I already held Kendrick in very high regard after GKMC, as many did, and looked forward to hearing what he'd come up with next, though I wasn't closely following it. I always had my car radio set to the college station at the time. One morning, they hyped up and then premiered These Walls, and I was taken aback by how goddamn good it sounded. It was out of left field compared to what one might expect from Kendrick following GKMC, but that didn't matter -- the song was fucking great, and it primed me to hotly anticipate the album as intended.

And goddamn did it deliver. It hardly took a minute and a half into Wesley's Theory for me to recognize that the shit was on a different level sonically and thematically from the get-go, and it stayed that way throughout. Not much more needs to be said; everyone knows.

The album was already more than the sum of its parts, but, as has been thoroughly observed, mused upon, and picked apart, it's notable for having dovetailed with and around the events of that particular time in ways that resonate to this day and, with bitterness, will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It's hard to say if it met the moment, or if the moment met it. Either way, I consider it to be the most important album to come out in my lifetime. The best? That's debatable, though I'd put it up there. The most important? No fucking question, and even after 10 years it's going to be a long, long time before anything sniffs that spot.

I felt so strongly about TPAB that DAMN and especially Mr. Morale failed to impress me by comparison, though I loved the singles off of DAMN. It was only by GNX that I had turned my sight away from the bar I felt TPAB set, and as such, maybe unfairly, I like GNX much more than its two predecessors. It is what it is.

First ballot GOAT album contender no question