Pitchfork Calls Kendrick Lamar's 'good kid, m.A.A.d. city' The Best Album Of 2012
Kendrick Lamar may be the new king of West Coast Hip Hop, but Pitchfork is still the king of year-end music lists. Lamar had already made it into the website's Top 10 Songs of the year list, but now he's beat out Frank Ocean, Fiona Apple and the rest of 2012's best artists to grab the coveted best album of the year title.
Here's Pitchfork's Top 10 albums out of the year (out of 50):
1: Kendrick Lamar, "good kid, m.A.A.d. city"
2: Frank Ocean, "Channel Orange"
3: Fiona Apple, "The Idler Wheel..."
4: Tame Impala, "Lonerism"
5: Swans, "The Seet"
6: Grimes, "Visions"
7: Beach House, "Bloom"
8: Chromatics, "Kill For Love"
9: Death Grips, "The Money Store"
10: Grizzly Bear, "Shields"
Kendrick Lamar's album, which he refers to as a short film, paints a picture of life growing up in Compton, California surrounded by crime, drug abuse and some of the best Hip Hop the world has ever seen. The record is stacked with hit singles, some suited for a dark club while others are dark and introspective. Lamar tells a story of self-doubt and dependency, and "good kid, m.A.A.d. city," has been called the best rap album of the year and even of the last 10 years. There's one thing you can't deny, Lamar's new record is a hit, selling 500,000 copies in two months to an audience that gets most of it's music for free online.
Lamar mixes West Coast hi quality beats, courtesy of his mentor Dr. Dre, with Southern flow and East Coast lyricism. Here's Pitchfork's breakdown of why the album deserved to win 2012:
The merger of multifaceted storytelling and exquisite music results in a tremendous payoff on "The Art of Peer Pressure", the 12-minute stunner "Sing About Me, I'm Dying Of Thirst", and "Real," ambitious numbers that likened good kid to similar art-rap opuses like Aquemini, Black On Both Sides, and, yes, Illmatic. But the overwhelming response assures its legend is still being crafted outside the controlled environment of critical opinion. Everything that made you second-guess its "classic" attribution is the result of earned ubiquity-- overuse of "ya bish," Lady Gaga demanding "her" version of "B*tch, Don't Kill My Vibe" be heard, dozens of Soundcloud rappers butchering the "Backseat Freestyle" beat, frat parties misconstruing the entire point of "Swimming Pools (Drank)", the debates about whether "Compton" was even necessary as a closer. Those are the cost of doing business when you ascend to this level of The Slim Shady LP, Doggystyle, or Ready to Die, records that are eternal for both their artistic achievements and their constant presence in cars, radio playlists, parties, and discussions among people who may never set eyes upon a year-end list.
Was "good kid, m.A.A.d. city" your favorite album of 2012? If not I don't want to hear it.