Thundercat released his fourth album this month during perhaps the worst time to release an album. “It Is What It Is” followed a social media tour of sorts for Thundercat. Thundercat was featured on producer Kenny Beats’ popular YouTube series “The Cave.”
All of the single releases were met with promotional posts from Thundercat as well as other artists featured on the album.
In conjunction with all of the promotion for the album, Thundercat’s personality as a type of living meme-machine helped the release of this album – to the point that even the music video clips played on Spotify have a meme-like quality to them.
The meme-aura surrounding this album led to a lot of fans anticipating it, especially considering the critical acclaim of Thundercat’s 2017 album “Drunk.”
This album is more of the same from Thundercat, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Thundercat is famous for his fusion of funk, jazz, R&B and soul. All of those elements are still present in this album.
The production and mixing are never lackluster in Thundercat albums. However, there is nothing revolutionary on “It Is What It Is”.
This album also features artists like Childish Gambino and Zach Fox. This helps alleviate any shortcomings Thundercat has in his songwriting and his vocals. The production, features and the meme-like quality the album has creates a pretty unique experience that not a lot of albums have.
Often when an artist is an underground favorite starts to experience mainstream success, there is initial pushback amongst casual listeners. The casual listener doesn’t like music that’s “weird.” There have been artists that have pushed to the mainstream despite this – including the recent example of rap group Brockhampton.
A lot of said artists have managed to break their way into the mainstream by releasing an accessible project or single(s). This album provides an opportunity for Thundercat to break into the casual listener’s musical market after years of underground infamy. Four of the songs from “It Is What It Is” have over one million streams on Spotify. One song in particular, “Dragonball Durag”, sits at over six million streams.
The album’s combination of up-to-date meme appeal as well as the variety of genres present on the album has finally provided a platform for Thundercat to appeal to almost all types of music listeners on all fronts.
The unique experience creates a pretty chill vibe that is a breath of fresh air, especially in the current times. It’s an interesting musical experience that the more people listen to the better. Given the current success of the album – it seems like more people listening.
“It Is What It Is” gets an 8/10.
Teren Kowatsch cam be reached at [email protected].