Nervous, jagged, jittery, but weighty too, “Thunder”s imminent something is palpable and so, it isn’t paranoid–a fairly easy feeling for music to invoke–this is something stranger and harder to grasp…between regularity and change or something. Dilla captures that moment, which is a weird place to freeze a listener, even if only for a minute. Frozen when stuff’s not exactly right, but hasn’t gotten wrong yet either and could maybe get better or better if only because it’s some kind of change. Anticipation, I guess. Sort of.Those clips of announcers saying “Ladies and gentlemen” but never completing the announcement, leaving you hanging, is what “Thunder” feels like. Like being at a show and you’ve been waiting forever and the soundcheck guy slips onto stage and you know it isn’t the performer but a soundcheck guy means the show’s a little closer to starting. It’s waiting for an order of chicken wings and your Order # is “53″ and you see the line of people who’ve been waiting longer than you but somehow Order #47 getting called chills you out for a few more minutes but the call of Order #48 guarantees–in your mind, at least–you’ll be stuck in Miami Subs & Pizza for eternity. Dilla, why conjure up a song that makes anybody feel that way?
The fall-back on death and dying would be rote if it weren’t you know, the most universal and important conceit a human being can work-out, but this seems like a song about the ugly place between knowing you’re sick and dying and actually dying…uncomfortable, odd, a long-ass fucking tease with an ending that’s as disagreeable as the wait.
“Thunder” is a monster. A fifty-four second monster. It’s “Godzilla is approaching the city! Run for your lives!” It’s the action-hero-strapping-on-all-his-guns-and-putting-his-shades-on montage. It’s the-action-hero’s-boots-are-slowly-approaching-and-the-bad-guys-are-sweating-because-he’s-gonna-blow-them-all-to-shit.There’s that line in New Jack City where Ice-T says, “I wanna shoot you so bad, my dick’s hard!” That’s “Thunder”.
I always remembered this thing LL Cool J said to Fab Five Freddy in an interview just after Bigger & Deffer dropped, talking about the beats he likes: “You make that mad grill. You know, you scrunch your face up. You’re like, ‘Damn!’”*
That’s “Thunder”. Shit is a monster beat.
*Also in that interview, Cool J said “All I ever wanted was: record in my hand, record on the radio. Not the fame, not the groupies. Just: record in my hand, record on the radio.” Of course, a mere couple of years later he also wanted to be in a movie with Michael J. Fox, in a Halloween remake, and that movie where he gets eaten by the super-intelligent shark.
-Ellmatic
“Thunder” never pops-off. It’s all build-up and anticipation, clunking along, giving you ample time to prepare or escape the impending wrath. It’s aptly titled in that sense. Mom tells you to get out of the pool or come inside at the sound of thunder, becauses lightning and a storm aren’t far behind. “Thunder” just cuts-off though, it never gets to explode, the lightning of it never flashes, the rain never pours, you never get to see/hear/feel that wrath because Donuts just keeps going, changing moods, letting you feel all-freaked out for 54 seconds but only freaked-out because a pay-off would be too easy and Dilla’s trying to capture like every single little and big thing that he’s ever thought or felt or heard on a record. Go somewhere else for easy thrills and scares, it’s onto “Gobstopper”.
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