Daft Punk's discovery vs Beyonce's lemonade. This is actually where, once again, I'm gonna surprise you. Mad Villain is a better album than To Pimple Butterfly. It is. It is. I'm sorry. It is to me. To me.

[Cole Kushna]

I love Mad Villainy so much. So I'm like, I get it. I get it. We're talking about Tim Pimpa Butterfly here. Though one of the most culturally important and significant albums of the 21st century, arguably, or not inarguably, one of the best concept records of all time, perhaps the best of the 21st century. I would stand on that. The best concept record of the 21st century so far. It accomplishes everything you can in a single album. In terms of commercial success, in terms of artistic merit, in terms of defining a moment in culture and a moment in American history. It accomplishes all that, and yet it's still A great album that is self contained, that isn't trying too hard. That is very. A personal, very personal story about someone that comes from a place like Compton that is underrepresented. And I think when you're weighing the totality of what To Pimp a Butterfly is versus Mad Villainy, an album that is one of my favorite albums of all time, it's just hard to compete with all of that.

[Charles Holmes]

All that is true. Fuck. Fuck that shit. That really needs that one. Like, Doom is the rapper. Everything. Like, I. Here's the thing. Is Mad Villainy gonna win against the Pimple Butterfly? No. But I would not be a good podcaster, I would not be a good rap fan if I just did keep it 100% real. If y' all hate me for saying this, like, objectively speaking, to me, Mad Villainy is the better rap. Like, is the better rap record. It just is. I prefer it. I like Doom's rapping more. I think it's just as complicated. I think it's just as virtuosic. I would rather listen, like, I'll put you this way. Which instrumental album would you rather listen to? I would rather listen to Mad Villainy. I think the production, overall, I think.

[Cole Kushna]

It'S a good point. That's a great point.

[Charles Holmes]

Like, I think production wise, like, what To Pimp A Butterfly is doing is just as difficult and just as virtuosic and just as everything. Like, it's not. I'm not saying that, but you would miss a lot of the record the minute you take Kendrick out. And same thing with Mad Villain, but like, Mad Villainy also, they released the instrumentals for a reason, like it is.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, that's a very good point. Something that we don't talk about a lot with Kendrick is that the production of his songs are great. So don't. Don't take this the wrong way, what I'm about to say, but Kendrick makes a lot of the songs what they are. It's not the production that makes most of Kendrick's songs. We're never talking about how great the production on a Kendrick Lamar album is because he, for one, he overshadows with his performances, with his concepts, with his themes, and I think give you. You can give a beat, any beat off of Mad Villainy to any other rapper, and it's probably going to be a pretty decent song. I don't think you could say the same thing for Kendrick's production. Kendrick's just that good. He knows exactly what to do to make a song great, to elevate the production to feed into the production. All of that said. So I think that's a beautiful point.

[Charles Holmes]

And just before we. Like, I do, like, not only do I agree with you, I think the thing that I've located about Kendrick is that because. Because not only such a good rapper, but because he knows what he wants the concept to be. Because these albums have to do a certain. Even something like gnx, where there's not as much of a through line production shines more still, he is outshining the production because he's Kendrick Lamar. And I think someone like Doom is. Is the type of rapper where he's not afraid to not be the flashiest part of the song or he's not afraid to kind of like bleed into it. But in the same way that good kid Mad City didn't advance. Because I'm like, if this was a best rap albums of the 21st century conversation.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

I think I could make a very, very compelling point that Mad Villainy is a better rap album than to pimp a better.

[Cole Kushna]

I actually would not argue that.

[Charles Holmes]

But in terms of project, we. I'm not going to belabor this. Like to pimp a butterfly like to pimp a butterfly to me can go against a blonde. It could go against the lemonade. It can go against a discovery. I don't know if Mad Villainy can because it just exists in a. In a different pocket.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. Beautiful. Okay, I'm. I'm good with that. Justin, is that fair?

[Justin Sayles]

I'm just over here thinking, would Kendrick over Meat Grinder beat sound better than Doom over how much a dollar cost? Those are the two things I'm thinking of in my head.

[Cole Kushna]

Would Kendrick sound better over Meat Grinder? No.

[Charles Holmes]

I'm going to be honest. You could put Doom over most of Tapimba Butterfly and I think he would kill it. I think if Kendrick tried to rap over a lot of the beats on Mad Villainy, it would sound terrible. And that's. That's nothing against Kendrick. That is nothing against him. I think Mad Lib could actually make a very, very good Kendrick Lamar project. But I don't know if Kendrick, like, what does Kendrick sound like over accordion? What does he sound like over Raid or.

[Cole Kushna]

I mean, we've kind of got. The closest taste we have is no parties in la. The Kanye feature. Right. And I like that verse, but people.

[Justin Sayles]

Room don't like that verse.

[Cole Kushna]

I know. I. I think Kendrick easily outrapped Kanye. Connie sounds like he's struggling to have air in his lungs the whole time. He sounds out of Shape. Anyways, let's not. Let's not get sidetracked.

[Justin Sayles]

Anyways, anyways, that's the right call. I just wanted to do that thought exercise because you guys are bringing it up, but that's the right call.

[Cole Kushna]

Look at this. Look how iconic. I'm just. Sorry. I'm just, like, basking in how iconic both of those album covers are together side by side.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, that's also the thing where I was just like, oh, if I'm being real, I think the Mad Villainy cover might be the best cover. On this. On this board, on. On. These are all iconic. But I'm like, my eye keeps going back to that cover, and I'm just like, oh, it is so good.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Justin Sayles]

I think Solange is the second best.

[Cole Kushna]

I think so, too. I really, really. I really like that cover. It's beautiful.

[Justin Sayles]

But also, let me say, I know you guys don't watch a lot of basketball, because this bracket. I'm fine with how we did it, but you're supposed to be going up and down. Mad Villainy should have been going against Daft Punk. Oh, sorry. Sorry. To all the basketball heads out there. You see that ct. CT over here sees it.

[Cole Kushna]

We'll get to the.

[Justin Sayles]

It's all good. Because they all have to go against each other in some way.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Justin Sayles]

Just saying. Jimmer would not be that proud. Cole.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay, so we're ready to move on to Daft Punk versus Lemonade. A very interesting pairing. A very interesting pairing.

[Charles Holmes]

It's Daft Punk easily. It's Daft Punk easily.

[Cole Kushna]

Easily, easily. Why?

[Charles Holmes]

A. The sheer amount of hits. The sheer amount of hits that have persisted. A lot of what. When we talk about Lemonade, a lot of what we're talking about is our feelings about Lemonade, our feelings about the moment, our pride that Beyonce finally shut up. All the naysayers, that she wrestled back music history into her corner. All of the things that is why I adore Beyonce as an artist. But if we are talking about projects that define the 21st century, how it sounds, how it moves, how it feels when you are in a disco club in France or you were shopping in middle of America, Daft Punk tells that story. Daft Punk tells that story far before Kanye samples stronger. They have helped. They helped tell that story, whether it was through how they were fusing rock and electric and anime and all of these things, what they were able to achieve. And I think a lot of people would be like, but Beyonce. And I was just like, ye. But let's talk like, if we're Just strictly talking like the music.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Not like the videos, not like the anything. If you just like. If we put both albums on back to back, which one are you? Just like, oh, my gosh, I can't even. I can't even imagine my life without Digital Love or Face to Face or Eddie. These records. It's just like, it's an easy matchup for me musically.

[Cole Kushna]

I love Beyonce, you know, I love Lemonade.

[Charles Holmes]

We both love Beyonce musically.

[Cole Kushna]

And I'm. I'm going to put on my academic. I've got education in music. Daft Punk washes Lemonade. Daft Punk washes musically. Probably every album on this. On this bracket, on this entire thing. Like, we're just talking about technical accomplishment. Marrying pop sensibilities with. With virtuosic electronic instrumentation and arrangement, which is what essentially all these, all these albums at their heart, aside from the Strokes, are electronic music, you know, at the core. For stripping it down, these are not. Well, maybe Solange is an exception here too, but you know what I'm saying, like, we're sample based music, drum machines, all this stuff. If we're just in a vacuum talking musically, I think Daft Punk kind of just fucking terrorizes me the best out of.

[Charles Holmes]

Because here's the thing, we've been using work like, I've been using words, especially like scrapbooks, collage, like taking the history of music, recontextualizing it. That happens on my beautiful dark Twisted Fantasy, on Mad Villainy, on Blonde, on Lemonade, on top of Butt, like all of it. And to our point, Daft Punk does it the best. Like, even when you listen to it, you're just like, oh, these guys were ahead of their, like ahead of their time even back then.

[Cole Kushna]

It's kind of. I'm looking at this board and I'm like, is it like they're kind of like Mad Villain meets Twisted Fantasy almost in terms of like, they're able to synthesize all of that into one package that is just as. It feels just as epic as a. As a Twisted Fantasy, just as tasteful as a Mad Villainy. And am I arguing for Daft Punk over Lemonade? This is crazy because coming into the season, I was skeptical about Discovery, and now it's like one of my favorite.

[Charles Holmes]

Albums of all time because of this exercise. It has to move on. It has to move on.

[Cole Kushna]

It's in your point about it's every. It's. It's like the, the top branch at the tree of musical influence of the 21st century, I think, in terms of like, like what a lot of. Even if. Just, like, even in, like, if we condense it to pop, what's happening in pop music and what people are still trying to accomplish with electronics and making that palatable. Like, Daft Punk is at the origin point of that sound.

[Charles Holmes]

Specifically Charlie XCX in like, Brat Summer. But, like, that's indebted to something like, yeah, to a group like Daft Punk, right? Like, one of the biggest artists last year, Charlie xcx, like, she. She's coming off that branch that they help. Like, that they help build.

[Cole Kushna]

And even. I mean, I'll bring Taylor Swift in the Conversation album. Like, Reputation doesn't happen, I don't think. Definitely not in the same way without a Daft Punk laying the foundation for pop, electronic based music.

[Charles Holmes]

And people are like, here's the thing. People probably think we picked the wrong Daft Punk album. Most people are probably like, why don't you pick Random Access Memories? So that even shows you just how potent their discography is. Where most people will be like, damn, that's not even. The. Y' all are like, that's how good of a group. And I want to honor that because I do also think that Daft Punk gets a little underrated because you're like, oh, the helmets. It's kitschy. There's the anime influence, there's this, there's that. They don't do a lot of interviews anymore and they kind of get lost in the shuffle. And I'm like, still, even without the love. Because here's the thing, I got love. Like, it's breaking my heart. A black woman should win this whole thing. It's breaking my heart. I love Beyonce still. She not the robots. She not.

[Cole Kushna]

I mean, I. I'm okay with this only because I think Beyonce rightfully is already seen as a monolith. And I think advancing Daft Punk symbolically, as torturous as it is. You guys know I love lemonade. I did an entire season with TT on it. Go check it out. But I like honoring in the same way that I was pretty much okay with eventually Daft Punk winning over Kid A. Symbolically, I like them to get to the final three because I think it says a lot about rewarding them. They're kind of the underdogs here. They feel like the least represented. So I feel like I'm okay with it.

[Charles Holmes]

I will just say this is. They were the darkest of Dark Horses. If you would have told me when.

[Cole Kushna]

We were making this season, I like it. I like it this far. I like It.

[Charles Holmes]

I'd have been like, what? What?

[Cole Kushna]

Justin, Are we gonna get killed for this take? Justin.

[Justin Sayles]

No.

[Cole Kushna]

All right.

[Justin Sayles]

I don't. I really don't think. I really don't think you will. I think that this is totally acceptable.

[Cole Kushna]

And if it feels crazy, just do what I did. Return to Discovery, and it'll win you over, because I have been won over. It is now one of my favorite albums of all time.

[Justin Sayles]

The 21st century looks a lot more like Discovery than it does Lemonade. Lemonade is a record that defines Beyonce where Discovery feels like a record that defines the century.

[Cole Kushna]

So far, very beautifully said. I think that's. I think that's right.

[Charles Holmes]

Well said.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

All right, so our three finalists. Frank Ocean's Blonde, Kendrick Lamar, Septima Butterfly, Daft Punk's Discovery. We're gonna have a little bit of a break when we're back. We're gonna get right into.

[Cole Kushna]

We're gonna name the. We're gonna name literally the last album standing.

[Charles Holmes]

Let's. Let's go. All right, y'. All. We are back. This is everything that this season, our friendship has been leading towards. Three albums left on the board. Frank Ocean's Blonde, Kendrick's Pimple, Butterfly. Daft Punk's Discovery. And where I want to start the conversation.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay.

[Charles Holmes]

Is I think one of the most beautiful things that has happened every season of Last Long Standing is I've noticed that you've gotten me to appreciate music that sometimes I've been very dismissive of and. And the way I listen to music has changed. My love for it after, like, being in the trenches as a journalist and just getting disillusioned has come back full force. But also, over the course of the season, sharing albums, like, seeing how much you love Daft Punk now and, like, that has been, like, just so great to see. So through the course of this season, has there been any moments where you're just like, oh, fuck, Like, I didn't think I would rate this album so high on a re. Listen.

[Cole Kushna]

Well, it's definitely. I would not have ever guessed Daft Punk would be top three, but I feel fucking fantastic about it. So that's the biggest takeaway is Daft Punk for me. But I will say, to your point about listening to music differently, what I. Not only this season, all seasons, and I mentioned this pre pod, but I think I. You know, me, I tend to gravitate towards music that is ambitious, that is thematic, that has concepts, that has Easter eggs, that is very explicit in its messaging. Thematically, where I think you have done a really great job at selling the importance of implicit music being important. Something that's not. It might not feel thematic on its face, but it's just as important as a more explicit thematic album a la your conversations about Future and his importance to the history of hip hop or a young thug or people that I don't typically talk a lot about. And I've definitely learned to appreciate that side of specifically hip hop a lot more through your. Your personal taste and the way you talk about music. So it's probably the favorite part of my. About doing the show with you is just this is. This is why it was. It was repaired each other as a mismatch where it's like, we're coming at. We both love music. We share a lot of overlap in our tastes, but we listen differently. And I love the fact that we are able to. To help each other become better listeners through.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, no, I. I could not agree more. Like, I say this all the time after every single season. Like, you reinvigorate my love for music every single time we do this exercise. And I think with that one question, we really do have to ask, because a lot of people might be seeing in the board and be like, yo, how's Daft Punk gonna go against Tapemba Butterfly and Blonde? And the thing that I'm wrestling with at this point is can an album that is dance and electronic forward, where what it is trying to do is different than a Blonde or a Pimp, a Butterfly, where to me there's a nar. We discussed it on Discovery. There's a narrative core to that album in terms of, like, Daft Punk wanting to honor the nostalgia of the music, the tv, the experiences that they had when they were young French kids. But the music is serving a purpose that is hard to compete with Blonde into Pimp Butterfly, where it's supposed to get you moving, it's supposed to get you feel the groove. You're supposed to be dancing. And that's something I love. I love dance music. And I think that influentially, like, the influence of, like, Discovery in. In just the texture of the 21st century is unimpeachable. But it's really, really difficult to go against Blonde into Pimple Butterfly because they're doing the. The next thing where because of their lyrical density and their subject matter, it's doing something that Daft was never really trying to do. Put that. Yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

No, it puts him at a disadvantage, I think, in the conversation. As much as we praised Discovery in terms of its influence, I don't think specifically Blonde necessarily sounds exactly how it does without a discovery laying foundations that kind of work its way everywhere and permeate it's tentacles in every sector of music, including hip hop, R and B, pop rock. I mean it's just. It's everywhere. And what I love about now just realizing we do are representing electronic music, hip hop and air quotes, R and B. You know. And I think we have a pretty. A good survey as much as you can through three albums of the 21st century and the story of it. So I'm glad actually we landed right here. I think the only thing missing is rock. But as we. We already touched on earlier rock kind of fizzled out by the 2010s.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

And so.

[Charles Holmes]

So then what when we talk about Blonde verse to Pimp a Butterfly?

[Cole Kushna]

Well let's. We haven't really talked about Blonde yet in this episode. Which maybe we should start there because. Well 1. Why did it even get an automatic advance to the finale, the final bracket in your mind. What about Blonde is just. Yeah, it's just automatically in the conversation as the best I know I get.

[Charles Holmes]

On my soapbox about in moments like this. So I apologize. I don't get to be very effusive very often. I think I like. I think R B is one of the most disrespected musical genres in America. And I've been in any music history. And I think I've been very explicit in past episodes. So when I like if you would have told me as a kid when I was listening to Hot 97 Kiss FM, all of these things that one of the most important albums that everyone recognize. White, black, straight, bi, trans, whatever would be made by a black queer man that is coming from an R B tradition. I never would have thought it like to. To know that we have so much farther to go. But to think that we would get this far. To think Frank would get there honoring and pushing forward something that is like these are the first. The first sounds that I'm hearing as a kid. You know, Stevie Wonder and Tony Braxton and Michael Jackson and, and. And Barry man like just on and on Marvin Gay. But there was something especially at my life and I think so many people share this about Frank Ocean's Blonde. I think he located something not only about the human experience, about the black experience. How I think the really insidious thing about racism is that you're fighting so much just for your ability to live that you rarely think about what it means to thrive, what it means to be your full self, what it means to show that duality in your sexuality and your gender. And that is such a difficult thing to just explain to someone in a conversation.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

And then to do it on an album and then for that album, not just to be good, not just to be great, but to be transformative.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

Is just like. It's, it's. It's the reason I do. Like, it's the reason I wake up in the morning. I saw this tweet recently where people, like, people listen to music every day. I'll laugh. I'm like, yo, if you measured the amount of music I just consume in a day, when I'm washing dishes, when I'm at the gym, when I'm in my car, when I'm just writing, when everything thing, it's unimaginable. And it's because of albums like Blonde. This has gotten me through the darkest times of my life. It's just. Sorry, sorry I went so long. Like, it's like it has to be in this conversation.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, no, that's really eloquently stated. I think I'll add to it the musicality of the album being something that we. We're putting air quotes around R B because Blonde to me is. It's of an R B tradition. You can. Maybe that's the best tracking of it, but it's not. To me, it's not an R B album. I don't know where I would classify it as. And I think that's what I love about it is like it is so effortlessly genre defying that it reflects the themes that you're talking about in terms of like not being able to put anyone in a box. Be it musically, be it gender, sexuality. There's a. Just a synthesis of influence that he's able to do. And then you think about individual songs like a white Ferrari or a Nights. And we talked a lot about how does Frank go from point A. And then all of a sudden two minutes later you're an entire another sonic universe. Yet it doesn't never feels forced, it never feels out of place. Everything serves a. Either a musical or thematic purpose. And I think when we listen to an album like Daft Punk, it kind of wows you. It's a more of a spectacle of music production where it's like we broke down face by face or face to face. We broke down the sample flip in one more time and it. It feels more impressive in that way. But I think Blonde is just as musically deft as a Daft Punk and as a probably superior, I would say in Terms of. To Pimp a Butterfly, it doesn't wow you with it, but, like, we think about the moment in self control. And those. My favorite. One of my favorite moments of the 21st century of those strings and the I I kind of anthem at the end. Or you think about the white Ferrari parts that we isolated or the Beat Switch and Night. These are production. Musical masterpieces, masterworks. Moments of, you know, singular moments of. Yeah, it takes to. To create a moment in music like that. It's not just the moment. It's everything that comes before, it's everything that comes after it. And it's like Frank is a virtuosic producer. Maybe he's not playing everything, but it's like in the same vein as a Kanye. He's curating everything. He's the puppeteer above it all. And he's assembling things in a way that has been unmatched. I can't. I can't even think of an album that compares with Blond on a production like what sounds like Blonde, yet it's. You could hear the influence, but it's like every great album where it's often imitated but never, you know, duplicated. I don't think anyone has really come close in the lane that Frank is occupying in matching it. It's the same conversation with Daft Punk. How many people, justice or how many people after Daft Punk punk tried to reach the heights musically of a Daft Punk and just can't. Can't get there? And I think we can say the same thing for Blonde, but I don't think people talk about that aspect of Blonde enough. But we can also say the same thing with Tip of Butterfly. Conceptually, I think if we're weighing which, you know, what each of these albums brings to the table. I think Blonde or I think Tabimba Butterfly, to me, brings. We already touched on it, but it brings the highest execution of a concept record in music history. One of them. It is able to effortlessly encapsulate A moment in time explicitly. But he was successful at it. And I think you can have a conversation. You could probably have the most explicit conversation about the 21st century through to Pimp a Butterfly. Whether I think that's enough to make it the ultimate winner, I don't know. But I think that's over all the other. Over the other two albums. I think that's what it has in its favor if we're trying to start to whittle this thing down.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah. I think when I look at To Pimp a Butterfly, to your point, it does the best job of. If you are an alien coming down to Earth, I'm not talking about necessarily all of the feelings of the 21st century, but if you are. If you are trying to locate how we got here, to this moment where a black kid from Compton makes good on the American dream and then travels and then realizes that he is connected to a history of pain and suffering and that Uncle Sam and Lucy and all of these forces are not just keeping him, but his people subjugated. That, like, when we're. When we wake up in 2025 and we're just like. Like, this is. We are living in a fucking totalitarian state. All of this shit. Da, da, da, da. You go back to Butterfly and it's. It's all you can. To your point, it is a. It is a chapter of a history book. That's what makes this album so great.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

And I think what Blonde does is that it encapsulates the 20. If. If to Pimple, Butterfly is encapsulating the story and the text of the 21st century. Blonde, to me, is encapsulating the feeling. And that, to me, is. Is what music is best at doing. Where there is something primal and caveman like about drums and rhythm and when someone sings and the feeling of just wanting to. Like when you. I love, like, new babies when they're hearing music, because you're just like. They don't understand what this is, but there is something just in the human condition that they just start moving and they just start grooving. And a baby, like, a lot of people tell you, like, babies are the purest listeners of music. Cause they have not been infected by everything. They just like. It is just how this makes them feel. And to me, Blonde is that type of record. Blonde is like, how does it feel to be in the 21st century? At a time where I think it's interesting when I think about Blonde versus Tapempa Butterfly, where to me, Blond does his great job of trying to be like, all right, what. What does it mean to be human in the 2000s, the 2000s, and then the 2000s? What does sexuality mean? What does gender mean? What does it like, how does that feel? How do. How is our memories being erased? Like, I know I made so much fun about Facebook story, but how are our memories and the way that we love people getting ruined by technology? All of that is in Blonde. But then again, for Tapemba Butterfly, I think with that record, Kendrick Lamar was actually saying something very, very deep. Of like, yo, if you don't. If you think that this can just happen to me, to black people, y' all are fucking kidding yourselves. If you think the. The. The infection of the American experiment is just going to come attack us, you're wiling. And if anybody's woken up today, that is very, very true. If they could take away your rights, they could take away anyone's rights. And I'm like, what do you think? It's a pimp of Butterfly.

[Cole Kushna]

Like, it's all in there.

[Charles Holmes]

It was all like, yeah. And you. What. That's the thing. What do you reward?

[Cole Kushna]

That's hard because I think for me, Blonde feels like the more universally timeless album in terms of, like, Frank is so good at capturing. We talked about it on the episode, but, like, you know, we think of a song like Pink and White where he's reflecting on his childhood, thinking about things maybe not going the way he wanted or circumstances outside of your control, but finding the beauty in it, not only philosophically through the lyrics, but also you just get the feeling of that beauty in the song itself. And I think when you think about love and loss and heartbreak and all the things he's able to capture and the feeling of a white Ferrari and everyone having that experience of the last conversation with someone that you've loved and knowing that they're out after this conversation, after this car ride, they're out of your life forever. That's a universal. That's just something we all experience at some point in our life. And so I think what Blonde has going for it is it has all the kind of historical things that you're talking about, but there's a. Another layer on top of or under that. Is. Is it does. I don't know, it does capture, like, the beauty of life. And I know it's a cliche to say, but there's. He's. For some reason, he's able to. I mean, it's all about nostalgia and recoloring your memories, you know? And I think the beauty of Blonde, where, obviously, to people, Butterfly is a beautiful album, but Blonde makes you feel the blue, the beauty in your blood.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

Where it's like you cut, you. You take away. You end up, you know, at the end of To Bimpa Butterfly. It's a very sobering record. Right. Once you hear Tupac disappearing and Kendrick calling out for him, and Tupac disappearing, symbolically, what is that saying? You know, Tupac died when he was 25, and there's a history behind why that happens. And so when it you know, it. It's like we're on two sides of the same coin here. Where Blonde is giving you the important feeling of what keeps us going in terms of the beauty of life, where Kendrick is forcing us to feel some of the tragic elements of life as well. So it's.

[Charles Holmes]

If we were having the conversation, the most important artist of the 21st century, should we just.

[Cole Kushna]

I think we're circling around Blonde to Pimp a Butterfly. Do we.

[Charles Holmes]

Daft Punk to me is out.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay. I love you, Daft Punk.

[Charles Holmes]

I love you, Daft Punk to me. That's hard.

[Cole Kushna]

Okay, let me formally remove it from the board.

[Charles Holmes]

That was rough. What I will say as we try to make this decision, if we were arguing the most important artists of the 21st century, I think Kendrick Lamar would have a great, almost unimpeachable case where we see what's happened to Kanye. We've seen what's happened to Drake. I think he has become more important than Beyonce just because I think Beyonce's has kind of the problem that I think Jay Z does, where a lot of their best music comes in the 90s, or at least in the early 2000s. So there's kind of like a break point. So I think Kendrick Lamar is a more important artist of the 21st century probably than a Frank Ocean, but I think I'm leaning towards Frank Ocean's Blonde is the more important, better album that encapsulate the 21st century, because, as we always say, the cliche thing we're saying is, which one would you hand to an alien? And before I hand an alien a text on everything that's kind of gone wrong in the 20th and 21st century, I would want to hand him an album that shows them the beauty, the heartbreak, the pain, and then the resolve of the human condition. And I think Blonde does that a little bit better than Tipimba Butterfly.

[Cole Kushna]

I agree with the sentiment. I would say if we're trying to. If I'm trying to make a case for Timimba Butterfly, I do think what you said is true. Kendrick Lamar, to me, I'm not sure I'm ready to put him over Beyonce, but it's. You know, I think it's kind of a neck and neck race between the two. And of course, I'm gonna prefer Kendrick. I think the discography is one of the. I mean, what. What Frank is lacking is just is music. He only have two albums and a mixtape from him. And I think this part of the conversation would be much different if he was more consistent with his releases in terms of like Frank being looked at as a Kendrick, where I think there was a trajectory at one point in time where he could have been up there in this conversation. He just. He's just not outside enough. You know, he's not performing live, he's not releasing albums, and that's totally fine if that's what he wants to do. But I do think Kendrick, if we're in court, if we're just taking the artist, Frank Ocean versus Kendrick Lamar. We have to think about everything that happened this last year with Kendrick. If we're talking about hip hop as the most important genre of the 21st century, I think what he has done in terms of keeping the essence of hip hop alive, and I wouldn't say gatekeeping it, but I mean, I think the large part of the battle with Drake this last year was this kind of this symbolic fight between the future of hip hop and where it's going. And I think Kendrick took the reins of hip hop, and I think it's set it on a new trajectory where I think it was trending in the wrong direction, in my opinion, for a while. And so I think important. I think Kendrick Lamar's importance to the most important genre of the century is something that we should acknowledge. And I think all of that is encapsulated in a work like Butterfly. I think Butterfly shows you how a piece of art can, I wouldn't say necessarily change the world, but it certainly draws attention to issues in a way that I don't think any other art form really can. Because you're talking about an album that is saying all the historical things that we've been talking about that is, however many times, platinum album reaching millions and millions of people across the world. There's not really another art form, aside from film that could really do that. But the thing I always say about music, you listen to music every day, all day, where you sit down, you can watch. You maybe watch a few films a week, and you're only watching your favorite films maybe once or twice every couple years, where Timimba Butterfly and music in general, it soundtracks our life in a way that is really unique as an art form. It's the only art form I can think of that does that. And so when we're talking about coloring the 21st century, I think. I think the impact of Kendrick Lamar and Timpa Butterfly in this conversation just cannot be overstated. That being said, I think what you said about Blond is, like, incredibly important. And I think I'm a. You know, me, I. I Love music, capturing the feeling of being alive and what it means to be human. And I would agree that it does it. The beauty of life, which can be sometimes hard to see and feel at times, is captured in Blonde in a way that I think is just really, really special. And I don't know if I can think of another album in this century that does it as well as Blonde. When I listen to a song like Self Control, a song like Siegfried, even a song like Nights, it's like. It is some of the highest emotional highs listening to music I can ever. I've ever experienced, you know?

[Charles Holmes]

So. And here's the thing. I think what you said about Frank being maybe like a ding against him might be his greatest asset, where I think for Kendrick, almost, I think he had to sacrifice a lot to take Drake out, if I'm going to be honest, because I'm at a point now where I'm just, like, oversaturated on Kendrick. And that's nothing that has to do with him. That's more so the culture in general. And obviously that's not going to weigh that heavily in our conversation. But I do think that I'm like, I actually prefer the fact that Frank Ocean is more of a. He's the type of artist where it's like, he gave us a perfect album. Now he's off doing whatever he wants to do to do. Because I'm just like, if he was on the trajectory where even he was releasing an album every two or three years, I don't think we would talk about Blonde the same way. I think we're allowed to have so many amazing things to say about Blonde because Frank hasn't said that much about it. Frank has let it live on. He's let it breathe. He's off making jewelry and conquering whatever else he's fucking doing. I would love some more Frank Ocean music. Do not get me wrong. That's not what I'm saying.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

But I also just do think that, like, there was no doubt in my mind that Blonde would get here. I had doubts in my mind that Topimpa Butterfly could beat Good Kid Mad City. And in the next 25 years, I do not think we will consider Tupimpa Butterfly kendrick's best album. And that has nothing to do with Tupimpa Butterfly and everything to do with how talented of an artist Kendrick Lamar is.

[Cole Kushna]

Let's bring in Justin. We're not asking you to decide at all, but I would like your opinion on the conversation we've been having. Having.

[Justin Sayles]

I've gone back and forth on this a lot, and I have, like, literally been sitting here consulting reviews and Metacritic and, like, websites that aggregate scores and reviews. And the more traditional or the more consensus pick is To Pimp A Butterfly. Now, we don't need to necessarily go with that. I think Emotionally Blonde feels right to me on many levels. It's funny, me personally, when I put To Pimp A Butterfly away, sometimes I'm like, this is my second favorite Kendrick album. Or this is my third favorite Kendrick album. Then I break it back out and I'm like, holy shit, what was I even thinking? This is so good. Why could I even think that? I think because the type of music I listen to more casually might resemble Damn. A little bit more.

[Charles Holmes]

I might.

[Justin Sayles]

You know, just. All of his projects are so good. Something about Blonde really feels right to me, though. And I'm not saying that you should make the decision based on that, because like I said, a lot of the critics, a lot of the scores, a lot of the voting, a lot of the aggregated things they would say to Pimp A Butterfly is not only the bet. One of the best albums of the 21st century. Not only the best album of the 21st century, but one of the best albums of all time.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah, but I. You guys know I love To Pimp a Butterfly, but Blonde to me is there right there.

[Charles Holmes]

Blonde to me is right there. I don't. Here's the thing, man. You guys, I just have to say, because I fell in love. I fell in love again with T. Pimpa Butterfly. Like, I really, really did in this exercise. Like. But I just think it is Blonde. I just really, really. I wanna. I wanna.

[Cole Kushna]

Should we return to the categories to see if that helps us sway? I think, because. Not that it's gonna call it, but let's just quickly go biggest song versus biggest song. Pink and White versus All right. I think. All right.

[Charles Holmes]

All right. Yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

All right. Best song.

[Charles Holmes]

Wesley's Theory verse I had Nights Knights.

[Cole Kushna]

Or Self Control or Self Control is your deep cut.

[Charles Holmes]

Even if we did Nights or Self Control, I think Knights and Self Control are better songs in Wesley's Theory. Even though I love Wesley's Theory, I.

[Cole Kushna]

Will agree in my heart. I think Self Control is a better song than Wesley.

[Charles Holmes]

Worst song, I don't think will help a lot.

[Cole Kushna]

I don't think it means best deep cut. The low. I will say the lows of Blonde feel less low. The lows of Tabimba Butterfly. Generally speaking, I would say there's not to say that we're talking again. Reminder. This is a 99 out of 100 album and a 99 out of 100 or 100. You know, these are perfect albums. So the low. When I say low, it's like we're not talking about low anyways.

[Charles Holmes]

And then the alright moment is bigger than the endless Def Jam.

[Cole Kushna]

It is. But I agree. But I don't know if we should undersell symbolically what Frank did as an artist, because I think it was important. I think it is an inflection point of something that's been happening in music in terms of, like, artists understanding the importance of their independence and record labels being less and less significant in terms of making yourself an art, you know, be heard. There's. There's more ways to. To put yourself out there now. Artists are less. Less dependent on albums than ever before. And I think. I think it's important to acknowledge that aspect of Blonde, what it means symbolically to artistry in general. In terms of, like, this is an independent release. That to me is very important that Frank Ocean owns the copyright and the masters to that album.

[Charles Holmes]

Not only that, a queer black man with one debut album under his belt pulls off one of the biggest coups in, like, music history. Like, in terms of just like, getting himself out of his deal, getting his masters, releasing everything on his terms. Gaining control, to your point, I think has been the fight of recorded music since it has been a thing. And yes, all right. I think culturally has that. But in terms of just like the music industry and the importance of artists fighting to get as much control and much power as their art, you know what it is?

[Cole Kushna]

It's exactly what Kendrick talks about in Uncle Sam.

[Charles Holmes]

Frank did it, Frank did. So that is. And then if we go deep cuts, it's just like, I think White Ferrari is better than hood politics.

[Cole Kushna]

I would say the same thing too, but. I would say the same thing too. Like.

[Charles Holmes]

But. But there's other. Like, what other? Like you, to me, is just as important and just as narratively dense and as complex as anything fucking. On.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

On whatchamacall.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. So the categories maybe don't help us.

[Charles Holmes]

But don't help us. All right, if we were talking about. I think Kendrick has it, as he is the more important artist of the 21st century. I think it is. He has the better discography over Frank. Is there anything. Do you also think that a lot of what we're talking about when we're talking about Dipimpa Butterfly, or at least the critical consensus around it, is Kendrick Lamar has so many good albums and has so many moments. I think a lot of times we are looking for an album when we point to it. We're not just talking about the album. We are talking about. We want to honor what this artist is doing and has done where it's like you like. I don't think Tapimba Butterfly might be your favorite Kendrick Lamar project anymore. Just personally might be Mr. Morale.

[Cole Kushna]

But yeah, I mean, I would say it's interesting. You guys know my love for the album. It changed my life in many ways has. I think Blonde has aged better for me. Like, I appreciate Blonde more and more where I think my appreciation for Tip of a Butterfly will never expire. But seeing what Kendrick has done after, you can have the case. Like, to me, Mr. Morale didn't do all the cultural things that to Pippa Butterfly did. That was a once in a lifetime timing aligned. So many things align for that album to be what it is and it captures that moment in time. But a Mr. Morale to me is just as important conceptually, thematically that that album you can actually change your life through if you follow the blueprint that Kendrick lays out on that album. So Blonde to me, maybe because it is so singular and we haven't got too much from Frank. I. It has aged. It gets. It's getting better and better and better with age. Where I think To Pimp a Butterfly to me just is lightning in a bottle in terms of like, here's 2015 in America.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah.

[Cole Kushna]

And it captures that so incredibly well that. Yeah, I can. I get why it's the obvious pick, but I'll just reveal to you, throughout this entire exercise, even when we started it, in my heart of hearts, it's kind of always been blonde. It's kind of always been blonde.

[Charles Holmes]

It's always been blonde, which is so.

[Cole Kushna]

Weird to hear me to say I'm the typical Butterfly fucking guy.

[Charles Holmes]

I actually thought that it was gonna. I don't know if we're ready to pick Blonde. I actually was very, very worried that Blonde would struggle against A Pimp of Butterfly. Because I think if we were just going based off the categories lined out, you know, I think To Pimp a Butterfly has the bigger song. It has a bigger cultural moment. It has the critical consensus on its. On its side. And when we even do. Even though I think songs like Self Control and Nights might be. Be better than like a Wesley's theory, once again we're talking about like point, point, point, point. Like just like. Like just. We're. We're getting so close for the fans I feel like we could be like, hey, yo, Kendrick is the most important artist of the 21st century so far.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah.

[Charles Holmes]

But I think we both agree that Blonde is the. The best. Is. Has to be the last album standing of the 21st century so far.

[Cole Kushna]

Think about it. Nike's Ivy, Pink and White solo self control, White Ferrari, Siegfried, Futura Free solo reprise. Like, think about nights.

[Charles Holmes]

Nights. How we felt watching him build the fucking staircase. Endless. Just. I don't. I think it has to be Blonde.

[Cole Kushna]

Guys, I'm ready to call it. I'm going. I'm going. Frank Ocean's Blonde. Frank Ocean, last album standing.

[Charles Holmes]

Justin, did we make the right choice?

[Cole Kushna]

Jazz, your final referee role of the season.

[Justin Sayles]

I feel great about this. I feel great. This also feels fitting. And this is the point where I tell you that the real prize after a couple years is I actually got the cock rings. So if you guys really want to.

[Charles Holmes]

Have a white boy summer, honestly, I feel great about this pick.

[Cole Kushna]

I do, too. It's. I. And also, it's not the obvious one. I think people, if they're betting, it would be. They would be betting on to Pimp a Butterfly.

[Charles Holmes]

I was betting on to pimp a Butterfly.

[Cole Kushna]

Such I was involved. But everyone knows I love to be my Butterfly. But there is something un. Like, I can't. I can't precisely articulate what Blonde does to me emotionally, but every time I listen to it, every time I put it on, it makes me feel things consistently throughout the entire thing. That it's why I love. Like It To Be a Butterfly does the same thing, but there's something more visceral about Blonde. The way it fucking just touches my soul in a way that there's just some. Like, when I hear self control and I hear that part that I always point to, like, that there. That is the transcendent quality of music that. But it's the reason why I love music. It's the reason why I'm so passionate about music is for precisely moments like that. And if I'm just being true to what I feel in my soul, it's Frank Ocean's Blonde.

[Charles Holmes]

I couldn't have said it better myself, man. It's. I could not. When we started this, I was like, man, you know, this is. This season might be really too easy. We're not going to argue. This has been the musketeer. Like, I was walking out of here. I was like, yo, I can't believe. How are you feeling? Like we did it, bro.

[Cole Kushna]

All right. I'm so. This is beautiful. I Love the journey we take every season. And I love that we end up. We always end up, like, pretty much, like, agreeing, like, aligned.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah, there was a lot of fights to get here, but also, it's funny, as much as I was, like, fighting, like, on each individual episodes, when I actually saw the list, like, outside of the game format of trying to win, I was just like, all right, we did it. Like, we, like, we did it. Like we, like. If anyone wants to argue, like, here's the thing, you can argue. You could be like, you could have picked this, you could have picked that. But I do think that there is a level of, like, we picked at least one album that every music fan I think could point to and be like, yeah, that changed my life.

[Cole Kushna]

And this is. I mean, let's call it what it is. It's just an excuse to revisit these fucking beautiful albums. And I think that's my favorite part about doing this, is just the gimmick and the structure is one thing, but I just want to talk about some of the best music that we've experienced in our lifetimes.

[Charles Holmes]

Yeah. And I think it's in the same way you added. You went back to Discovery, you went back to Daft Punk and found something in it. You know, my Radiohead journey is a little bit different than yours. I'm a little younger than you, so actually getting to sit down with Kid A, hear it, appreciate it. I'm listening to Kid A. Like, it's broke through into just my, like, my daily rotation. Like, it's helped me get through stuff that I'm dealing with in my life. It's just like, I think that same thing when, like, Solange, that album was so important to me at a point, and then just certain things happen. You're like, I can't listen to this album anymore. There's too many memories attached to it. And you go back to it and you. You re fall in love. So I've been able to re. Fall in love with albums and artists and moments in a way. And that's why I was just like, hey, before we go back to the old last song, Standing Structure, I will like, once again letting you through the door. We had. We had another artist, a couple artists we were thinking of, and then Justin was like, hey, yo, guys. This is kind of like, the only time you can do this.

[Cole Kushna]

Yeah. 25 year mark. So, yeah, if hit us up for your suggestions for next season, because I think we have, like, kind of something we want to do.

[Charles Holmes]

But I think there's artists that will be hard to beat. And you guys could probably guess who it is, but, hey, years a long time. You know, at any point, somebody can supplant that shit. What's going on, Justin?

[Justin Sayles]

Is this finally when we do the Cameron season?

[Charles Holmes]

Hell yes. Hell yes.

[Cole Kushna]

I want to do a clip season now.

[Charles Holmes]

Clips.

[Cole Kushna]

How fun would that be?

[Charles Holmes]

Don't. All right.

[Cole Kushna]

Or Daft Punk season. Anyways, we'll. We'll decide.

[Charles Holmes]

We'll.

[Cole Kushna]

Charles, this was beautiful. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, thank you.

[Charles Holmes]

And also thank you to every. Every. Every single person that has touched this podcast this season. It is, I think, one of the great joys of me moving to the west coast is this is the first season that we've got to do in person. But because of that, there are countless editors and producers and just people who we have brought in to help make this possible. So thank you to all of them.

[Justin Sayles]

Can I just shout out really quick? Because we got CT here.

[Charles Holmes]

Ct, my man.

[Justin Sayles]

We got Chris Wallers, who was manning the. The first couple. We had Felipe in here.

[Charles Holmes]

We got Kevin.

[Cole Kushna]

Kevin. Kevin's editing every episode.

[Justin Sayles]

Kevin. And then Jonathan Ratliff is the one who put together this beautiful set.

[Cole Kushna]

Yep, beautiful.

[Charles Holmes]

Don't forget. Thank you to Yassi. Thank you to Rob Harvilla.

[Justin Sayles]

Yeah, always. Always. Thank you to Yasi and Rob Parvilla.

[Cole Kushna]

And thank you to the. The listeners and taking this journey with us. Tell us.

[Charles Holmes]

Thank you to the fans.

[Cole Kushna]

Thank you.

[Charles Holmes]

Y' all were kicking our ass. I. I, like, usually, like, people get mad, but, like, I was reading some of the comments. I'm like, yo, people love these. They are coming. People making Tik Toks be like, oh, I can't believe.

[Cole Kushna]

All right, man. Beautiful journey. Love you, man.

[Charles Holmes]

Love you, man. Hell yeah.