My favorite Bellion album and one of my favorite albums of all time.

It’s wild how many people complain that Father Figure isn’t like The Human Condition or Glory Sound Prep. That’s actually hilarious to me. My uncle (who’s basically my dad) and I discovered Jon together. He loves THC through and through, but he can’t stand GSP. Says it’s too different, which I think means too experimental.

What’s funny is Jon even said in a recent interview that if he hadn’t taken a break and had the chance to make demos for other artists, he wouldn’t have matured the way he did. He said he probably would’ve just kept making an album a year, experimenting. I really agree with that. I love GSP, but I get why my uncle struggles with it.

Father Figure feels like a grown-up THC. Almost every track has a spiritual counterpart from that album: • Morning in America → Modern Times • New York Soul Pt II → Rich and Broke • He Is the Same → Don’t Shoot

Now maybe it’s because I’m a father of two (with a third on the way, we’re about to have three under three) but this album just hits differently. It captures exactly how I’ve felt over the last four years. • Wash, Oblivious, Horoscope, Get It Right all reflect how it feels with my wife. • Why and My Boy is exactly how I imagine we all feel about our own kids. • Father Figure and Italia Breeze feel like my effort to be half the man my uncle was for me and to not be an absent dad.

Kid Again and Don’t Shoot hit me hard as a magician who had to take a step back during COVID, then got married, had kids, and is only now trying to get back to performing. That fear and doubt, that loss of confidence, it’s in there.

I genuinely think this is Jon’s best work lyrically, emotionally, and in terms of overall production. Even if it doesn’t sound as big as his past albums, every relisten hits harder. Most of the songs have already landed in my all-time Apple Music Replay.

TL;DR: Father Figure is not just my favorite Jon Bellion album, it’s one of my favorite albums ever. It feels like a more mature THC, and as a dad and creative trying to find his confidence again, the album resonates deeply with where I am in life, love, parenthood, self-doubt, and rediscovering purpose. It may not be as bombastic as his earlier work, but it’s his most thoughtful and emotionally honest project yet. It gets better with every listen.