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Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city |OT| No Beats By Dre

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Recon said:
Yeah, I think thats his point. If it were any bigger, it would of looked much worse. Kendrick isnt that good live, based on second hand reports and youtube videos. He seems to cut short a lot of words, and sometimes outright skips them.
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I've seen him live twice and he was fantastic, but lets not get facts in the way of YouTube videos
 
Swimming Pools is not the song he should be performing live everywhere, even if it is the single. I feel around this time is a great time for artists to perform those songs they've been hiding from the public on the album. Dude should've done an abridged Money Trees or Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe.
 
enzo_gt said:
Swimming Pools is not the song he should be performing live everywhere, even if it is the single. I feel around this time is a great time for artists to perform those songs they've been hiding from the public on the album. Dude should've done an abridged Money Trees or Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe.
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Swimming Pools is not a good live song.
 
GremlinFool said:
I actually think channel ORANGE is a better album than Kendrick's by a country mile. Neither are remotely close to 9.5 Pitchfork caliber, but I could certainly make a case for Frank Ocean's debut album.

good kid, m.A.A.d. city is hokey, melodramatic tripe that favors hip-hop gimmickry over substance. The mere presence of an overarching storyline doesn't justify the lavish praise. MBDTF had a clear thematic coherence without shoving rap operatic nonsense down the listener's throat. The skits on Kendrick's album are intrusive and are generally of no intellectual worth.

Sure, Kendrick "goes hard" on m.A.A.d. city, but the people claiming vicarious thrills and touting the authenticity of his lyricism are identical to pseudo-intellectual buffoons constantly parroting the same unctuous talking points about The Wire.* In isolation from the self-indulgent story over the album, which provides nothing novel or substantive in my opinion, the beats are notably weaker than on section.80. I ultimately think there are moments of sporadic brilliance on the album: I really like Swimming Pools and Money Trees and Good Kid, for instance. Other than that, though, a completely ordinary hip-hop album that probably won't make my top 10 hip-hop albums of the year list.

*I do want to clarify that I'm not likening the quality of The Wire to this album, if such a cross-medial comparison were even feasible. The Wire is obviously a masterful show, but the overwrought rhetoric on the internet about the show is so exhausting and pervasive that it very nearly adulterates my viewing experience. I feel my perhaps unfair criticism of this album stems, in part, from the ridiculously gushing and homogenous praise for this album. My thoughts are best encapsulated by the TMT review posted tonight.
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peterb0y?
 
If I can rap the whole of Swimming Pools without missing a lyric then surely Kendrick can. I mean, is it a stylistic choice that he omits so much shit? I know you have to save your voice/stamina when doing live shows, but it was only one song he was performing and he still performed it like he always does.
 
Gotta hand it to gremlinfool, most trolls follow the lhexh route and just post one dumb sentence. He went all out and posted an essay where he gives the illusion of saying something meaningful while still managing to say absolutely nothing correct.
 
Jesus Kendricks voice on album and live is so different. Should've just performed Poetic Justice and brought Drake out.
 
siddx said:
Gotta hand it to gremlinfool, most trolls follow the lhexh route and just post one dumb sentence. He went all out and posted an essay where he gives the illusion of saying something meaningful while still managing to say absolutely nothing correct.
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He didn't really say anything, there is no examples given, I could have written that review without even listening to the album.
 
Detox said:
He didn't really say anything, there is no examples given, I could have written that review without even listening to the album.
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Well thats what I mean, it sounds ironically enough, like most pitchfork reviews. Just a lot of words strung together that don't really say a fucking thing.
 
GremlinFool said:
For what it's worth, I think Aesop Rock, El-P, Killer Mike, and Billy Woods all released better hip-hop albums this year. Probably more that I'm forgetting.
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I don't agree with this at all and I love both Killer Mike and El-P's album.
Haven't listened to too much of Aesop yet, but his gibberish is really taking it's toll on me.

Ken Masters said:
I've seen him live twice and he was fantastic, but lets not get facts in the way of YouTube videos
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Yea same here, thought he was great live with the venue he was working with. Tons of energy from him and the crowd. Plus Cartoons and Cereal is amazing live.
 
No wonder GremlinFool reads Pitchfork, shit read exactly like something parroted from them. But pretty much in the same way you're not really bringing anything to light. You think GKMC is melodramatic, you don't like the skits, you think the beat quality isnt up to par, thats... fine. You don't have to wrap it up in some pseudointellectual words, it's a matter of preference after all. I find it funny that you're including fan context in your review- which essentially is admitting that you're not approaching it with an open mind. Here's a tip; just say you think it's overrated instead of trying to fault the work itself based upon what other people are saying about it.

Apart from that i'm laughing at you calling MBTDF coherent when its a sonic mess; poor decisions on track editing, sample and sound choice all over the place, overloaded with features like a posse cut album, and mastered like shit. And praising that album while damning this one for self indulgence? you're either a troll or an idiot.
 
GremlinFool said:
I actually think channel ORANGE is a better album than Kendrick's by a country mile. Neither are remotely close to 9.5 Pitchfork caliber, but I could certainly make a case for Frank Ocean's debut album.

good kid, m.A.A.d. city is hokey, melodramatic tripe that favors hip-hop gimmickry over substance. The mere presence of an overarching storyline doesn't justify the lavish praise. MBDTF had a clear thematic coherence without shoving rap operatic nonsense down the listener's throat. The skits on Kendrick's album are intrusive and are generally of no intellectual worth.

Sure, Kendrick "goes hard" on m.A.A.d. city, but the people claiming vicarious thrills and touting the authenticity of his lyricism are identical to pseudo-intellectual buffoons constantly parroting the same unctuous talking points about The Wire.* In isolation from the self-indulgent story over the album, which provides nothing novel or substantive in my opinion, the beats are notably weaker than on section.80. I ultimately think there are moments of sporadic brilliance on the album: I really like Swimming Pools and Money Trees and Good Kid, for instance. Other than that, though, a completely ordinary hip-hop album that probably won't make my top 10 hip-hop albums of the year list.

*I do want to clarify that I'm not likening the quality of The Wire to this album, if such a cross-medial comparison were even feasible. The Wire is obviously a masterful show, but the overwrought rhetoric on the internet about the show is so exhausting and pervasive that it very nearly adulterates my viewing experience. I feel my perhaps unfair criticism of this album stems, in part, from the ridiculously gushing and homogenous praise for this album. My thoughts are best encapsulated by the TMT review posted tonight.
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iZ91wb2YH6bFl.gif
 
Eschaton said:
No wonder GremlinFool reads Pitchfork, shit read exactly like something parroted from them. But pretty much in the same way you're not really bringing anything to light. You think GKMC is melodramatic, you don't like the skits, you think the beat quality isnt up to par, thats... fine. You don't have to wrap it up in some pseudointellectual words, it's a matter of preference after all. I find it funny that you're including fan context in your review- which essentially is admitting that you're not approaching it with an open mind. Here's a tip; just say you think it's overrated instead of trying to fault the work itself based upon what other people are saying about it.

Apart from that i'm laughing at you calling MBTDF coherent when its a sonic mess; poor decisions on track editing, sample and sound choice all over the place, overloaded with features like a posse cut album, and mastered like shit. And praising that album while damning this one for self indulgence? you're either a troll or an idiot.
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This...
Is a damn good post.
 
Eschaton said:
No wonder GremlinFool reads Pitchfork, shit read exactly like something parroted from them. But pretty much in the same way you're not really bringing anything to light. You think GKMC is melodramatic, you don't like the skits, you think the beat quality isnt up to par, thats... fine. You don't have to wrap it up in some pseudointellectual words, it's a matter of preference after all. I find it funny that you're including fan context in your review- which essentially is admitting that you're not approaching it with an open mind. Here's a tip; just say you think it's overrated instead of trying to fault the work itself based upon what other people are saying about it.

Apart from that i'm laughing at you calling MBTDF coherent when its a sonic mess; poor decisions on track editing, sample and sound choice all over the place, overloaded with features like a posse cut album, and mastered like shit. And praising that album while damning this one for self indulgence? you're either a troll or an idiot.
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.

MuddyDonut said:
Yea same here, thought he was great live with the venue he was working with. Tons of energy from him and the crowd. Plus Cartoons and Cereal is amazing live.
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When he played Cartoons and Cereal at the concert I went to (probably the encore song for all his concerts)

The crowd went ham, the bass is just to heavy, and Kendrick goes crazyy when it comes on
 
siddx said:
Gotta hand it to gremlinfool, most trolls follow the lhexh route and just post one dumb sentence. He went all out and posted an essay where he gives the illusion of saying something meaningful while still managing to say absolutely nothing correct.
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He was right tho....
 
kamspy said:
He was right tho....
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Can't be right when you haven't said a single correct thing...or anything really at all. And don't start, you're the biggest troll we have. You just troll smarter than these rookie motherfuckers.
 
So I just read a review from a German website (5/5) and the reviewer stated that the first track has the same melody as "Poetic Justice" - what do you guys think?
 
Eschaton said:
Apart from that i'm laughing at you calling MBTDF coherent when its a sonic mess; poor decisions on track editing, sample and sound choice all over the place, overloaded with features like a posse cut album, and mastered like shit. And praising that album while damning this one for self indulgence? you're either a troll or an idiot.
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All of this is factually wrong except for the mastering. I don't have a problem with the samples and although very varied, they create a pretty damn cohesive sound altogether. It's not overloaded with features unless your version came with 18 duped tracks of So Appalled, and it doesn't feel like a posse cut album at all, massive exaggeration. Poor track editing decisions? Maybe on Runaway, but everything else not really, Devil in a New Dress and Gorgeous warrant their length entirely.

Also, one of the themes of MBDTF is self-indulgence. The entire album is like a postmortem of and reflection on his psyche after all he's been through and his self-indulgent ways.

That said, I do not cosign Gremlin's post at all. Albums are not really comparable. Shit is ignorance right there.
 
enzo_gt said:
All of this is factually wrong except for the mastering. I don't have a problem with the samples and although very varied, they create a pretty damn cohesive sound altogether.
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No they don't. WTT had the same problem. All over the place.
It's not overloaded with features unless your version came with 18 duped tracks of So Appalled, and it doesn't feel like a posse cut album at all, massive exaggeration. Poor track editing decisions?
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Breh 7/11 tracks on that album(not counting interlude bullshit) have features, sometimes multiple features. Like 3+. You're wrong. And even a couple of the ones not credited with features like Power have backup vocals. Every promoted single on that album arguably has a feature.
Maybe on Runaway, but everything else not really, Devil in a New Dress and Gorgeous warrant their length entirely.
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Disagree on DiaND, but ill say that stuff like Runaway, Monster, Blame Game, and AOTL overstay their welcome
Also, one of the themes of MBDTF is self-indulgence. The entire album is like a postmortem of and reflection on his psyche after all he's been through and his self-indulgent ways.
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I'm aware. I think its fucking silly to bash this album for it and praise that one in the same sentence though. Every storytelling album is going to have aspects of this to it.
 
Nibel said:
So I just read a review from a German website (5/5) and the reviewer stated that the first track has the same melody as "Poetic Justice" - what do you guys think?
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Maybe he meant that little echoey melody that shows up twice? Once at the beginning of Sherane and then later (possibly before Poetic).
 
BenjaminBirdie said:
Maybe he meant that little echoey melody that shows up twice? Once at the beginning of Sherane and then later (possibly before Poetic).
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I'm pretty sure that's what he meant. That beat reminds me of something from a Burial album. I have yet to find one slightly negative review from websites regarding this album. I think this will be considered a true classic
 
That same melody/sound appears again to take the listener back to the story with Sherane. Once that little bit plays, a skit opens with the gangbangas tapping the window of his van, telling him to get out. The sound is there for a reason.
 
After listening to this album I decided to go back and see what other Kendrick Lamar songs I missed out and finally heard Cartoons and Cereal.....oh man this should have been on the album
 
Dre3001 said:
After listening to this album I decided to go back and see what other Kendrick Lamar songs I missed out and finally heard Cartoons and Cereal.....oh man this should have been on the album
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It was supposed to be. Sample clearances stopped it :(

Also, Gaga was supposed to be on Don't Kill My Vibe, and Compton was originally from Detox.

More here!

Props to 36 Chambers for the link.
 
Dre3001 said:
After listening to this album I decided to go back and see what other Kendrick Lamar songs I missed out and finally heard Cartoons and Cereal.....oh man this should have been on the album
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Agreed. Listen to The Relevant also, great song.
 
siddx said:
Can't be right when you haven't said a single correct thing...or anything really at all. And don't start, you're the biggest troll we have. You just troll smarter than these rookie motherfuckers.
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You haven't contributed a single constructive argument to the discussion. Either cogently refute what I said or keep quiet.

Specifically, I want you to explain in excruciating detail how Kendrick's lyricism (which has been touted as this album's strong suit) is explicitly better than the lyricism in any of the albums I posted on the last page from this year alone. Clearly, Kendrick isn't particularly a technical maestro and no one is lauding this album for its extraordinary beats, so I think distilling this argument to lyrical prowess would be prudent. What do you find interesting about GKMC's story and lyrics?

It should be noted that El-P, Billy Woods, Aesop Rock, Death Grips, and Killer Mike all released albums holistically better in my opinion and with objectively better production. Your argument hinges in large part on Kendrick's lyrics, so please, let's harp on this point of contention.
 
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