The Bat Cave

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

J. Cole – The Off-Season

Ratings:

10 – Masterpiece
9 – Amazing
8 – Great
7 – Highly Enjoyable
6 – Recommended
5 – Decent
4 – Lackluster
3 – Bad
2 – Horrible
1 – Trash

Top 20 Albums in May

Note: These albums are NOT ranked in order of preference; they are ranked in order of number of songs listened to (scrobbles) over the past month. Previous ranking in brackets. Year of release in parentheses if it’s not 2020 or 2021.

*indicates May 2021 release

1. *J. Cole – The Off-Season – 8+
2. *Mach-Hommy – Pray For Haiti – 7+
3. Vince Staples – Summertime ’06 (2015) – 7+
4. Westside Boogie – Everythings For Sale (2019) – 8+
5. *DMX – Exodus – 7+
6. *Sa-Roc – The Sharecropper’s Daughter (Deluxe) – 8+
7. *BROCKHAMPTON – ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE – 7+
8. *Benny the Butcher & 38 Spesh – Trust the Sopranos – 6+
9. Eminem – Kamikaze (2018) – 6+
10. Pink Sweat$ – Pink Planet [17] – 6+
11. Mac Miller – Faces (2014)
12. *DJ Khaled – Khaled Khaled
13. JID – The Never Story (2017)
14. Tash Sultana – Terra Firma – 7+
15. Yelawolf – Mud Mouth
16. JID – Dicaprio 2 (2018)
17. Toby Ganger – Free Machine – 8+
18. Inverse – So Far (2008) – 7+
19. Devin the Dude – Soulful Distance – 6+
20. Guapdad 4000 – 1176
21. Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over the Country Club [20] – 6+
22. Mello Music Group – Bushido

Comments: Almost no holdovers from the previous month, as I continued to work older albums into my regular rotation. May belonged to J. Cole though. I listened to his new album so much already that he went from unranked in my top 25 most listened to artists of 2021 to #1 on the list below. I’m a big fan of the album. I think every song is good. I can’t say I had high expectations for a new DMX album since he hasn’t made good music for like 15 years now, but this new album is pretty damn good. Certainly anyone that’s been a loyal fan all this time will enjoy it and even those of us that abandoned ship long ago should give it a listen. The production is substantially better than on any of his most recent releases and while X is far from sounding in prime form, his vocals are improved. Plus he also has some stellar features on the album. Imagine Benny the Butcher going half a year without releasing a new project. I’m officially starting my JID and Vince Staples anticipation phase.

The 25 Artists I’ve Listened To the Most in 2021

1. J. Cole [unranked]
2. DMX [unranked]
3. The Notorious B.I.G. [1]
4. Benny the Butcher [5]
5. Eminem [2]
6. MF DOOM [4]
7. MC Eiht [3]
8. Sa-Roc [14]
9. Conway the Machine [unranked]
10. Mac Miller [25]
11. Tash Sultana [8]
12. Lana Del Rey [18]
13. Tyrone’s Jacket [12]
14. KOTA the Friend [15]
15. Dua Lipa [13]
16. Pink Sweat$ [unranked]
17. Toby Ganger [unranked]
18. Kali Uchis [23]
19. Kendrick Lamar [unranked]
20. Kid Cudi [6]
21. Courtney Bell [7]
22. Snoop Dogg [unranked]
23. Scarface [unranked]
24. Boldy James [9]
25. Nyck Caution [10]

Comments: Since I last updated this two months ago, J. Cole released a new album and DMX passed away and then released a posthumous album so they went from outside my top 25 through March to my two most listened to artists of the year. Conway also got a similar bump thanks to yet another new project. I’ve been listening to a lot of TDE lately since all their artists are due to drop this summer. Almost all of them fell shy of my top 25 here, but Kendrick cracked the list and I expect him to keep climbing it, especially if his long overdue follow-up to 2017’s DAMN. finally drops.   

Bangerz Playlist Additions – Follow me on Apple Music @DarkKnight1717 to add my playlists
2020 Bangers Playlist
2021 Bangers Playlist

You can click the link above to see my most recent additions to either playlist, but I’m not going to list them here because it’s the middle of June and I don’t which songs I added in May and which ones I’ve added in June, so I’ll just post them all in my next writeup.