Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

I think you are drastically overstating the presence of strings and female choruses on this album, considering that only three songs have a female voice on the chorus ("Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe", "Money Trees", "Real", and in all three cases that voice is doubled by a male voice) and only four songs have strings on them ("Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe", "Money Trees", the second half of "m.A.A.d city" and "Sing About Me", and none of those songs have extended solo sections that show of the awesome cinematic power of the strings) and none of these elements actually extend the length of the songs.

strings and female choruses are awesome things

i love the sound of this album, i don't feel like much has been said about how purely pleasurably soft it is

"strings and female choruses are awesome things" - alex pretend da kid

I actually think what ppl are responding to is that this thing actually has a lot of space & air in the mix, it doesn't feel overstuffed like so much music now

I mean the kinda bloated concept stuff & sermons from granny signify overproduced but moment to moment the tracks are fairly spare

fast life” of that kool g album might be nas's best moment

― seasonal hugs (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 13:29 (57 minutes ago) Bookmark

salaam remi norfside mix of this is one of the very best things

haven't heard that? link?

http://youtu.be/97GQMscedD4

Nice

always preferred this remix tbh: http://youtu.be/uqfP2MoKYz4

that salaam one is nice though. i love "fast life" but was never crazy about the original beat

can't believe DJP is reading a post totally literally, what an amazing turn of events for ILX

my point is that theres too many things that arent rapping on a rap album and it makes for a tedious, aggravating listen, especially when the dude in question is one of the best rappers working today

it would be a better point if you weren't using stupid examples to make it

Really sorry to hear about your tedious, aggravating listen, Whiney. Glad it's not contagious.

like, if your point is "I want him to tell his big sweeping story by rapping about it, not through framing skits", just say that

I hate to be the guy who's like "maybe if you have a long attention span this is a great album" but yeah. the interludes and all were entertaining, even engrossing, when I was lying in bed yesterday morning listening to the album in a good pair of headphones with my eyes closed. I imagine I'll find them distracting if I'm listening while I'm doing other shit.

it would be a better point if you weren't using stupid examples to make it

― Gandalf’s Gobble Melt (DJP), Tuesday, October 30, 2012 12:20 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lol, yeah your "He only does it in 7 of the 12 songs" argument really made me look like an idiot

always preferred this remix tbh: http://youtu.be/uqfP2MoKYz4

that salaam one is nice though. i love "fast life" but was never crazy about the original beat

― don't trust the lil b in apartment 23 (fadanuf4erybody), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 16:14 (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah me either. i like the vinyl reanimators beat but i think salaam's melancholy gambino recasting stages it perfectly

I hate to be the guy who's like "maybe if you have a long attention span this is a great album" but yeah.

― Inconceivable (to the entire world) (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 30 October 2012 16:26 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

making generalisations to fit whiney in is fool's work. my attention span is fucking shameful and this album drew me in on its own by design

i agree w whiney that there are too many skits & not enough rapping (i like the softserve beats tho), but it's kind of like when he complains about not being able to listen to mixtapes with dj drops or low bitrates, the music that's there is still hot & i think it's kind of prissy to dismiss it on that basis alone, like spoiled kids whose parents have to cut the crust off of their bread or something

"too many skits & not enough rapping" wasn't actually his gripe at all though

oh noes a rap album with hooks and good production

his criticism is a rejection of the album's entire presentation, its basic framework, which is fine if he wants to dismiss it but doesn't qualify as a 'considered criticism' by that standard imo, its like when i had a friend who complained about the snares on cuban linx being too loud, or when a certain ilxor dissed the drums on anthony hamilton's debut

he said "most of the runtime is eaten up by choruses and bridges that go on forever, forever ever, forever ever... not to mention that if anyone this side of Lupe dropped a 69-minute "short film" they'd be laughed off ilx" & that's the part i was agreeing with, i don't think its overproduced, i like that the beats are butter-soft, dgaf about beach house samples, think his voice is cool

it's tasteful production that stays out of the way of the rapping but i don't know how much it's particularly good production

his criticism is a rejection of the album's entire presentation, its basic framework, which is fine if he wants to dismiss it but doesn't qualify as a 'considered criticism' by that standard imo, its like when i had a friend who complained about the snares on cuban linx being too loud, or when a certain ilxor dissed the drums on anthony hamilton's debut

― fanute da croupier (D-40), Tuesday, October 30, 2012 7:08 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha. I had a friend who refused to listen to RZA's production because there wasn't enough bass.

i like the way it's tasteful production that stays out of the way AND it's super-detailed and still full of really great sonic details, lots of percussive pile-ups and awesome basslines and eerie organs/strings/samples etc

yes!

i have no idea how rejecting an album's narrative framework is just like nitpicking about drums tbh, those seem like totally different approaches to me

I wasnt even complaining about the narrative framework, I'm a big fan of Prince Among Thieves, tbh.

I don't think anyone said anything about you rejecting the narrative?

his criticism is a rejection of the album's entire presentation, its basic framework, which is fine if he wants to dismiss it but doesn't qualify as a 'considered criticism' by that standard imo, its like when i had a friend who complained about the snares on cuban linx being too loud, or when a certain ilxor dissed the drums on anthony hamilton's debut

― fanute da croupier (D-40), Tuesday, October 30, 2012 7:08 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

w/e this post was saying

i was just teasing al about hating the drums on coming from where im from it wasnt meant to be serious

altho the rest of the post was

I don't get anything about narrative out of that post xp

oh i thought based on the additonal cuban linx thing that there was some kind of meaning there silly me (xpost)

sorry didn't think it was a huge leap of logic to think talking about the Kendrick album's "entire presentation, its basic framework" had something to do w/ the storyline that is central to every discussion of the album

Funny thing is, for me, the narrative aspect is one of the things I find least compelling about this record.

this thread title is kinda weird now in light of how introspective and emo this record is

Seemed obv to me deej was talking about the sonic framework, since, you know, that's what Whiney criticized.

right ok

never thought i'd get so much grief for THAT n-word

Funny thing is, for me, the narrative aspect is one of the things I find least compelling about this record.

otm

Funny thing is, for me, the narrative aspect is one of the things I find least compelling about this record.

yeah me too - this is what DOES fit the "admirable but not lovable" line, because it's impressive and all but it's not what's making me come back to this album (and i'm totally cherrypicking my favourites when i relisten, hardly ever listen to ~the narrative~ any more) (plus three of my favourite tracks are bonus cuts)

I think the "objectiveness" of the narrative structure is what is ultimately allowing Kendrick to follow his inclinations to be weird and free.

That is its value to me. The story in itself isn't too important.

think you guys are underselling the narrative, to me as a whole it's really just a rich and affective portrait of the compton of his youth, but individually the more narrative-driven scenes are among the best of the album, if not sequentially dependent necessarily

altho you guys are probably going to qualify what you meant by narrative aspect now

individually the more narrative-driven scenes are among the best of the album, if not sequentially dependent necessarily

I agree with this, but the overarching-concept aspect of it doesn't seem like a huge part of the listening experience for me.

the narrative is important to my enjoyment of the record but it isn't the narrative itself that i focus on when i think about what i like about it. the narrative just allows for the good stuff to 'work' & forces you to pay attention to the details hes saying, gives him the opportunity to rap from other perspectives more readily, etc

ya i think it's a necessary condition that, for a concept album to 'work' u have to be able to enjoy it without paying any attention to the concept