good kid maad city is too good

I think there were signs of it on his first two albums so I totally expected a more mainstream approach in terms of sound, which will have certainly been advised by the label.

What gets me with this is the lack of anything interesting to say. I never expected him to compromise on his content. Even Lupe kept his content on "Lasers".

Kendrick Lamar is too nice, I'm excited to see him come in the game.

man this dude kendrick fell off i swear to god dog

my primary concern on first listen was that the record was far longer than it needed to be.
KL's still got clever lyrics, although they verged on more generic topics this time than the last outing
and all the little interludes served only to annoy me.

I wanted to listen to hip-hop not some answering phone message with a niqqa shouting and cursing about Dominoes.

That 10 minute track had me reaching for a razor blade.

So do you guys dislike this album? I don't think it's amazing, but I also don't think it's bad at all.

I really am going to have a tough time going to this for a second listen. It's in my car right now but I'm just really not enjoying it. The 11th track is okay, but I just don't find myself as enthralled as I did last year when I got Section .80. It doesn't seem to be like his songs are about much, and I hate the talk over samples at the end of each track, they just seem to drag on and on.

I think the album is slightly below average, I liked two songs on the entire thing and some of the others absolutely drive me insane but I am starting to hate it for reasons other than the album itself...

It is close to a 4.0 on RYM... I mean, this is ridiculous. People are calling it a "classic" and "AOTY". I mean, is it even better than Section.80? I don't think so. Not by a long shot. It's going to be more over hyped and overrated than MBDTF, which I don't mind all that much.

Yeah but it's also only been around for a week so I'm not surprised everyone is going to be gushing over it. Give it a few weeks and the rating will drop and will eventually take its place somewhere in the 200/300 of RYM's best of 2012.

I do like your review on RYM though.

I saw that this has a 9.5 rating on Pitchfork. That got my attention real quick, but I listened to one song that the review was gushing about... and was not impressed. At all. I'll take ya'lls words for it and not download it.

Goofle11 > Pitchfork

The world needs to know.

it's probably not even that bad, KL's an artist I'm going to keep at. So I will give GKMC another few chances.

I mean, I all but dismissed Ab-Soul's Control System on first listen, went back to it and it was actually really good.

Of course it's not Section 8.0, there'd be people slating him if he made another record too similar for a lack of musical progression, but I have a belief that if we are not too hasty to judge and keep it at, Kendrick will have delivered on this one.

As for RYM/Pitchfork/wherever, I don't judge what music I listen to by what another person tells me to think, I'm capable of formulating my own opinions.

Me too. I just found it today and was headed to give it a listen. I decided to stop by and see what MB had to say about it. I don't hate it; I don't love it. It's listenable. I can see myself enjoying it on occasion.

This is my first exposure to Lamar, so I have no expectations from his previous work.

I like it. It's good album. I still think Kendrick gets a lot of unwarranted praise. He falls into a lot of hip hop tropes that his contemporaries (jay electronica, yassim bey, even ab soul) have avoided. When i hear Kendrick make grandiose statements, i never get the sense he's astute enough to actually back them up.

The production is superb and that's why i like listen to it. Especially the dre stuff, and backseat freestyle goes super hard. I even like swimming pools as a single.

I just can't shake the impression that his praise has more to do with the state of the genre itself,rather than him being exceptional.

i amount most praise to the state of the genre.

See but other releases-jay electronica, shabazz, etc, weren't just good because of the state of the genre, they were just really, really good.

Kenderick isn't at all new or stands out based on his own range as a rapper, he just does it better than the state of the genre, meaning, he does it better than rick ross, school boy q or the other quasi pop/gangster rappers. He encompasses the persona of being intelligent, affluent and conscious (even though he in no way is) more so than the others in his same class.

Super on point. :clap:

Kendrick Lamar is a good artist.
He still has alot to prove though.
There is nothing that he has done yet to wow me.
I would say if he is around in five years cool.

Saw him do a song (it's either called Drunk or Swimming Pools) on Conan and it was decent. It definitely had its moments but it didn't blow me away or anything. I liked the somewhat minimal beats that aren't too overwhelming, but his emceeing is alright, nothing past that.

It's all about the last track on the album, 'Compton' featuring Dr. Dre & produced by Just Blaze! Think Jay-z & Alicia Keys collab only about Compton instead of New York.....EPIC

Swimming Pool sounds like an A$AP song, doesn't it?

Missed this earlier:

yeah, but Shabazz didn't blow over nearly as well as some other albums- as we've discussed, it was below Drake's Take Care on Pitchfork's Year's Best list, and was entirely ignored by Rolling Stone, and hit the bottom half of the MOJO list (who'd i call a little more credible than the other two sources). But that's very little good press for how great an album Black Up was. Electronica i haven't heard so much, but i did dig him on Curren$y's "the Day." Maybe i'm being more cynical than i deserve, but as far as major press goes, Hip Hop never looks too great. Ever since A$AP slightly disappointed (he's coming back for me since i saw how good "Acid Drip" was), i've been a little weary of new rap to be honest. Oh, and KRIT- I listened to him, and he was straight too, but mainly for the beats, personally. It was only one listen, so maybe i should try again, but anyway.

Sure, sure. I'm just lazy, i'll listen soon. But i've been diggin on more allegorical rap, like Shabazz with it's afrofuturistic ****, or even, to my analysis at least, OF. I'll listen though.

And when have we ever based the state of hip-hop on what hipster publications and the John Lennon cock-sucking rolling stone had to say?

Look at hip-hop now as opposed to say; 2008?
It's in a much better shape now, it doesn't matter to me about album of the year lists or any of that pretentious sh/t.
It's about music I like. And I like 2012 hip-hop.

I assume they were talking about mainstream Hip Hop, which is what this album is.

Since they were the leading publications on music, which has been for awhile. Even strictly Hip Hop magazines don't have much good hip hop to give press to, in their world. But i know such a rugged individualist as yourself won't care a lick about them either.

2008 was when Wayne was still pretty good, so the mainstream still had that hope. I think we've just numbed our expectations since the mainstream had its recession or whatever. Now when something alright comes along that's slightly different, we say, wowzers.

not bad...

this is my favorite freestyle bar none...

Yea but u didn't luvv Tame Impala so u must be mad in your head

When it comes to hiphop you're master race though. =3

No I'm not listening to this thing, this album is doing the same damn thing as Frank Ocean's Channel Orange.

>hype de hype on this album
>drops
>Pitchfork gives it a 9.5
>even more hype
>I listen to it
>mediocre as hell would not listen again

inb4 Kendrick Lamar goes completely pop, gets a few hits and to please the crowd he starts using so mcuh autotune that it sounds like he's drowning.

That Tame Impala album gets more average with every listen unfortunately.

iccl about Lamaar, but you need to give Frank another listen. Or you should in my opinion. I mean, i gave In Rainbows more than one listen before i called it mediocre.

^ correct on something. Channel ORANGE is incredible. Pyramids is without a doubt the song of the year.

9.5? Holy hell.

I think i forgot to mention that i did give the album a listen, and i will hand it to him that he's an extremely flexible rapper, in delivery and all. Substance wise i didn't hear too closely, nothing caught my attention but i'll listen again for that. The album's music wasn't nearly as enticing as some newer releases, like Black Up or Channel Orange, but it wasn't bad.

One more listen at least, but it isn't anything extraordinary from an artistic perspective, like i would hope to see from such a hyped release.

Not true. >=(

Pyramids is the one song that I do adore, and well, it's not that bad, but it's got the Beatles-effect for me. It's been glorified so much that I can't seirously listen to it anymore without thinking "so this is amazing according to everyone, huh? Cos I'm not hearing it."

Also:



>Best New Track
>implying the lyrics aren't awful
>implying the production isn't average as fuck

His flow is good though, but I just can't listen to this with my serious face on.

"DAYUMN I GOT BITCHES, DAYUMN I GOT BITCHES, DAYUMN I GOT BITCHES"
"BIAAATCH, NO WAIT, BIAAATCH, NO WAIT, BIAAATCH"
"BIAAATCH, COLDPLAY, BIAATCH, COLDPLAY, BIAAATCH"

No I'm not going to try this album.

Their new one? I haven't listened to it yet but i liked that other one a lot.

Yeah that's super true.

Does anyone here listen to anything with any real lyrical substance or heart? Mainstream hip hop ain't been worth a damn since Pac, SMH

Y'all need to be checking out some underground music.

Check out Jelly Roll-The Big Sal Story, Haystak-From Start To Finish... Hell, get on datpiff.com and check out any of Jelly Roll's Therapeutic Music mix tapes, they're all free...

Real music from real dudes about real life...

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Very nice, but that has got nothing to do with the subject.

My apologies, wasn't trying to derail the thread. I was just thinking out loud really.

Music is subjective and everyone likes what they like. I didn't think dudes freestyle was bad, but it sure didn't wow me enough to put forth any extra effort to check out his other stuff...

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You are listening to the song out of context. The freestyle is supposed to be braggy basic and egotistical because he's just chilling with his friends and smoking while in the backseat. The track before and after that one shows you that he basically did it because of his friends.

The little "annoying" interludes at the end of tracks help string things together.

At first I didn't like Swimming Pools by itself but when I hear it on the album it makes sense following the tracks good kid and m.a.a.d city. Those are probably the best two on the album and transitions nicely into Swimming Pools which I like a bit more now.

I don't think contextualising the tracks makes a difference on my end.

If a song is awful by itself it can't just get good because it's supposed to be taken into the context of the video, really. It's just a shitty song for me any way around. Context is nice and all, Dark Side of the mOon's tracks work best when you listen to the album as a whole, but they are still great even when you don't listen to them in their context.