FFS.
Music Kendrick Lamar
- Thread starter ArmchairCritic
- Start date
FFS.
Hip Hop fans like you are the worst. Your music taste is dry and boring.
House Slippers
My taste is anything but dry and boring.
It's a classic. I'm glad it's been received as it has by reviewers.
IMO it's a shame you simply don't get what is a genuine classic album. Stick to your golden generation of hiphop. I grew up in the 90s and I know greatness when I see/hear it. TPAB is lacking substance? You can't be motherfvcking serious my man.
Last edited:
Aye, I'm coming around to this train of thought. GKMC was incredibly personal, and I think this album doesn't deviate too far from it. Within that frame, it works. Stretching it too far beyond his viewpoint and making it a social commentary piece stretches it thin.
The reason I loathe doing this is because it works both ways; the wake of the Trayvon Martin and Ferguson shootings created a void which this album filled. What if there was no such void? It wouldn't detract from the quality of the project but it probably would be met with more trepidation. I think it is possible to embrace the relevance of the album to the current times, yet put that relevance aside when analyzing the quality.
Oh, by looking at Rap Genius I meant reading along with the lyrics, not looking at the annotations. Initially the production was overwhelming and it was almost impossible for me to focus on every word without bursting a brain capillary. The annotations tend to poison my perspective on what I think he meant by a certain verse; I look at them after my mind is made up to see how I differ from other people.
Fair enough on the bolded.The biggest compliment I can pay Kendrick is that he makes us want to type all this shit up about the album, this doesn't happen with any other rap album. Also WTF rating system is that?
(I take it as a 9.5/10 right?). I'd give it an 8.5 if I had to rate it, but I hate rating albums.[/QUOTE]First album in a while that I had to write extensively on, random blurbs and tweets didn't do this album justice. Heh at the rating, I initially placed the rating between 95/100 and 100/100. On second thought I'd drag that lower bound down to 90/100, with my rating hovering somewhere in that band depending on my mood.
Awesome isn't it? Pete Rock used to do that on the albums with CL Smooth, make banging beats that could suffice for an entire song, and feature it as a throwaway loop for a few seconds at the end of another song. At least we're getting something...
Hold your horses on that...
http://www.passionweiss.com/2015/03/20/kendrick-lamar-to-pimp-a-butterfly-review/
He was one of the few good hip hop writers around but, he definitely seems like an exception here. Everyone else has been giving this rave reviews.
What a bullshit review. Contrarian just because.
That was a great review. Anyone who just dismisses it as simply bullshit is immature.
"Going “avant-garde” allows artists to escape expectations by shirking them. If you can’t top your classic, do the opposite, and nobody can say shit when it doesn’t work."
"The tracks are messy and incomplete, half-finished sketches bloated with big ideas but lacking in basic song structure. The jazz sections are purposely chaotic but lack symmetry. The G-funk is gelatinous. Is the beat for “King Kunta” what Suga Free thinks the Donkey Kong soundtrack sounds like? The melodies and hooks are unmemorable and often barely there. “If these walls could talk/I can feel your reign when it cries/gold lives inside of you,” reads like a love letter to the U.S. Treasury. “It’s more to feed your mind. Water, sun and love, the one you love,” sounds like a very rare remix of the Reading Rainbow theme. Butterfly in the sky."
"And for an artist who has staked his claim to the throne as the best rapper alive, Kendrick spends a curious amount of time noodling around with half-baked harmonies."
"Despite the album’s aspirations towards the avant-garde, To Pimp A Butterfly isn’t even particularly innovative. The blending of jazz, funk, and neo-soul has been a cliché of progressive-leaning hip-hop since the late 1990s."
"Filling an album with timely ideas and righteous fury isn’t enough when the songwriting is weak. Kendrick’s shielded himself from criticism under the cover of “experimentation” and ambition. If you don’t “get it,” there’s an easy refuge in saying the album is avant-garde even if that’s not entirely true. Ultimately, it has more in common with the meandering songwriting of Nas’ Untitled or Lupe after he turned into Whoopi Goldberg, than a socially conscious masterpiece like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On. Big ideas don’t excuse flawed songwriting. Kendrick went bigger, but he didn’t go deeper. Complexity doesn’t absolve you from providing answers."
Great points.
"Going “avant-garde” allows artists to escape expectations by shirking them. If you can’t top your classic, do the opposite, and nobody can say shit when it doesn’t work."
"The tracks are messy and incomplete, half-finished sketches bloated with big ideas but lacking in basic song structure. The jazz sections are purposely chaotic but lack symmetry. The G-funk is gelatinous. Is the beat for “King Kunta” what Suga Free thinks the Donkey Kong soundtrack sounds like? The melodies and hooks are unmemorable and often barely there. “If these walls could talk/I can feel your reign when it cries/gold lives inside of you,” reads like a love letter to the U.S. Treasury. “It’s more to feed your mind. Water, sun and love, the one you love,” sounds like a very rare remix of the Reading Rainbow theme. Butterfly in the sky."
"And for an artist who has staked his claim to the throne as the best rapper alive, Kendrick spends a curious amount of time noodling around with half-baked harmonies."
"Despite the album’s aspirations towards the avant-garde, To Pimp A Butterfly isn’t even particularly innovative. The blending of jazz, funk, and neo-soul has been a cliché of progressive-leaning hip-hop since the late 1990s."
"Filling an album with timely ideas and righteous fury isn’t enough when the songwriting is weak. Kendrick’s shielded himself from criticism under the cover of “experimentation” and ambition. If you don’t “get it,” there’s an easy refuge in saying the album is avant-garde even if that’s not entirely true. Ultimately, it has more in common with the meandering songwriting of Nas’ Untitled or Lupe after he turned into Whoopi Goldberg, than a socially conscious masterpiece like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Goin’ On. Big ideas don’t excuse flawed songwriting. Kendrick went bigger, but he didn’t go deeper. Complexity doesn’t absolve you from providing answers."
Great points.
Found myself agreeing with far more in that review than any other I've read so far. This thread doesn't need to be a praise only one, naturally people will have different opinions.
I've only listened to half the album and turned it off. I couldn't get into it!
I'll give it another couple of tries.
I'll give it another couple of tries.
He couldn't produce another GKMC and expect it to be as critically acclaimed.
Equally, you can't produce an album like TPAB without it making large amounts of people uncomfortable. It's an album that forces you out of your comfortable zone and requires you to think from so many different perspectives throughout.
Equally, you can't produce an album like TPAB without it making large amounts of people uncomfortable. It's an album that forces you out of your comfortable zone and requires you to think from so many different perspectives throughout.
So you're basically calling me immature because I dont agree with it and I think its bullshit?
If the hat fits...
What about it in particular makes it a bullshit review? Or, why does it have to be contrarian and not just his own opinion? Perhaps he just didn't rate the album as highly as you did.
There is a couple of decent tracks on the album. But as that review states, a lot of the songs sound messy and unfinished. It is also not a groundbreaking album with a new sound as I've seen many people suggest.
You're the same guy who said everyone who likes this album are merely sheep. So you'll jump on anything speaking against this album it seems
Filling an album with timely ideas and righteous fury isn’t enough when the songwriting is weak. Kendrick’s shielded himself from criticism under the cover of “experimentation” and ambition.
What utter garbage. The songwriting isn't weak, and he seeks to reduce this album to nothing short of a pretentious attempt to make something great. How exactly does Kendrick 'shield' himself from criticism? He laid his soul bare on this album. Its one thing to just not like it, but don't accuse the artist of 'shielding' himself from criticism and not further expand on what the feck you mean by saying that.
The Kendrick of “Art of Peer Pressure” is nowhere to be found. Instead, we get the “Squeaky-Voiced Teen“ from The Simpsons, the constipated space alien, his mom, Baby Einstein. At other times, it sounds like he’s been trapped in coach on a Delta flight listening to Eminem.
Seems he's the type of person who wants/expects artist to always sound the same. Doesn't he realize that he switched his flow and sound on certain tracks for a specific purpose? In the opener, Wesley's theory for instance, the second verse is rapped from the perspective of uncle Sam and he sounds and spits different from the first verse.
The songs are strangled. Kendrick’s seemingly forgotten how to let his music breathe. It’s why his G-Funk tracks don’t quite work; G-Funk wasn’t really about rappity ass rapping, which Kendrick seems to think is a fault in the sub-genre that needed to be fixed.
The only song that truly works is the most traditionally hip-hop, the blistering “The Blacker The Berry.” Over hard drums and a bruising dancehall beat
Again, he's showing how limited his thinking is because he's used to a certain structure that no one should dare try to move away from. He has it set in his mind what G-funk has always sounded like. 'G-funk wasn't really about rappity ass rapping'. Then what was it about my nigga? He fails to expand on this as well, but hey, just criticize for the sake of it. He praises the Blacker the Berry mostly because it fits in with the structure he's used to hearing. He has no love for attempts at innovation. Kendrick is trying to transcend and this cat really doesn't get it. As an African American everything that Kendrick says on this album resonates with me in so many different ways. I personally totally get what he did. This review is mostly just an attempt to counter all the positive reviews the album has rightfully got.
Kurupt was one of the most technical "rappity ass rapping" rappers around, and he went as smooth as butter on G-Funk beats.
Yeah you don't get to say the bolded part and just mirror the writer's points.
It's funny how the artist has a bone to pick with the albums that came out of the Soulquarian movement back in the early noughties. Phrenology, LWFC, Electric Circus got rave reviews as time went on. The crowning jewel of that movement was D'Angelo's Voodoo, and if he has a problem with unmemorable hooks, and lack of basic "basic" song structure, I wonder what he thought about Voodoo, one of the best albums of this generation, that was built around those two pillars.
It's not even about "getting it", you don't have to like this album at all. But when jazz heads are applauding this effort, when accomplished producers like Flylo and Thundercat are part time producers on the record, you can't get away with calling harmonies on here "half-baked" without justifying the remark. Not to talk about the lyricism and songwriting.
So yeah, shit review. And I'd love to read a well thought review that thinks this album is trash. Cause I've read a bunch of crap reviews praising it. Mine is probably one of them.
Fair enough, but I'm not convinced he has written that purely to go against the grain and "balance" it out. As you have mentioned a few above, there could be many legitimate reasons why he doesn't enjoy it as much as others, or at all - which is totally fine. Getting it is one thing, enjoying it to the level of a classic is another.
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey guys, it's almost like music is subjective.
Good post.
Well, it really is subjective. Not everyone will like it. I've already played it close to ten times and I can't get the songs out of my head. They'll be talking about this album for years to come. Even in college. It will make lists of best albums ever released (not just hiphop). Kanye already has three on there.
Still feel the album played through in it's entirety is outstanding to be honest, but it doesn't have many standalone tracks. Still a classic for me, although it's more than likely too early to say. Haven't stopped listening to it.
Actually, if you ask me, that review applies more to Yeezus.
*Dives into bushes*
*Dives into bushes*
I get the lack of singles will hurt radio play, but this album is not being talked about at all on hiphop radio.
Kanye has 3? I'd love to hear your list of classic albums out of curiosity.
I'd doubt it very much. I'm sure people who enjoy it love it, but not enough will to make the sort of impact you're talking about.
Realising why Kendrick did it and failing to like it are not necessarily linked.
I listened through the album today and I actually enjoyed it in the main. This was somewhat surprising as my initial attempt at listening only got me half way through the album. I understand what the reviewer was getting at though. Some of the voices on the album sound annoying and grating which distracted me from the songs entirely.
There's a track called for free which I found horrible to listen to because of the voice. The song U is also incredibly grating. I understand he's letting us know he's upset, but it's not enjoyable or necessary to listen to a whining voice for the last 2 minutes of a song. That's after I'd already winced every time he said "complicat'eeed" in a seemingly endless repetition.
I also get what the reviewer meant about the Eminem vibe, as I picked that up a bit too. I also got an Outkast vibe and there's a track called these walls that could have walked straight off a Prince album.
On u he's making it uncomfortable to listen to intentionally. He's talking about his depression and the harsh beats and voices embody that musically.
Your reaching,
Well he hardly put the voice on for the craic!
I love his use of different voices - usually conveys his message really well. He hardly uses his "real" voice at all but it makes for more interesting listening IMO.
Also think this is his best album yet; another interesting concept (whilst not being a direct story), a lot more experimentation sonically (anything Flylo and Thundercat touches I love) and with his own rapping/singing.
Also think this is his best album yet; another interesting concept (whilst not being a direct story), a lot more experimentation sonically (anything Flylo and Thundercat touches I love) and with his own rapping/singing.
Why make something uncomfortable to listen to when the idea of music is to listen to it?
Are all the people who are lavishing praise on the album sitting there thinking "This voice is annoying as shit and I'm not enjoying it. However Kendrick doesn't want me to enjoy it because that's his artistic intention, therefore it's brilliant"?
Why make something uncomfortable to listen to when the idea of music is to listen to it?
Are all the people who are lavishing praise on the album sitting there thinking "This voice is annoying as shit and I'm not enjoying it. However Kendrick doesn't want me to enjoy it because that's his artistic intention, therefore it's brilliant"?
Well personally I really like it. It's one of my favourite tracks.
I can understand people being polarised over that track though. He made it hard to listen to.
The voice didn't bother me at all, it's one verse and he is clearly meant to be distraught.
Kanye has three albums listed on the greatest 500 albums ever made by Rolling stone and he's on other lists. I've listened to many great albums in my lifetime. I'll give you 50 plus
1. Biggie-Ready to Die
2. "-Life After death
3. Pac-Me against the world
4. Jigga-Reasonable doubt
5. Outkast-Speakerboxxx/the love below
6.Nas-Stillmatic
7. "-Illmatic
8. Kanye-The College dropout
9. Kanye-Graduation
10.Busta rhymes-When disaster strikes
11. Fugees-The Score
12. Scarface-The Fix
13. The Mideducation of Lauryn Hill
14. The Blueprint
15. The Eminem show
16. Dr. Dre 2001
17. Get rich or die trying
18. Paid in full
19. Straight outta Compton
20. The Chronic
21. Dead Prez-Lets get free
22.Mecca and the soul brother
23. Little brother-The Minstrel show
24. Big punisher-Capital punishment
25.Kanye-My Beautiful dark twisted fantasy
26.Mos Def-Black on both sides
27. Good kid Maad city
28. EPMD-Strictly business
29.ATLiens
30 Wyclef-Carnival
31.Roots- Illadelph halflife
32. T.I-Urban Legend
33. All Eyez on me
34. Tablib Kweli and dj Hi-tek-Reflection Eternal:train of thought
35. DMX-Its Dark and hell is hot
36. Stankonia
37.Boogie down productions-By all means necessary
38. Nappy roots-Watermelon, chicken and grits
39. Roots-Phrenology
40. Kool G rap- Road to riches
41.One for all- Brand nubian
42. The Don Killuminati: 7 day theory
43.Fat Joe-Jealous ones still envy
44.Mama said knock you out
45. Main source-Breaking atoms
46. Tribe called quest-The low end theory
47.AZ-Aziatic
48. Jeezy-Thug Motivation 101
49. Common-Like water for chocolate
50. Killah priest- Heavy mental
Bonus: No way out (puff daddy), the Documentary (game), Blowout comb (digable planets)
Why make something uncomfortable to listen to when the idea of music is to listen to it?
Are all the people who are lavishing praise on the album sitting there thinking "This voice is annoying as shit and I'm not enjoying it. However Kendrick doesn't want me to enjoy it because that's his artistic intention, therefore it's brilliant"?
I'm sure he could have achieved the same message by just using his normal voice and expressing that through his lyrics. But then I suppose others feel it enhances the track/message.