GNX, Sunny

In 2020, after almost 50 years, Buick retired its Regal line of premium mid size sedans. 

I don't know shit about cars. I've asked friends "who goes out to enjoy a drive for fun?" and gotten crickets. For me, and in my circle, driving is "A to B" and the cars selected match that need. Safe, comfortable, asian/european, fuel-economy minded cars. It doesn't really matter what's under the hood to most (except gas, electric, or hybrid), and even if one did care, it has been made impossible to examine these cars without advanced tools to support dealers, etc. 

In the '70s, Buick Regal's won the NASCAR Grand National championship, which is funny for me to think of Buicks as fast muscle cars and not my dentist's boat-sized ride. To celebrate these wins and separate from the dentist image, Buick launched a "Grand National" car line, a souped up version of the Regal, which did well as a Corvette killer. Then, in 1987, they made exactly 547 GNX cars, the X being eXtreme maybe?, amped them up even more, made them all black, and put a huge grill up front (inviting comparisons to Darth Vader). They were sold as the final class of "Grand Nationals." Only 500 cars! There were thousands of Buick dealerships! Car Talk just went national! Buick in PR said they wanted to make "[a car] collectors will want to own and that automotive writers will never forget," which I can see that if you're one of these remaining ~500 GNX owners in the 2020s, that press release kind of came true. Having a GNX, you're a mix of Tim Taylor and a classic cars kinda guy.

I also don't know shit about hip hop, and definitely haven't followed the disrespect tracks released over the last year, though I can tell that beef is woven into this album. I feel a stranger in a strange land, which is why this writeup is more about a car I've never heard about before rather than music. However, I have noticed, during a busy week, myself enjoying listening to this album multiple times, catching several earworms during the day, and going back to think about lyrics. I've noticed that the album is more than just the sum of its parts because listening to it out of order isn't as good. I've noticed that while all art boiled down might be autobiographical and about god, this album isn't coy about it. I've noticed it delivers at least the minimum level of quality you might expect here, enough to not be boring across lyrics and production, Antonoff be damned. I've noticed I like some of the memorable flourishes, like the piano trill in "reincarnated," the Spanish speckled at the start and then here and there, all the discussions with father and Father, the simultaneous self-aggrandization and self-deprecation in the writing, the moments of actual seeming earnestness and hope, and that incredible scream of "Mustard" in "tv off."