Album anniversaries – March 2025: Kendrick Lamar, M.I.A., Céline Dion

Every month of 2025, Euronews Culture takes a trip down memory lane and handpicks a trio of albums celebrating a major milestone.  

These are the three records you should choose to (re)discover as they respectively turn 10, 20, and 30 this March. 

Turning 10 in 2025: Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly

Release date: 15 March 2015  

In a nutshell: It’s been fourteen years since Compton-born Kendrick Lamar dropped his debut album, and the music scene hasn’t quite been the same since. Last year was something of a consecration for the artist who has become one of the most influential rappers of all time. From the Drake-destroying battle, the victory lap that was ‘GNX’, to this year with his Grammy sweep and the Super Bowl halftime show, it’s clear that no one can dethrone hip-hop's poet laureate. Before all that though was K.Dot’s third album, 'To Pimp A Butterfly'. No one could have predicted quite to what extent his 2015 effort would not only top his previous storytelling masterpiece, 'Good Kid, M.A.A.D City', but herald him as the most distinctive generational voice of his time. No hyperbole.

Why it’s our pick: What can be said about 'To Pimp A Butterfly' that hasn’t already been gushed about profusely? Not much, except to say that every now and then, an album comes along that feels like it simultaneously holds a mirror up to culture and comes to define it. The album is urgent, lyrically dexterous, exigently executed, timely and timeless - a veritable milestone in hip-hop alongside 'Madvillainy', 'Illmatic' and 'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'. By fusing hip-hop, R&B, jazz, funk and spoken word, Lamar constructed a politically charged opus that is both hopeful and enraged, as evidenced by two of the album’s standout tracks: the Grammy-winning ‘Alright’, a modern-day ‘What’s Going On’ that became the unifying anthem of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and ‘The Blacker The Berry’, a track dripping with righteous anger which interrogates and celebrates the concept of Blackness to better comment on the Black American experience. It’s an unashamedly heady album, not just because of its themes that explore historical and psychological oppression - as well as entrenched racism with the American system - but also due to its musically rich makeup. 'To Pimp A Butterfly' doesn’t reveal all its layers in one go, making it an album which rewards listens 10 years since its release. Many consider it Lamar’s best; what’s certain is that as we celebrate its first decade, it’s a strong contender for the greatest album of the 21st century. Would you look at that - turns out there’s still plenty to say.

Key tracks: ‘King Kunta’, ‘U’, ‘Alright’, ‘Hood Politics’, ‘The Black The Berry’, ‘I’.  

Standout lyric: “I'm black as the moon, heritage of a small village / Pardon my residence / Came from the bottom of mankind / My hair is nappy, my dick is big, my nose is round and wide / You hate me don't you? / You hate my people, your plan is to terminate my culture / You're fuckin' evil / I want you to recognize that I'm a proud monkey / You vandalize my perception but can't take style from me / And this is more than confession / I mean I might press the button just so you know my discretion / I'm caught in my feelings, I know that you feel it / You sabotage my community, makin' a killin' / You made me a killer, emancipation of a real nigga.” (‘The Blacker The Berry’)

Also turning 10 in March 2025: Sufjan Stevens’ ‘Carrie & Lowell’, one of the American musician’s most glorious and heartbreaking albums; ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit’, the superb debut from Courtney Barnett; Laura Marling’s ‘Short Movie’; Canadian post-rockers Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s fifth record ‘Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress’. March 2015 was a good month for music.

Turning 20 in 2025: M.I.A. – Arular

Release date: 22 March 2005  

In a nutshell: 20 years ago, listeners discovered the sounds of Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam aka: M.I.A., the British rapper and singer of Tamil origin. Combining dancehall grooves, hip-hop brashness, as well as a hefty dose of raga, world music and punk spirit, her debut album was a true statement of intent. Her underground and unclassifiable sound was finally emerging, and you’d never heard anything like it before.

Why it’s our pick: Chances are you know at least one song by M.I.A.: her 2008 Grammy-nominated hit ‘Paper Planes’, which was featured in the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire. However, before that came the more lo-fi 'Arular', a raw debut that wanted its listeners to dance to political songs. Indeed, themes of conflict and revolution are everywhere in 'Arular' - the title being a clue, as it refers to the political code name used by her father during his involvement with Sri Lankan Tamil militant groups. Standout tracks include the sexually charged ‘Bucky Done Gun’, which was reportedly influenced by her experiences of civil war in Sri Lanka; the downtempo jungle sounds of 'Sunshowers', which tackles the topic of gun culture and led MTV US to censor its sounds of gunshots (the death of irony, ladies and gentlemen); and 'Galang', a dancehall banger containing plenty of sexual innuendos and references to weed, as well as nods to The Clash’s 'London Calling'. While it may sound abrasive and musically scattergun, there’s something addictively weird and wonderful about this album. M.I.A. may have refined her sound with more confident efforts like 'Kala' (2007) and 'Mantangi' (2013), but 'Arular' remains a fascinating debut album well worth revisiting.

Key tracks: ‘Pull Up The People’, ‘Bucky Done Gun’, ‘Fire Fire’, Sunshowers’, ‘Galang’. 

Standout lyric: “They say rivers gonna run though / Work is gonna save you / Pray and you will pull through / Suck a dick'll help you / Don't let em get to you / If he's got one you get two / Backstab your crew / Sell it I could sell you.” (‘Galang’)

Also turning 20 in March 2025: UK indie rockers Kaiser Chiefs’ debut ‘Employment’ which features pretty much all their hits apart from ‘Ruby’; Jack Johnson’s best album, ‘In Between Dreams’, featuring the uplifting hits ‘Better Together’, ‘Good People’ and ‘Sitting, Waiting, Wishing’.

Turning 30 in 2025: Céline Dion – D'eux

Release date: 30 March 1995  

In a nutshell: Who said 13 was unlucky? It certainly wasn’t for Queen Céline, whose thirteenth studio album ‘D’eux’ remains her greatest to this day. Mainly written and produced by French singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, the album includes hits like ‘J’irai où tu iras’, ‘Pour que tu m’aimes encore’, ‘Je sais pas’ and ‘Vole’ - the latter three later recorded in English as ‘If That’s What It Takes’, ‘I Don’t Know’ and ‘Fly’ on Dion’s next album, 1996’s Grammy-winning ‘Falling Into You’. Most anglophone listeners will know that record, but as good as it is, the French-language ‘D’eux’ is a superior beast. It was prosaically titled ‘The French Album’ in the US (scoff and eyeroll all you want, they’ve asked for it) and it became the best-selling French-language album - as well as the best-selling non-English language album by a female artist - of all time.

Why it’s our pick: We could wax lyrical about how beautiful this album is, how it rightly stayed at the top of the French charts for a record-breaking 44 weeks, or how Céline expertly navigated the most commercially successful phase of her career in the 90s – a decade in which she outsold both Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Instead, here’s a question: Have you ever listened to the song ‘Pour que tu m’aimes encore’ and, in a moment of reckless abandon, fuelled by heartbreak and too much wine which made you forget you have the singing voice of an enchanted plimsoll, belted out the song’s lyrics as if your love life depended on it? Well, you should. Preferably culminating on your knees, with your clenched fists becoming outstretched arms. Seriously, has there ever been a more soul-stirring declaration of love? No there hasn’t, and no cries of protest citing Whitney’s ‘I Will Always Love You’, Stevie’s ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours’ or Percy’s ‘When A Man Loves A Woman’ count. On the swoon scale, they all rank high, but the crown remains Céline’s. And if you were thinking about the maudlin ‘All Of Me’ by John Legend, you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and start rethinking some things, sunshine.

Key tracks: ‘Pour que tu m’aimes encore’, ‘Je sais pas’, ‘Les derniers seront les premiers’, ‘J’irai où tu iras’. 

Standout lyric: “J’irai chercher ton cœur si tu l’emportes ailleurs / Même si dans tes danses d’autres dansent tes heures / J’irai chercher ton âme dans les froids dans les flammes / Je te jetterai des sorts pour que tu m’aimes encore.” (‘Pour que tu m’aimes encore’)

Also turning 30 in March 2025: Radiohead’s second album ‘The Bends’, a significant step up from ‘Pablo Honey’ and a sure sign that there was a lot more to the Oxford quintet than their hit ‘Creep’; Joan Osborne’s debut ‘Relish’, featuring her biggest hit ‘One of Us’; ex-Wu-Tang member Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s hardcore hip-hop debut ‘Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version’.

Happy listening and catch you next month!