Mike D just released his new solo record, Thank You. Here’s what the critics (ok, a friend) are saying:
“It’s a pleasure to listen when someone is creating from such a pulsating source. He’s in the flow in the best possible way. Mature, wise, funny, sincere, playful and helpful. Tiptoeing into all kinds of human conditions, personal becomes universal. Beautifully egoless. Only this kind of art makes sense right now, straight to the core, that’s what we need.”
She’s right and said it better than I could have. If you haven’t already, put it on loud and on repeat: https://album.link/s/4f2eRJXelRGjIu5i7Ow7Hz.
Now, a few words from me:
I LOVE THIS ALBUM.
Thank You is hard, strange, funny, melodic, dirty. More Death Grips than DJ Shadow. There is bass everywhere, and no fear of it. The rhythms keep doing small, unexpected things: the stutter and fills in True Colors, the hi-hat swing in Back To Start, the little snare shuffle that keeps the measure from landing where you expect. Even when Thank You gets sentimental, the chorus goes completely feral.
There are no duds. No padding. Every song has an idea in it that makes me want to go back and hear the tricky bit again.
Just like standing in line at Discount Den in Bloomington, Indiana waiting for the midnight sale of Check Your Head in 1992, I really didn’t know what to expect. And just like Check Your Head the album delivers more than I had hoped for or expected. Expectations and happiness are correlated Thank You by Mike D has made me very happy in the days since its release.
The Beastie Boys’ musical taste came through in their songs and albums as they weaved together all of their loves into one bouillabaisse. Similarly, Thank You is a sponge that has soaked up all the music Mike loves but when you squeeze it something uniquely Mikey D drains out. But this is not an exercise in returning to anything. Mike pushed forward. He went hard. I can hear him still trying things, being unsure but saying “fuck it I like it” and building around it, still preferring to make the weird choice instead of the obvious one.
Mike finished it, put together a band, a live show, and is taking it around the world.
That deserves its own set of kudos. Making something when you have nothing left to prove is difficult. Finishing it is harder. Letting it go out into the world, where everyone gets to compare it with forty-plus years of music they already love, is harder still. This isn’t about age, it’s about having the courage to let today’s creation be whatever it will be when it lands on the audience.
Note I didn’t call this “Mike’s first solo album”. There have been Mike D solo joints hiding in plain sight for years. Mike on the Mic. Netty’s Girl. Stand Together ftg Adam Yauch. Country Mike. Bhagavan Das. The Latch Brothers. Action with Cassius and Cat Power. All evidence that a Mike D solo album has been in the works since the 1980s. Lucky us that 2026 is the year. I guess he was waiting for AGI and RSI?
Also, seeing Mike and Tamra’s sons, Davis and Skyler Diamond, on stage with Mike on this tour brings tears to my eyes. Davis and Skyler make music together as Very Nice Person, and their record Trampoline belongs in your rotation too. This is how it works. In our lifetimes we create a world we are not native to, but thankfully our kids are. Mike taught us, he taught them, and now THEY are teaching us. As it should be.
Thank You.
Mike invites people in and puts them on.
In 1994 Mike called and invited me out on Lollapalooza. Then in 1995 he invited me tour, to work at Grand Royal, to write for the magazine, to put my Sly and The Family Stone zine in his record store (yes, Mike was involved in a small record shop above X-Large on Vermont once upon a time). Over the past 30 years there have been countless invitations to dinner, a place to stay, a show to see…
It’s not an exaggeration to say Mike D’s generosity changed the course of my life. More than once. And I know I am not the only person who could say that.
Some people have influence because people hear their work and in inspires theirs. Other people have influence because the lives around them become larger. Mike has always had both.
I owe Mike, Tamra Davis, John Silva, Adam and Adam a debt I will never be able to repay. Or perhaps that is the wrong way to think about Gratitude. Maybe you say thank you as sincerely and as often as you can, and then try to do for somebody else what someone had the generosity to do for you.
So, Mike, thank you. And thank you for Thank You.