Tune Sense

(the album is really really good)

i’m never listening to a kendrick lamar single ahead of the entire album again, because this dude is committed to making album-length statements and the songs just don’t make sense without the context of 15 other songs surrounding them: i becomes so much more joyful and inspiring when it’s at the end of the album (although the redone vocals help a lot: kendrick sounds a bit tougher, like his self-love is something he’s earned at the end of a trial. it hits way harder), blacker the berry is much better just because it follows complexion

related, but kendrick’s basically the only rapper out right now who’s trying to craft a world of his own purely within the music he produces: to pimp a butterfly has callbacks to characters from section.80 and good kid (which was something he started on good kid, making these references feel like the product of progression rather than something inherent only to the new album), and the feminine personification of the rap game who tempts him on alright is a more fleshed out version of his buried alive verse on take care, no? maybe i’m overthinking that. either way to make three interconnected concept albums in a row and have them all be great is not something most rappers can do

“u” will probably go down as one of the best songs of the year. the lyrics, the performance (my god)… there’s not much to say because he lays it all out for you, but that track is really something else. the interlude where he gets interrupted by housekeeping and the actual track fractures as his thought process comes to a halt is done really well too

the ultimate conceit that kendrick is writing the poem which becomes the album’s masterplot for tupac shakur is amazing. tupac’s of course become hip-hop’s master signifier, an unassailable symbol of something beyond one man, or one rapper - it seems almost pointless sometimes to even try to discuss his music because of how much he means, but in this new album kendrick implicitly tries to somewhat right the wrongs tupac wrought with his music (”i remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence…”). to elevate himself to a level where he can engage with tupac’s legacy through his own music is really daring when you think about it

Rotten Tomatoes Spotify Playlist: Fassbinder Musik (Click Here to Listen):

The Walker Brothers - “In My Room” from The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)

Elvis Presley - “Trouble” from World on a Wire (1973)

3. Leonard Cohen- “Bird On A Wire” from Fox and His Friends(1975)

Sanford Clark - “Run Boy Run” from Veronika Voss (1982)

Freddy Quinn - “Unter fremden Sternen” from Lola (1981)

Ray Charles - “Let’s Go Get Stoned” from Beware of a Holy Whore(1971)

Paul Anka - “You Are My Destiny” from Jail Bait (1973)

The Rolling Stones - “We Love You” from Fear of Fear (1975)

Roxy Music - “A Song for Europe” from In a Year of 13 Moons(1978)

Kraftwerk - “Radioactivity” from Chinese Roulette (1976)

Glenn Miller - “Moonlight Serenade” from The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

The Velvet Underground - “Candy Says” from Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Rocco Granata - “Buona Notte Bambino” from The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971)

Suicide - “Frankie Teardrop” from In a Year of 13 Moons (1978)

Fleetwood Mac - “Albatross” from World on a Wire (1973)

Rudi Schuricke - “Caprifischer” from Lola (1981)