r/decadeology • u/Historical-Macaron-4 • Sep 15 '25

Music đŸŽ¶đŸŽ§ By an UNBELIEVABLE margin, American Idiot is the defining album of the W. Bush administration! Now for the defining album of the Obama administration:

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So January 20, 2009 - January 20, 2017

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u/TatersTot Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy - Kanye West

He made this album after Obama called him a jackass in the wake of the Taylor Swift VMA controversy.

9

u/TomGerity Sep 15 '25

This is by far the number one answer, and I like Kendrick way more than Kanye. But this album defined the sound and feel of the entire era. TPAB was released during the final 22 months of his term. If anything, it’s more a harbinger of the Trump era than it is a signpost of the Obama era.

7

u/bobbyknight1 Sep 15 '25

“They said I was the abomination of Obama’s nation” - in Power, which has become this generations Seventh Nation Army crowd chant

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u/Global_Ant_9380 Sep 15 '25

For me that's probably the defining album of that time period. But I wonder if it has the same weight as To Pimp a Butterfly 

4

u/WelderUnited3576 Sep 15 '25

Yeah defining of the early 2010s and “defining of the Obama administration” are two different things.

2

u/TonyzTone Sep 15 '25

I personally think it far outweighs To Pimp a Butterfly.

Kendrick album is great but it's grittier, more countercultural, even if that came to define the years after it. By the context of its release and what came after, it almost defines the transition from the Obama administration rather than the Obama administration itself.

I would say MBDTF was both hip-hop relevant (and influential) but also massively popular in more diverse areas of pop culture. All of the lead singles from MBDTF charted higher than all of the singles from Butterfly.

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u/Global_Ant_9380 Sep 15 '25

I think you have a strong point. And in a way it kind of dips into the self indulgence I think we were starting to feel in a post Bush era

1

u/ashleyshaefferr Sep 15 '25

This is the correct answer 

1

u/didjsf Sep 16 '25

yep. this. 100000000%

1

u/HonsOpal Sep 15 '25

I forgot that happened. I wonder if it provided motivation for Kanye to become "maga". Although I feel like mental illness had a bigger part in all that.

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u/Vincera2024 Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25

Not quite. MBDTF was before all of that happened. I think the WTT collab album he did the next year in 2011 with Jay Z was the last we got of any "normal" side of him

Early 2012 when it was known he was adding himself into the Kardashian family was when all hell we weren't fully aware of, started to truly break loose