You want that Colbert song, a favorite among message board types? Here it is, finally.Īlso Read Governors Ball Heads to Flushing Meadows Corona Park With Lizzo, Odesza, Kendrick Lamar 4? Here’s a surprise album that will almost certainly move more units and inspire more people. Macklemore does the conventional album release thing a few weeks ago only to sell a mere 51,000 copies and thunk on the charts at No. Again the ceremony saw him snubbed for an Album of the Year statuette. But in this lies its power and greatest asset: With the stakes low, Lamar can air out his demons, have some fun, bask in the afterglow of the Grammys (and his performance, which inspired none other than LeBron James to hit him up on Twitter to ask for its release only to see that actually happen).

can feel like the clearing of a table, rather than a feast. ” from just a few weeks ago at the Grammys - untitled unmastered. ” from a now-legendary Colbert Report performance, “untitled 05 |. As a landing spot for songs we’ve heard before - “untitled 03 |.

Somewhat predictably, a few have claimed this “album” - in its brevity, small scale, and more analog-sounding jazz/funk/soul sound - is better than the preposterously layered Butterfly. It felt like some were praising the album as a humanist achievement rather than a supreme musical work - something to appreciate rather than listen to repeatedly. on a Thursday.įor all its acclaim, though, To Pimp a Butterfly was sometimes severely misunderstood at the same time as it was being endlessly argued about. Imagine if Radiohead followed up Kid A with Amnesiac, only in demo form, and it arrived unexpectedly at 11:15 p.m. He also didn’t have to do this thing, exactly: an eight-song, 34-minute miniature more substantial than just a handful of outtakes, but also in execution not as complete or united as his album-ass albums (starting with 2011’s Section.80). But where city at least tread traditional hip-hop tropes and the old narrative of young kid, bad influences, and the internal struggle between them all, everything since has seen Kendrick pulled in about a hundred different directions as opposed to one or two.

Not even a year has passed since he released his grand statement, To Pimp a Butterfly, an intimidating epic that was a consensus pick as Album of the Year - critical unanimity unseen since, well, his last album, 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city.

Untitled unmastered review hip hop dx