Hi, everyone. Onthony Trendtano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. And today in this video, I'm hoping to do a bit of an interesting collective retrospective where a series of writers from The NeedleDrop and I are going to be talking about a series of records that have just turned 20 this year.

In fact, these little conversations you're about to see are a part of a larger piece on the website right now that basically tribute and point out a series of records that, again, have become classics at this point, have turned 20, have maintained quite a bit of cultural weight over that point in time, and just drawing attention back to them and talking about what still makes them great today.

So this video here is essentially an extension of that with a handful of writers involved in the piece, going back and talking about some of these albums from Madonna, from Sufjan Stevens, Gorillaz, and more. So that's essentially that. Let's get into the whole thing.

Gorillaz - Demon Days

Anthony Fantano: Drew.

Drew Simmons: Anthony.

Gorillaz, Demon Days. That's the one you went with. It's 20 years old. Why does that even matter?

I don't know. It's weird, giving a retrospective look on an album that I was five years old when it came out. Why does it still matter? It's because it's fucking awesome. That's really the only thing that you can really say on it, looking back from 20 years. I think the fact that Gorillaz is still around right now is almost a miracle because it seemed like a gimmick back in the day. I feel like the first album probably was viewed as that. Again, I wasn't necessarily there to see the musical landscape of the time, but I feel like they came out with Demon Days that people undeniably knew that this was a musical outfit that had to be respected.

I'll say this as somebody who was a lot older during that time and witnessed a very interesting, I'll say, limbo period for the band. I think there was a point in time where me and everybody who might have been watching MTV around this era were completely blown away by the "Clint Eastwood" song, music video, just all of that. During that period of time, sales exposure – most, if not all of that – was just CD-based. You're going to the store off of a hot single, off of a track you really liked, you buy the CD, and that's how you're hearing the whole album for the most part. And I'll tell you, there was a good period of years where a lot of people bought that CD and immediately afterwards, chucked it into the used bin because there's nothing else on that album that sounds like "Clint Eastwood." And I think a lot of people went into the record, maybe knowing the Damon Albarn connection a little bit, but mostly went into expecting to hear more like that. I don't think they really fully understood what Damon, and maybe even Damon didn't know, what Damon's potential full vision was in terms of all the genres, all the sounds, and all the world building that he wanted to do with Gorillaz.

And then we're being hit with over a dozen other tracks, some of which are dancier, some of which are punkier. And "Clint Eastwood" seems to be the lone moment that feels that, but every single song on the album feels like a lone moment. You know what I mean? So it was a while before, not only this album, but a little bit later before people started to really fully understand, oh, "Wait a second. This is actually cool. We need to go back to this and actually appreciate it for what it was."

Yeah. I feel like, and this might not be necessarily true, but it's the way that I interpret it listening to them, is I feel like that first album, the debut, I feel like I don't hold it even close to in the same regard as "Demon Days" or "Plastic Beach." And I feel like Damon and anybody he's collaborating with were really going into the cartoon part of it, and they were trying to make their song sound like it would from a cartoon band. And I feel like then with "Demon Days," there's still songs that do sound like it, but I think he ditched that more and started going after sounds that actually sounded really good and songs that sounded really good on their own and really started blending genres in a way that wouldn't just be like, "Oh, this song sounds like it could be made by four cartoon monster people." I don't even know what they are necessarily. But yeah, Demon Days definitely was a turn that I feel made people realize– And it made me, from being that age, it was one of the first albums I ever listened to, start to finish.

Kind of like, "Oh, this is what music can do." It's not necessarily an experimental album, but it's still so weird and still mainstream at the same time, that I feel like that combination of weirdness and mainstream appeal, you don't really see too often anymore. I think that's why people are still listening to "Feel Good Inc." 20 years on, where songs by James Blunt that were popular at the same time now sound really dated and shitty, if we want to use that word here. But no, I think that there was not necessarily a ton of innovation, but just that ability to blend so many genres in such a mainstream way is something that hasn't been done too many times since.

That's a point I would like you to explain if you could, because I feel like out of all the albums that we're talking about in this video, and all of them are great in their own right, I feel like comparatively, and check me in the comments if you disagree and you tell me if you disagree, but I feel like out of all the records that we're talking about, and maybe even all the records that are in the 2005 piece in general on the website, I feel like this one has aged the least. I feel like this one feels and sounds like the most "today," as it were. I still see and hear people casually throwing on the bigger singles and "DARE" and so on and so forth from this record. Just being like, "Oh, Gorillaz, banger that we all like." There's something about the music on this record that seems to transcend music communities, regardless of what type of music is your specialty or whatever you focus on or are obsessed with the most. Everybody has a song or two off this record that they're absolutely in love with. I still feel like there's a lot of sounds and aesthetics and ideas that people still borrow for songs today on this thing.

Yeah, I definitely agree. But that's the thing. It's not to say other albums or songs that have maybe aged like they came from 2005 are bad songs, or they've even aged poorly.

No, absolutely not. I'm just saying there's, I guess, a timelessness to this one. That isn't to say that all these other albums are covered in dust on the shelf, and they're slowly becoming more irrelevant. But I guess it's just interesting because I guess the reason that this album doesn't sound like we can place it a certain era or certain years is because it doesn't necessarily feel based on a particular trend that was prevailing at the time, nor a trend that came after or wherever. It's a sound that you can't really attach to a certain moment that occurred at a certain type of space or context. And maybe a big reason as to why that is is like, Gorillaz just exist in their own fucking cartoon world context. Do you know what I mean? They don't exist in the real world. They don't exist in our world. They just exist in their weird little Gorillaz world. So I guess it makes sense that the music that they make just feels like it's in whatever frozen in time context that they're existing in.

Yeah, that's definitely part of it. I mean, quite literally, they don't age because they're cartoons. But the music itself, it's hard to trace back some of the influences. A song like "O Green World", where does that even fucking come from? That's just such a strange, weird, funky sound that could only come from a cartoon band like Gorillaz. It's so out there. It's so weird. I remember, I played that for my dad when I was 11 years old, and he was like, "Don't ever play that around me again. That was the weirdest thing you've ever played." And I was like, "I don't know, dude, I think it's pretty awesome." I mean, even "Feel Good Inc.," I still hear out all the time. I feel like there's younger people still starting to discover that song, specifically. And it still doesn't sound like anything else you're hearing anywhere else. I know it just hit over a billion streams recently. It means people are still constantly playing it. I worked at a school for three years, and I had a 16-year-old kid who tried putting me on to "Feel Good Inc."

He was like, "Yo, you hear this shit yet?" And he played it for me. I was like, "Yeah, dude, I know 'Feel Good Inc.,' but you I'm glad you found it. It's awesome." So yeah, there's just a certain timelessness. There's such a weirdness that I don't hear from the Gorillaz anymore themselves. I haven't heard that on their last few. A little bit in Song Machine, but not quite as much. There's this grittiness to this album, which is why I've always preferred Demon Days to Plastic Beach just a little bit more, because Danger Mouse's influence on it is so apparent, especially in the drums. There's just a little darker energy to it all the way through the record. There is on the album cover art as well. There is in all the music videos. Obviously, the lyrics are pretty weird, but they're pretty dark for the most part. It's a little pocket that I haven't seen Gorillaz get back into. They've been on some pretty bubble gummy synthy stuff recently, and I would love to see them get into that alternative grittier rock bag that they were in 2005, for sure.

Last comment on this: We were talking about the timelessness of the record, but what do you feel was put into this album to make it so endlessly replayable? Because there are some records, in my opinion, that I love, but they're very heavy listens, and I can't really put them on all the time because of just the nature of the experience, even though they are really incredible records that I hold in high regard. And there are some classic albums that they're great and we love them, and we continue to write about how great they are because they're touchstones and they're amazing, but maybe they don't continue to get the endlessly viral play that "Feel Good Inc." does. You know what I mean? They just stand there like a statue, and we visit them every once in a while just to remind ourselves that this is great. And we're supposed to remember that this is great because it did this and that, and the other thing. Gorillaz is a band that made an album here that, yeah, it's like one of those pillar records, but simultaneously, it's still an album that people just put on for fun, casually, because it's just so goddamn good to listen to.

Yeah. Again, they're all points that I've touched on at least a little bit, but it's so strange and so out there. But at the core of most of these songs is catchy melodies and usually very good bass lines in the back. Even though a lot of the bass lines are kind of simple, they're all still really just groovy and carry the tracks. The drums are sampled from a bunch of old funk songs from the 1960s and '70s that also really helped to drive each and every song. It's just unlike any real song or any real album from that time period. And I feel like now it's still becoming – because I talk with friends, I talk with students – it seems to be becoming more and more, especially for people who want to branch out into different genres of music because it combines so many different things. It's so tied to influences that you can't really pin down. It's become a pretty essential album, I feel, for a lot of people. It's become an essential album for white boys who like to get a little funky with it.

It's an accurate assessment. Thank you.

Opeth - Ghost Reveries

Anthony Fantano: Tyler, you essentially went here with the Opeth record Ghost Reveries for this 20-year commemoration of all these different albums.

Tyler Roland: Yes, that's correct.

What made you go with this one out of all of the records from that long ago? What's making this one really stand out you to this day?

Well, for this one, actually, it's a funny story. I did a "33⅓" pitch to the Bloomsbury series of books where each book is about an album from history, and I decided to write about Ghost Reveries, because to me, in my pitch – it ultimately did not get selected – but I used the tagline, It's a Swedish Sweet Spot, because of course, they're a Swedish band, and to me, Ghost Reveries represents a perfect distillation of all of their sounds. You have the earlier, more extreme stuff from albums like Blackwater Park, a little bit of black and death metal influence. Then, as you know, their more recent albums have been more progressive rock and '70s focused. Ghost Reveries, for one, it's got a perfect blend. You've got the extreme stuff for those who like the more hardcore metal. Then you have the more progressive influence with a full-time keyboardist added to the mix and some really great clean vocals. And the production is just so crisp, you could eat dinner off of it.

And with this time past that has gone by since the album has come out and the records has obviously really withstood the test of time, not just as a widely celebrated metal album, but one of the best in the band's discography, if not the best. Very few records and bands comparatively have done as well, critically and commercially, when it comes to fusing these two sounds together. What do you feel like Opeth brings to these styles of music by making these death metal elements and these progressive rock elements work in tandem?

Oh, well, that's a good question. When I first started getting into rock music and heavier music, I started with bands like Led Zeppelin. And then in high school, I was an edgy Tool fan. I don't listen to Led Zeppelin or Tool as much anymore, but they're both important to me. I think one thing you can say about the both of them is that they have a lot of dynamics, a lot of quiet/loud/quiet flow, and they bring both really intense stuff and also more subdued and brooding passages to their music as well. Opeth, when they're really firing on all cylinders, and they can be hit or miss, I won't lie, but on an album like Ghost Reveries, they take those after mentioned bands to school in some ways for me. Being hit with really pummeling extreme stuff, like parts of tracks like "Ghost of" Perdition or "The Baying of the Hounds," then also getting these acoustic passages that don't feel shoehorned in, which I feel was a problem with earlier Opeth material. It kind of sounds like riff salad. It's not all cohesive. Then you have some tracks which are just calm, like "Isolation Years," the closer, which I think they wanted to release as a single, but they thought that too many fans would jump on them for that.

But to answer your question, I think that Opeth take the idea of dynamics, and rather than making it awkward or stiff like they did on albums like Morningrise from 1996, they make it sound natural, and they turn up a dial that bands like Tool and Zeppelin were utilizing, I guess, for a lack of a better term.

How long have you been listening to this album? Just give me a bit of a timeline.

Well, I learned about Opeth around 2017 through Blackwater Park, and for a while, that was the only album I listened to, and that's probably their best known album. Ghost Reveries I didn't discover until later. The track that hooked me, actually, was the big single that they used to get the American market excited because they signed to Roadrunner, which was a major label, for this album. Bands like Nickelback are on Roadrunner. And they had this track, "The Grand Conjuration." And "The Grand Conjuration is pretty long." It's ten and a half minutes, but it's got a verse, chorus thing going on, which is unusual for Opeth. And it has these very Tool-like riffs, very excellent drumming and percussion, and that was the track that really hit me. And then I discovered, I think "Ghost of Perdition," because so many people call that among the best Opeth songs. It routinely ranks in the top five or three or the best. I know that track like the back of my hand, but it just yanked me around. I thought, "Damn, this is what I like. This is what I want Opeth to sound like."

Well, I ask because obviously the record was very well received by a lot of metal fans when it came out of the gate, and it's an album that you've had time to sit with as well. What do you feel like – despite the album being celebrated pretty soon upon release – have listeners and fans maybe come to learn about it, or you have come to learn about it, with the extended period of time that you've had to listen to it and observe other people having it grow with them over the past two decades?

Yeah. Well, in my book draft, doing my research, I found that the reception to the album when it came out, it had a lot of haters. A lot of people were scared that Opeth were going to go mall-core or whatever because all of the guitar tones were so clean and so perfect. Like, even Mikael Åkerfeldt said, "This is Journey death metal because it was so crisp." And then after that album, they came out with Watershed, which was a little weirder. Watershed is my personal favorite, but there were also some softer moments. Then I remember you did a review of this next one when it came out on your channel, Heritage, in 2011, and that's when they went full '70s prog, the retro review. Don't get me wrong, I like Heritage, but when that album came out, it caused a shit storm, and everything subsequently has been a mixed bag. Some people like it a lot, some people hate it, but none of Opeth's more modern albums really have entered the canon of metal, the way that Blackwater Park and Still Life and this album Ghost Reveries have. I think it marked a turning point for Opeth with much more of the keyboards coming in and more atmospheric softer passages driving things, but I think people also recognize it as having a healthy dose of real metal without sounding too forced. Like their last album that came out, The Last Will and Testament last year, it had the death growls come back a little bit, but it's still very prog-driven, if you know what I mean.

Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor

Anthony Fantano: Andy – Madonna, Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Andy Steiner: The one and only.

I mean, pretty significant moment in Madonna's career, considering the very bold embrace she made of dance music during this time period with a few different records. What makes this one in this era stand out for you and what makes you feel like it has held some water over the past 20 years?

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting because when you look at this portion of Madonna's career, Ray of Light and onward, I think that lately, particularly this year, Ray of Light and Music are the albums that are really getting their time to shine and getting a lot of recognition as key inspirations for people like FKA Twigs on Eusexua or Addison Rae on her album, and I think that those albums are obviously very significant and brilliant, too. But this one is really key, not just in how it sounds – and I think it sounds awesome. I think it's this really incredibly produced, rich dance-disco-electropop album that just feels so good in the ears. But also, at this point in her career, she had reinvented herself so many times. I think that people looked at Ray of Light as the last one that she was really capable of doing. Then a few years later, and she really comes back with this album that really owns her heritage, owns the dance floor that she really has been working in for her entire career. And so in contemporary pop, you look at albums like Renaissance by Beyoncé or Jessie Ware's That Feels Good and What's Your Pleasure?, and I think that these albums of pop stars who have done so much already, but then at a point of a bit more maturity, come back and really make these straightforward homages to dance music. It really all comes from Confessions on a Dance Floor.

Does looking at this album, not even in the context of today, but in the context of Madonna's whole career, because by this point, she had already had so many different eras and was still making records that are aging well, still making bangers, does this make you reflect at all in terms of the shelf life that we're seeing of pop artists today versus pop artists of Madonna's era?

I mean, totally. I think Madonna is first and foremost a very good curator. I think when you look at her choices of what producers to work with or what aesthetics to take on and then maybe move away from in the next album, she does that like no other, and I think her longevity proves that. And this album just came out of[ a slightly more difficult period in her career. American Life, which is the album that proceeds this, wasn't quite as beloved. It was a bit more political, a bit more commentary about the state of things, particularly with the Iraq War at the time. This one was just a complete restart. You hear it from the moment the album kicks off with "Hung Up," which is just an unbelievable song that multiple generations of Madonna fans can just absolutely adore because how could you not? I think it's just a testament to her instincts and her instincts on what she needs to do next to keep the ball rolling. I think it's no coincidence that I think actually today, the day we're recording this, she's really officially announcing part two of this album. She's doing Confessions on a Dance Floor Part Two, once again working with Stuart Price, who is the main producer on this album, once again releasing through Warner Records. I think it's obvious why she wants to return to this, because I haven't said, or I wouldn't say the last few Madonna records have been all that great. It's clear that this album always represents a fresh start.

Yeah, I mean, haven't been that great, and on top of it, you have numerous younger artists who are like, reheating the nachos of this album, as it were, if you want to call it that. But you brought up, obviously, the fact that within so many new releases from different artists, we're seeing the aesthetics of this album, the aesthetics of this Madonna era being rehashed. Are the ripples and influences of this record cropping up, in your view, in the current pop scene in more subtle ways or ways that move beyond just like, "Oh, this album sounds like this, and I'm just going to glean onto this synth style or this beat or this perk?"

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you say that because I do think that this album on its own is an amorphous, shapeless reinterpretation of '70s and '80s dance music already. So already you're having a displacement. You're having Madonna revisiting disco and The Human League and these different dance acts at the time that had a lot in common but weren't the same, and she's already merging it together. And so then you have artists from now who are then pulling from this album, which is already, I don't want to call it watered down because I do think it's an amazing album, but is distant from its source material.

It's already an homage in a way.

Exactly. I think you look at Dua Lipa's Future Nostalgia as an album that's paying an homage to Confessions on a Dance Floor. And so from there, we're getting a few steps out. We're getting an homage to an homage. So I do hear it. I would say that there's always a lot of talk about the big disco dance records of 2020, of that year. I would say that those albums probably resemble Confessions on a Dance Floor a bit more sonically. But again, in terms of the attitude, the reinvention, the commitment to making dance music as a place of relief and of feeling liberated that you hear all the time.

Sufjan Stevens - Illinois

Anthony Fantano: Leah, you went with Sufjan Stevens, Illinois, one of my favorites. Obviously, this is a record that has aged very well over the past 20 years. Lots of ink has been spilled on it, not only at the time that it came out, but in retrospect. Why is this album still standing out to you after all these years?

Leah Weinstein: I mean, honestly, in terms of 2005, specifically, I feel like this is the only record that I have much to say about. I'm a big fan of Sufjan. I'm from Illinois. I don't live there anymore, but I have a great deal of pride for that state. And I feel like despite him having never actually even lived there, he tells the story of things that have happened there and just evokes the spirit of it in a way that seems so effortless despite how bombastic and maximalist all of the instrumentation is. In these other discussions of these albums, we're talking about the ways that these records have been seminal to albums that have come out in the last 5, 10 years. I don't think anyone has attempted to do something like this. I think there are people that are trying to bite like Arcade Fire from this time. I don't think anyone's trying to take a bite of Sufjan's nachos. No one's attempting.

Why do you think that is?

It takes a really great deal of ambition to make something like this. It takes once in a lifetime composer chops to make something like this. The specificity to which a lot of these songs have been researched on just a historical level and how he's able to tie this back either into his own experiences or into hearkening to his religion, which I feel like is never done in any poor taste, is just something that I feel like only he can create and is not something that someone should even try to replicate. Because, not that this is what he's most known for, but there are so many modern classical records inside projects that Fujan has been a part of. I think one of my favorite records of his is "The BQE," which is just an hour long, orchestral suite about the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, about a traffic jam, and it's incredible.

Yeah. I mean, you talk about just the lack of, I guess, direct copying you see of his stuff, or anybody having not done anything quite like this in the wake of this album. And I think that just comes with the territory of him having this unparalleled ability to really just commit to a certain project or idea or concept once he sets out to do it. I mean, obviously, and this is something clearly he had to learn from early on, there is or there are times where he bites off more than he can chew. There's no fucking way he's finishing that 50 states project.

It was a joke. It was never supposed to be done.

I know. But still, he had done it a couple of times. And it's like, It had happened to a degree where people were really starting to think, "Is there a possibility of this?" But when he does go out, and as you said, try to do the composition piece or commit to this multi-ambient project drop or a series of songs that are deeply influenced by films. He goes out there and he executes it in a way that nobody else can.

And he's doing this through, especially in recent years, so much personal strife has hit him. And I think that honestly makes it all the more impressive to me. Having been diagnosed with, I forgot what it was called, but it was the thing that made him paralyzed from the waist down and losing his partner right before the release of Javelin. And he's even hinting that "Maybe I would tour again in the future," which I feel like he doesn't owe that to anyone. And if he decided to retire tomorrow, I think he will have been ending his career on a high note and has already cemented his legacy in space.

I mean, I remember the time period, the era in which this album came out, and obviously, it's still pretty well loved and celebrated today. But simultaneously, I don't know. It does feel in a way, sad that we are in a much different era of Sufjan's career. It doesn't feel like he's at a place where we're never going to hear any music from him again. I still think there's a lot of creative gas left in the tank. But simultaneously, it does feel a little scary and, I guess, unnerving as we further go down 20 years away from this record, to some degree, at least in my own view, feel like we haven't really seen anybody who is hitting us with this same talent level that he was when he first started really making waves in the indie scene. A lot of his music does directly deal with mortality. It's hard not to think that talent is gone and he's gone, that's just going to be gone. There's no replacing it.

I would argue, I think Cameron Winter and Geese are getting close. Not that I think that they're making the same thing by any means, but I do feel like we are, with them, seeing the emergence of really a generational talent. I know that I am not the first person to toot that horn, but I do believe that it is worth trying to call it ahead of time.

Oh, yeah. And look, it's not to say that the current music landscape is without incredible and impressive levels of talent and great albums. I'm hearing great stuff all the time. But nobody has quite impressed me in the way that Sufjan has over this 20-year period in terms of him just being such an incredible polymath. Just like anything he seems to touch or do or try, he seems to do it at least well enough to where I'm blown away, or I'm at least like, "Well, maybe this isn't my cup of tea," but he seems to be doing it just as well as anybody else who would be operating in that lane. It's just crazy, just the versatility.

Oh, yeah. He made a two-hour long ambient album during the pandemic. No promo for it, it just was put out there. And I use it all the time to do work and stuff. It's very nice calming music.

Lil Wayne - Tha Carter II

Anthony Fantano: Alex.

Alex Peterson: Anthony.

We went with Tha Carter II, which I mean, is not Tha Carter III, but also it's 2025, So we're not talking about that album being 20 years old yet. But still, Tha Carter II doesn't get brought up maybe as often as it should in these kinds of conversations when it comes to this era of Lil Wayne's discography and how it's aged. So let's advocate for the record a little bit and just start off by telling me what you feel makes it still a significant project in his catalog 20 years later.

When you got to think about Tha Carter II, you got to think about Wayne's whole career up to that point. He began with Hot Boys and the whole New Orleans scene. He was cutting his teeth with B.G., Turk, Juvenile. He embodied those sounds a bit heavily. The album before this, I think, was called 500 Degreez, which is a bit too close to home if you want to make your own sound. When he came out with Tha Carter I, it was in that same vein. It's still really great music, but he's indebted to these artists, particularly Manny Fresh. Manny Fresh made the hit on that first song, first album, "Go DJ." After a couple of legal disputes, he is kicked off this record, Tha Carter II, and Wayne is having to prove "I can be beyond the New Orleans bounce. "He still gets like, gritty and Southern, but he makes a name for himself.

And is that through, obviously, the trademark one-liners and unparalleled charisma that he would go viral for a little bit later down the road? How is that taking shape at this point in the Wayne catalog?

Well, he stopped writing his bars after around Tha Carter I. You see his specific craftsmanship develop, where he relies heavily on n rhymes. He is using hoop bars a lot, which I know you like. He's getting silly, but also saying some really deep stuff. It's interesting because he has tracks that go about, "I want to marry this girl." "I'm sorry that my friend died." "I'm the best, I'm the best, I'm the best." That's his track run throughout this album, just one after another. What's admirable about Wayne is he doesn't really stop. You could criticize him a lot for his output, particularly over the last couple of years. Tha Carter series should have ended at V, in my opinion, but he doesn't really stop, and that goes with his continuous freestyle philosophy. "I'm going to keep on putting out what I want, my thoughts. I'm not indebted a specific contract yet." That becomes bad later. He is rapping in a way that's different from the first Carter, where it's mostly like twerk jams, like booty jams, go DJ. This is the Carter. That one is like, "I bring it back to the bottom of the map. What is bringing it back to the..." I mean, they're all great songs, don't get me wrong, but this album has "Receipt." It is crazy. That song, "Receipt", is crazy.

Twenty years down the road after this record's release, the general quality of his albums has changed extensively. The expectations and standards and everything that we know about hip hop music and what a new hip hop album should sound like and should be has changed extensively, too. Where do you feel like this album sits in the modern rap rubicon, with just the whole context in which it was birthed being completely gone now?

Well, it's going with the whole "Wayne doesn't stop" philosophy. He throws a lot of stuff out there, and some of it might not stick, but he really brings up some really compelling ideas, some interesting themes. That's a thing that we see now with the whole streaming era where we have loaded albums and stuff, which is a sad part to the methodology. But it shows that when Wayne is focused, a bit curated, he is capable of putting out phenomenal material.

Well, I think you're correct in your assessment that Wayne's maximal approach in just recording and putting out everything that he can, especially during this time period, that is very much reflected in the way a lot of artists are dropping their stuff now, especially in the streaming era. But what do you feel made that model work for him personally to when it just feels like, overdone or even detrimental to the output of a lot of modern artists? What was Wayne doing that actually made it work to his benefit?

Honestly, I don't know. He has this mythical, untouchable quality to him. Because he is around so many pop circles, he is recognized greatly as being a very popular artist, not really a pop musician, but he's in the pop sphere. But he's also in the heady hip hopper, like backpacker side, where he has a bunch of mixtapes, which he started The Dedication series a week after this album.

Right. There was that period, I would say, in the late 2000s, like you say, where he and his popularity was transcending every segment of the music industry altogether. And he seemed to appeal to every hip hop fan, and there was even a debate that he had the potential to be the greatest rapper of all time, if not was considered just the greatest rapper walking at that point during that period.

There is a track on Tha Carter II called "[Best] Rapper Alive," so he's a bit prophetic in that way. But it's sad how Tha Carter II is seen in retrospect because people acknowledge I as the starting point and III and IV as having the big hits and V as being the great comeback with the legal disputes and the Kendrick Lamar feature. And Tha Carter II is not really acknowledged in that regard, which is sad because it's weirdly his most consistent and probably his best album. He has great mixtapes, but albums, like commercial releases, this might be his best.

I mean, there is a, I don't know, I guess you could say a downfall or a downward turn that most fans would agree with when it comes to a lot of his more recent material. Do you attribute that to him not doing his – not to sound dismissive – but usual shtick as well as he used to? Or do you feel like it's due to a lack of change in evolution? Because I guess my question is, is it a matter of him not continuing to work hard to keep the formula exciting and interesting, or has the formula been phased out?

I feel like at some point he realized that he could just put the fries in the bag and then ship out a tape, and then it's over.

Not the fries in the bag.

That's kind of what it is. It's very utilitarian. "I need 16 bars. I'm going to put it here." But when he is dedicated to something, the stuff really shines. That's the conflict with a lot of Wayne fans is that we listen to the album or the album is not good, but then he puts out a verse on a Tyler, the Creator album or Conway the Machine, and it's phenomenal. You're just like, "Where was this on your own stuff?" He's capable of putting out these great verses like he did in 2005. Where is it 20 years later? It's probably a mix of issues. He has had health reasons over the last 10 years, and of course, a bunch of illegal stuff. Also, he might just be a little tired, and he just wants to put the fries in the bag and just put out a quick tape.

All right, Alex, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

And there you have it. Thank you for watching. A shout out to everybody who took part in this conversation. Shout out to you for watching. And check out the piece over at theneedledrop.com again, because we didn't even talk about every album that is listed out in the entire feature. What is an album turning 20 this year that you feel like is still exciting to you? I'm sure in the comments, you'll let me know. And I'll see you in the next one. Anthony Fantano, albums turning 20, forever.