To Pimp a Butterfly

Cuando empecé hace ya casi un año a hacer esto de los 1001 álbumes, no tenía muy claro qué es lo que iba a sacar. Supongo que conocer nuevos artistas y reafirmarme en los que conozco de los géneros que ya amaba (rock, electrónica, dance...).

Y si bien es cierto que me ha ayudado a conocer bastantes cosas chulas, yendo ya por una quinta parte de esto, lo que más me ha ayudado sin duda es a apreciar y amar el buen hip-hop/rap. Nunca había sido alguien de estos géneros, pero obligándome a oír primero a Kanye West (cosa que me ha hecho adentrarme y amar su carrera antes de que se volviera lo que es ahora) y ahora a Kendrick Lamar empiezo a apreciar lo que todo el mundo ama de esto. Y es que este álbum es la ostia.

Quizá es el primer 5 en el que no puedo elegir un tema muy favorito porque el álbum fluye de principio a final como una entidad. Seguro que no llego a entender del todo todos los temas que trata, pero es que la forma de componer y rapear me tiene enamorado. Como ya hice con MBDTF, agradezco a esta página haber hecho esto para que, aunque a veces tenga que tragar mucha mierda, obligarme a escuchar joyas como esta que nunca habría escuchado hace un año. 5 estrellas.

A rap album I like? Must be dreaming. yeah this was different. Lots of interesting stuff start to finish. Didn’t have me poking the skip halfway through the tracks. Well done.

It’s a 10. I knew it was gonna be a 10 before I listened to it again, but I just had to be completely sure.

Too many people have written too many words about this album for me to add anything truly meaningful to the praise it gets – hell, I even wrote a paper about “How Much a Dollar Cost” once, so I’m worn out on writing things about this album already. I can’t wait to read all of the thinkpieces when this album hits its 10th anniversary next year to reflect on just how special of a piece of art this is – people with bigger vocabularies and more introspection than I will be able to write some beautiful one-liners about its impact and its legacy in ways that I’ll only be able to appreciate and agree with.

For my money’s worth, I truly have nothing but praise for it, and it’s praise that everyone else will regurgitate – brilliant lyricism, incredible flow, fantastic features, genre-bending instrumentals, great vocal work, and ultimately, just one of the more clear and concise visions ever laid out for a single album with damn near flawless execution, especially via the framing of the album provided by the poem and the payoff with the 2pac “interview” at the end.

This is the easiest 10 I could possibly give. I’m sure there are better rap albums out there, I’m sure there are albums with bigger impacts out there, and I’m willing to admit that I know it so well inside and outside from the amount of times I’ve listened to it that I can’t really look at it with a deeply critical eye… but I just don’t care. I truly think it’s the best album of the 21st century, regardless of genre, a top 10 album of all time, and it cemented Kendrick Lamar’s legacy by just his third studio album. Everything since this has been a bonus, and they’ve been incredible bonuses in their own right. I hope this guy drops again soon.

Drake could fucking never.

This record is so sonically rich I can forgive some of the questionable lyrical choices. Though the Untitled, Unmastered record that followed was even better.

No notes required, it's my favourite album and I listen to it multiple times a month.

I would rather listen to a concussed Frank Zappa perform the complete works of Weird Al Yankovic than listen to this again.

Hmm, ei ollu ihan yhtä hyvä kuin muistin. 3/5

A bit of a fever dream. The opening tracks are from a completely different level, but I honestly think they lead into a bit of a lull before going full throttle at the end.
Even if I think parts of the album are slightly boring, the total score can only be a solid 5.

I hear Thundercat in the first track, nice. Thundercat came into my radar thanks to this 1001 albums project.
Hip hop is not a genre I listen to, so I have a hard time rating these albums (what's good? what's not?). Overall I enjoyed this.

Please stop

No me ha gustado mucho, no es malo, pero se me ha hecho largo y sin brillar en ningún punto. El rap de los 90/2000 me llamaba más que el que se ha ido haciendo después. Seré yo que me hago viejo.

3.43 per track. Some great 5 star tracks.

Masterpiece

I've been waiting for Kendrick. I'm hopeful for little enough misogyny to accept him as the greatest of all time.
...Wow. Such power. Incredible. Absolutely deserves the title. That Tupac interview at the end? So good. Loved the Thundercat features, what a great ride.

I’m very familiar with this album. Going into it, the only question was whether I’d rate it 4 or 5 stars.

I think this gets better every time I listen. Knowing that the poem is going to culminate in a conversation with Tupac helps.

Going to rate it five stars. It’s so inventive and layered. It would be easier to list the songs I don’t love.

Some real high points and a lot of blah. In general the highs outweigh the lows.

Masterpiece

This was my favourite album of 2015 and it's no less potent, vitriolic, and on point almost 9 fuckin' years later. A roaring treatise on our fucked up society that really goes to show that ain't nothing changes but the date.

"King Kunta" and "I" still bang harder than they had any right to.

I don't really understand certain songs on this album. With some songs, the hip hop/rap is not about flow or rhyme scheme at all, which is all I'm used to, so I find them abrasive and annoying. Kendrick takes so many random breaks in the middle of songs, or completely changes the direction of the song, I just really don't get the appeal. When I listen to an album, I want to listen to music, not a documentary, or an interview. It's a shame, because the actual music is solid, but the whole album is pulled down by these "commercial breaks" that he constantly takes.

Favourite songs: The Blacker the Berry, Wesley's Theory, How Much A Dollar Cost, King Kunta, Hood Politics

Least favourite songs: For Free?, For Sale? (Interlude), u, i (I would have enjoyed this song if it wasn't for the like 2 mins of spoken word at the end of the song. That happens too much in Kendrick's music), Mortal Man (same complaint as "i" above)

3/5

When this came out there was sooo much hoopla around it. Listening then and now, the album is just \"okay\" to me.