Guys, I feel like I'm the only one remembering that Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly came out this year. Easily leaps and bounds ahead of every other rap album I heard this year and probably my pick for Album of the Year. Also seconding Carrie and Lowell.
Not saying I endorse this 100%, but that may give you an idea of why not everyone's jumping to call TPAB #1 this year. Personally--in addition to the concerns raised by that post--I just don't like the way it sounds. IMO it falls somewhere between Dre and Baby's First Jazz Record.
rant time, I'll try and keep this short, So 8bit brings up a lot of good points in his post but I have to write a rebuttal because it feel like Hubski is shitting on TPAB because of his post. Yes TPAB was food for the masses of white middle class college age children (see me) and they will probably give up an arm and a leg to buy Kendrick's shoes. But all I can see in that post is anger at white people, the problem isn't Kendrick it'd goddamn white people. We suck, I know, but blaming Kendrick for pandering to white people just because of the delivery of his message isn't the problem with this album. Kendrick made an album talking about his struggles, white people got on board and were stupid about it aka what happens with most of pop culture. You don't get mad at Jean Michelle Basquiait for making art that was prominently bought by rich white socialites, so don't get mad at Kendrick for having a shitty fanbase. The album itself is great just as Baquait's art is great, but don't dissregard a great composition just because white people jumped on the bandwagon.
Okay so here's the thing: 1. I disagree with "the album itself is great," and from some of his responses in that original thread it seems like 8bit does too. But that's unrelated to the social part. So 2. You're reading 8bit's original post like the problem is white people listening to Kendrick. It's not. The problem is that the album was manufactured for, in 8bit's words, "fake-ass white hipsters that want to be 'down' with the movement that they have no understanding of and no interest in fixing." If you want to talk on the level of lyrical content about why TPAB is legitimately about black struggle, go for it, but it might be a little hard when Kendrick's out there saying shit like "when we don't have respect for ourselves, how do we expect them to respect us?"
I am going to listen to this album in entirety this week. I've never done so. I started listening to it today, with my daughter in the car. That lasted all of 15 seconds.