May 28, 2015 dont think its comparable, but yeah ive been embarrassed by plenty of rappers before -- including kendrick (tammy's song for example, which you apparently like lol) but i think you and @Swizz have set the bar for getting embarrassed pretty low. A lot of "TPAB" is "try hard" (but executed more than adequately, even if it's not to some magical perfection), and not nearly tone-deaf or off-base enough to be embarrassing for me. Even the Pac interview -- the idea of what was going on seemed to be acknowledged. That's all I need to give any artist some leeway -- self awareness It wasn't him having some tunnel-vision and creating a flop, which is what you keep trying to paint it is. The album came from the exact opposite place actually -- it came from his self-awareness, even if it wasn't executed cleanly. The more you unpack TPAB the more its flaws are accentuated but there is nothing embarrassing about it. Not "s--- dont change," not "the voice on "u"," not "lucy" (for sale is a gr8 song), not "democrips," not the pac interview (good intentions, decent execution), and definitely not the live version of i, or TBTB, or any of the highlights you deny the album of even having. so yeah stop getting embarrassed so easily. thug just said his girl's p----'s tighter than a baby. pretty embarrassing TBQH. maybe even trying to hard to be edgy. amazing song tho
May 28, 2015 whats most embarassing about all this is that you'd phrase it "a mock interview with a dead man" that's exactly what it is, but the effort to paint it as inherently flawed is hilarious
May 28, 2015 You just said "the way you phrased this is embarrassing" followed by "that's exactly what it is" Did you even read this before you posted it
May 28, 2015 Yes. You can phrase things very literally/accurately with the intent of implying a negative connotation. "An imagined interview with Kendrick's late inspiration, Tupac, that's sequenced to be the themes of the album surmised into a dreamlike skit that serve's as the albums outro" etc etc is also describing your said mock interview with a dead man
May 28, 2015 I've yet to see u ever disagree with WPG at least on S80. Even @Narsh has disagreed with him lol.
May 28, 2015 I think you really hit the nail on the head. For a brief time, TPAB got better for me as I unpacked it, and then once everything was out in the open, it started to get less rewarding with each listen. I don't blame critics for overhyping it initially—I was fooled too. Kudos if you saw through it at the beginning, but calling it a massive failure in every way is a gross exaggeration. It just turned out to be a 7-8/10 album, not a 9-10/10. There are some fantastic songs there, but I don't wanna slog through s--- like How Much A Dollar Costs and Mortal Man every time I wanna listen to the good songs (cuz I'm a person who listens to full albums 90% of the time).
May 28, 2015 i was gonna k--- a couple posters but they did it to theyselves two things: 1. if something comes across as "try-hard," its execution is, by definition, inadequate. 2. "more than adequate" has never been your take on this album. you've called it a classic multiple times you're suggesting that i (and swizz, and the critics who disliked the record) have unreasonable standards for kendrick. not at all. i think gkmc fails in a lot of the things it sets out to do and is still a classic. keep going: not nearly tone-deaf enough? a major label rap album that's a blatant rip-off of phrenology and quik that purports to be revolutionary is pretty tone-deaf to me. he misses the mark on the emotional and the political in pretty fundamental ways, as i've written. rofl rofl rofl. "the idea of what was going on seemed to be acknowledged"? mighty low standards for success there, narsh. kendrick trying to graft pac's legacy onto his own is dishonest and deplorable, not to mention laughably stilted and awkward in its execution. sometimes i get frustrated because it seems like you don't even try to grasp my points. my entire thesis about this album is that it's not tunnel vision--that kendrick has this huge, disparate sea of political and musical influences and butchers the interpretations of nearly all of them, failing to synthesize any into anything new or vital. lmfao what? did you have a conversation with kendrick about this? the album is reaching to be a broad political touchstone, the self-awareness comes through only in "u" and "i", neither of which is any good. i promise you that is not the most embarrassing thing at play conducting a fake interview with tupac from found footage is, yes, "inherently flawed."
May 28, 2015 Rly? I might describe Red that way... 1989 is good, I dig it.. but near perfect? Like, a few songs away from being Thriller?
May 28, 2015 nah 1989 is miles better than Red imo. 1989 flows a lot better than Red. Red feels like the blueprint for the sound that would eventually reveal itself on 1989
May 28, 2015 neither is perfect. should cut "bad blood" and "new york" from 1989, "sad beautiful tragic" and one of the collabs from "red." both are excellent, neither is perfect.
May 28, 2015 @WPG just slaughtered @Narsh's post so I guess I don't have to Interesting you say that Narsh hit the nail on the head when from the sounds of your post you're far closer to my line of thinking than his. well then...idk...look harder? Not my fault you haven't seen that happen. Here's a post from last week in which I disagree with him on 5 albums lol: ...... alright, sry if the wording was a tad too OTT, when I said near-perfect I meant there's almost nothing I'd cut from the album (Bad Blood is my least favorite track, and probably deserved the ax). I think as its genre goes, almost every song hits the mark. Does that mean it has a Billie Jean? Does that mean it's an all-time flawless game-changing masterpiece? No, not quite. You'd describe Red as a few songs away from Thriller?
May 28, 2015 dunno, i prefer red... 1989 is a smidge too katy perry for ole me pals! @Swizz no i wouldn't make that comparison. it's a great pop album (and maybe "near perfect" if im getting rly excited and hyperbolic) but few records compare to thriller. anyhow, @BigCountry put it well, tpab is mediocre at best. curious about paul's super subjective criteria of the critics he respects who ALL hated tpab... soo... himself, jeff weiss and a few other potw staffers? lol
May 28, 2015 Meant to just quote this part, but was on mobile and forgot: "The more you unpack TPAB the more its flaws are accentuated but there is nothing embarrassing about it. Not "shyt dont change," not "the voice on "u"," not "lucy" (for sale is a gr8 song), not "democrips," not the pac interview (good intentions, decent execution), and definitely not the live version of i, or TBTB, or any of the highlights you deny the album of even having."
May 28, 2015 You've got me there, as I have no one to blame but myself for overhyping it. I more meant that the vast majority of critics did so, so it's not like it was an isolated incident here.
May 28, 2015 i'm not calling you out specifically, even though your review would probably fall under the same umbrella.
May 28, 2015 Oh I know, I'd be the first to tell you that I disagree with a lot of the things I wrote in my review at this point. I'm not mad about it—it's a valuable lesson in criticism for me.
May 28, 2015 I think a lot of my issues with Kendrick come from the fact that he takes himself much too seriously (his music is humorless and moralizing). To me, that's a lack of self awareness. And I find that to be a gross (and boring) aesthetic. Just me?
