Kendrick Lamar will kill your favorite rapper for money

on dido's comeback single: http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/12/14/167236496/hear-a-new-song-from-dido-featuring-kendrick-lamar?sc=tw&cc=share

http://pitchfork.com/news/49050-kendrick-lamar-to-perform-on-saturday-night-live/

god i feel like such a loser/old person/guy who hears 5 rap albums a year but this is completely amazing

― call all destroyer

Quite honestly, I don't understand anyone who calls themselves a hip-hop fan who isn't completely fucking dying over this album

Or even who doesn't call themselves a hip-hop fan. It's an incredible album by any standard.

*hi-5 chap*

that's basically how i feel--it's as good a pop record as it is anything

"money trees" has emerged as my go-to song off this

yeah i'm feelin that...it's prob my second go-to after swimming pools

i liked "swimming pools" a lot at first but hearing it on the radio kind of ruined it for me maybe? like, not in an oversaturation way, more just that it sounds awful in that context for some reason

that doubletime part on swimming pools is one of my favourite rapping moments on the album "i think that i'm feelin' the vibe/i see the love in her eyes"

makes sense, i think it's brilliant in the context of the album but i love the hook so much i started listening to it on its own

like it's sort of the emotional nadir of the album so it's an odd radio song

I've reached the point at which "Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst" is the first song I play.

that's a stunning track but i need to build up to it

I've played "Swimming Pools"/"Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst"/"Real" so so so much

I've only really just started to explore this album, really looking forward to getting properly acquainted with it.

noticed that the trick this album pulls is songs having like 2 - 3 hooks, like pre-choruses and bridges, swimming pools for example has the main chorus "swimming pools full of liquor and they dive in" but then "pour up, drank". money trees has like, "halle berry or hallelujah" into "that's just how it feel" and then that part with the girl singing ("be the last to get this dough? no way.") related to whiney's critique of the album but it's obviously a huge part of why it's been so successful

yup, it's immensely musical and melodically successful as rap albums go, it has like 5 super-catchy hooks which is insane imo

like i'm thinking of the sung parts on bitch don't kill my vibe, money trees, poetic justice, swimming pools at minimum--those are all really great singable hooks

"good kid" too

that doubletime part on swimming pools is one of my favourite rapping moments on the album "i think that i'm feelin' the vibe/i see the love in her eyes"

this is very OTM but the music nerd part of me feels compelled to point out that it's not just double-time, he's doing double-time on triplets

yeah some dude pointing out his overuse of triplets soured me on the album for like an afternoon but then i forgot about it

wait is that *the* some dude or

haha yeah the one & only

the way this guy raps in triplet flows the same way over every kind of beat is kind of annoying and eyerolling imo, he's like a teenaged guitarist who just learned a couple eddie van halen tricks and crams them into every song they play. learn some different tricks if you're gonna show off, dude!

― my mansplain songz (some dude), Tuesday, October 23, 2012 3:17 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ooh harsh

i don't know enough about "rap techniques" to comment

I think that's a stupid comment that ignores the amount of info Kendrick is cramming into all of these verses and also ignores that Kendrick has like 5 different tricks that he uses all the time

i liked "swimming pools" a lot at first but hearing it on the radio kind of ruined it for me maybe? like, not in an oversaturation way, more just that it sounds awful in that context for some reason

Ha I first heard "swimming pools"/lamar on the radio and it was a huge frickin 'damn this is awesome I must buy this album' thing.

first time I heard "Swimming Pools" I didn't get it

then I heard it in the context of the album and went "OHHHHHHHHH" and started playing it incessantly

xps well, it's misleading because every rapper relies on a relatively limited set of tricks, like that's part of what it means to have a distinct flow or style, but the reason it can be grating is because he uses it in a showy way, like there's this presumption that you're wowed by it--idk if u feel that but it's perceptible to me at least. still love the album tho, that part of swimming pools we were just talking about is a good example bc he's using it to give a dramatic pinch, u can feel your pulse quicken like

z-ro is the king of this obv, like around after 1:30 of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ7p48IG2xA

^^^i love ro in general but this song still knocks me out like every time, dude was just a technically flawless rapper for a long time

i need to delve back into kendrick's record after reading the enthusiasm here, i loved it the first couple times listening to it but ended up listening to less demanding rap records that came out around that time--reloaded etc.

everyday haters CAN`T UNDERSTAND THE WAY I MOVE MY HANDS IN WAYS NOT KNOWN TO MAN ♫

this album is definitely great but i do think that it suffers from needing the context

just in terms of replayability

i liked "swimming pools" a lot at first but hearing it on the radio kind of ruined it for me maybe? like, not in an oversaturation way, more just that it sounds awful in that context for some reason

― flopson, Saturday, January 12, 2013 10:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah it sounds like somebody flipped on the time machine everytime it comes on

poetic justice too

this album is definitely great but i do think that it suffers from needing the context

― J0rdan S., Sunday, January 13, 2013 1:24 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in what sense? i have read very little about kendrick's life or the album's concept and haven't had any trouble connecting to it as a piece of music (some parts far more than others though)

kinda love 'the recipe' even though it feel completely separate from the rest of the album.

in what sense? i have read very little about kendrick's life or the album's concept and haven't had any trouble connecting to it as a piece of music (some parts far more than others though)

― some dude, Sunday, January 13, 2013 8:14 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

i just meant that i don't really pull tracks from this and just play them. sorta feels like a thing you gotta listen straight thru

oh ok album context vs. tracks, right. yeah i have tried to pull out tracks and listen individually and it hasn't fared well for me.

I think there are a lot of tracks that fare well individually. Cutting the skits off the end really helps.

I can't really understand what anyone's saying in the skits.

i think it works well as an album qua album but the best songs easily hold up in isolation (and i mostly cherrypick and skip around tracks when i listen now - though i do tend to listen to the most stunning run, "good kid" through "swimming pools", as a block each time)

^^^ yes.

Also, I've had no trouble putting "The Art of Peer Pressure" and "Sherane" on in isolation.

"swimming pools" is such a bad song

"art of peer pressure" and "money trees" are the ones to pull out

With the exception of Backseat Freestyle and Compton and one or two others it's all pretty downbeat and melancholic and it takes a bit of time to settle into the right mood for it - it's hardly surprising it works better as a whole.

"Backseat Freestyle" is prob my least favorite song on the album

I don't get why someone would think swimming pools is a bad song. Not your favorite, ok. But bad?

OPEN YOUR MIND UP AND LISTEN ME KENDRICK, I AM YOUR CONSCIENCE IF YOU DO NOT HEAR ME THEN YOU WILL BE HISTORY KENDRICK in gazoo the great voice is just the worst imo

oops i mean the great gazoo