10 Risk-Taking Albums That Share Kendrick Lamar, To Pimp A Butterfly's Restless Sound

Music from Ice Cube, Stevie Wonder, Prince and more.

The Butterfly Effect - The noise is deafening. Kendrick Lamar's soaring To Pimp a Butterfly is being celebrated as a game-changing, unvarnished and at times devastating testimony of the Black experience; an album so densely layered in its scope that it forces listeners to ponder just how beautifully challenging mainstream hip hop can be. But even if you scoff at what may come off as over-the-top hyperbolic rambling surrounding K Dot's unwavering West Coast manifesto, consider this: As unconventional statements go, the elusive To Pimp a Butterfly simply keeps you guessing.Is it the modern day incarnation of Ice Cube's 1991 politically-charged middle finger Death Certificate (more on that later)? Is it an artsy spoken word performance masquerading as a modernized G-funk tribute? Is it an unrelenting self-critique of what it means to be a Black male (and famous) in America?...
Jimi Hendrix, Band of Gypsys (1970) - In 1968, the genre-pushing guitar genius was at the peak of his commercial powers, stamping an exclamation point on the psychedelic rock era as his double-album spectacle Electric Ladyland turned on the masses. Jimi Hendrix stuffed his grandiose statement –– backed by his English-American three-man outfit the Jimi Hendrix Experience –– with such staples as "Crosstown Traffic," "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" and the epic Bob Dylan cover "All Along the Watchtower" becoming the axe giant's highest-selling release.So what would Hendrix do for a follow-up? Band of Gypsys was deemed uneven by critics — a muddled affair saddled with too much jamming and not enough realized craftsmanship. But Hendrix's bold merging of unhinged funk and hardened rock (his band now consisted of two brothers — bassist Billy Cox and drum...
Sly and the Family Stone, There's a Riot Goin' On (1971) - The inclusive, peace and love energy of the hippie universe jumps out of the speakers on Stand! (1969), Sly & The Family Stone's fourth studio effort. It is infectiously soulful, church and reinvigorating in its sing-along celebrations topped by the massive unifying testimony of "Everyday People." As lead architect, the gifted Sly Stone could seemingly do no wrong. That all changed with a darkly tinted album made overwhelmingly for its times.There's a Riot Goin' On pushed James Brown's jagged funk forward, creating an indispensable template for the anything-goes controlled chaos of George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic. There's a druggy, junkie paranoia that permeates throughout Riot. Even the "happy" songs like "Family Affair" are haunting, spurring some writers like the Los An...Stevie Wonder, Stevie Wonder's Journey Through 'The Secret Life of Plants' (1979) - From '72 to '76, Stevie Wonder was the most important (and deified) recording artist on the planet. His run of Grammy-sweeping, art-elevating LP's held a streak of five consecutive works that hit the artistic motherlode with the sweeping Songs in the Key of Life (1976). So you could imagine the confused faces of fans who picked up Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants."No you won't find the transcendent boogie of "Sir Duke," the seething consciousness of "Pastime Paradise" or the delicate beauty of "If It's Magic." This is a fully conceptual, partly instrumental experiment that, for lack of a better word, was quite out there. Stevie had enough good-will capital to pull off such a dramatic turn. But he still threw his followers a bone with the gorgeo...

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The Butterfly Effect - The noise is deafening. Kendrick Lamar's soaring To Pimp a Butterfly is being celebrated as a game-changing, unvarnished and at times devastating testimony of the Black experience; an album so densely layered in its scope that it forces listeners to ponder just how beautifully challenging mainstream hip hop can be. But even if you scoff at what may come off as over-the-top hyperbolic rambling surrounding K Dot's unwavering West Coast manifesto, consider this: As unconventional statements go, the elusive To Pimp a Butterfly simply keeps you guessing.Is it the modern day incarnation of Ice Cube's 1991 politically-charged middle finger Death Certificate (more on that later)? Is it an artsy spoken word performance masquerading as a modernized G-funk tribute? Is it an unrelenting self-critique of what it means to be a Black male (and famous) in America?...

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