In October 1994 me and my friend Chris went to the opening night of Pulp Fiction. This was before it was
Pulp Fiction, cultural touchstone.
It was just a cool-looking flick that was coming out from a dude whose previous flick we liked.
As such, it was hard (impossible) to get anyone to go with us.
Which was just as well since it was a packed house.
So the thing ends and we are just *floored*.
We drove all over town trying to find friends out that night that we could freak out to about what we just saw.
At one point we parked in the Old Market got out and just jumped around going like
“Can you fucking believe that shit!?”
Those moments don’t come around a lot.
You get jaded with music, you get jaded with genres, you get jaded with being jaded. But every now and then a cultural lightning bolt just hits and it feels like it resets everything.
This is one of those times. And it doesn’t come from someone making something “new” through calculation of trends. It comes from heart.
I have lived through a lot of classic album releases. Some are classics immediately and some grow into classic status over time. Some you know on the first listen are seismic (Nevermind, The Chronic) and game-changing in a way that they feel like they have always existed.
I’ve often wondered what it was like to hear a record like What’s Going On on Day One. With no preconceptions and no hype or expectation.
As much as any record I’ve heard in my four decades dicking around here on earth, in 2015, To Pimp a Butterfly felt like *that* Before the copycats deluded it.
We don’t get these very often.
—jason malmberg
Flommist Jason Malmberg is a simple man who believes in brown liquor and small dogs. He also makes art sometimes. Copyright © 2020 Jason Malmberg.
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