I woke up on Friday like any other day — late. Obnoxiously late. Suffice it to say my day started a bit wrong and continued to follow a downward spiral of weirdness. All of this is an explanation of why I did not immediately believe that Kendrick Lamar had released a new surprise album.

I got the news from a post of somebody celebrating a SZA feature on a new Kendrick song. I thought to myself “Yeah, right” and scrolled past into oblivion. It was 24 hours later that I decided to confirm for myself if the miracle had indeed happened. Pikachu itself has never struck a more surprised face than I did as I found a full 12-track album from the one and only Kendrick Lamar. All of this is an explanation of why this music column is stranger than usual: I did not intend to write one this week.

I should not have been surprised. In fact, as a true fan, I should have called it last week after I encouraged the devoted readers of the Music Column to look out for Father John Misty’s new album, Mahashamashana. Now, I am no conspiracy theorist but the facts speak for themselves. Both artists had released albums within the same year five times — in 2022, 2018, 2017, 2015, and 2012 — roughly spanning both their careers. I suppose Father John Misty planned so carefully to release an album at the end of the year to avoid that clash. I speculate Kendrick Lamar saw the announcement and just had to make it so that this time their albums were released not just close to each other, but on the same day. It has been a good year for him in winning musical battles and settling matters once and for all anyway.

Father John Misty was probably of my opinion about the conscious decision Kendrick made to drop an unannounced masterpiece on the same date as Misty had announced he would be releasing new music, since he shared a “diss track” within the next rotation of the Earth.

There is no battle here, though, so please take off the bloodthirsty smiles. You may keep your popcorn though because this is, to a music nerd, somewhat of a Barbenheimer event. The two albums are opposed both in terms of genre and themes. They do not interact with each other enough for them to be engaged in some contest. But it is fun to try to pit them against each other.

In one corner, we have Mahashamashana, Father John Misty’s offering of a piece of his mind and soul. It is an album made only for his fans and not for a wider audience. None of the tracks fit the modern standard for radio tracks, the themes of the lyrics are deeply personal, bordering on trauma dumping, and all the songs deviate from the indie, folk, or country influences that used to anchor Father John Misty’s music and make it recognizable even to non-fans: how do you even market such an album?! To the true followers of this artiste, though, Mahashamashana is a delicious album (and are we not all a bit cannibalistic when it comes to the pains and struggles of musicians expressed through their craft?). It is a very theatrical album, with all the orchestral elements that form the foundation of the tracks. At times, it sounds like the soundtrack of old-timey films. They are often mixed with very loud alternative rock riffs, which crash into you like tidal waves, but all that remains of them at the end is tears. Father John Misty uses these qualities of the musical background to tell such difficult stories of personal strife in a way that is digestible, relatable and so very human. It is an album for the romantics at heart, who cannot help themselves but feel their way through life, not just live….

In the other corner, GNX stares back defiantly and daringly. For all the gentleness of Mahashamashana, GNX brings force to the rink. For all the drama of Father John Misty, Kendrick Lamar responds with an elevated measure of grandeur. While the record does not feature any of the official diss tracks against Drake (“Euphoria,” “Not Like Us,” “Meet the Grahams”), it is very clearly a continuation (and the full stop) of the beef between Drake and Lamar from earlier this year. The lyrics of the first few songs reference quite a few incidents from that beef — including the vandalized Kendrick mural, the call for reconsidering who the “big three” are, and the rumors about gang violence as a result of the exchange of diss tracks between the two rappers — making it very clear that this is the big finale.

There is an almost sudden change in the lyrical direction of the album in the subsequent tracks, in which Lamar talks more about fame and his position in the music industry (among other things). The featured artists include SZA, Roddy Ricch, and Dody6, among others, and they make for an added surprise to the already quite unexpected album. The instrumentals to the tracks are also some of the best on a Kendrick album (and he is already known as one of the rappers with the most innovative backing tracks). Only fair, considering the producer credits on this album: Jack Antonoff, Sounwave, and even Kamasi Washington?! A series of samples from ranchera songs — part of the Latin American musical traditions — act as a connection and “chapter headers” to the different semantic sections of the album. The vibes change from classical to late 80s pop to RnB to experimental jazz to only Kendrick knows what. The cherry on top of the production is how masterfully Kendrick changes his voice and rapping style to fit the lyrics and emotionality of the music of each track.

I think the result of this “battle” is obvious. As our own maestro illustrator Dulce Maria Pop-Bonini put it: “Every time I think I am having a bad day, I remember Father John Misty and Drake collapsed to their feet [that] morning,” referring to Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. It sure is a day to remember. One does not wake up to a new Kendrick album of this caliber every morning. Now let’s play it back from the top.