Kendrick Lamar Plays Us All
December 11, 2017 § Leave a comment
Years ago, I bought Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ album, Dig Lazarus Dig!!! Because of the way iTunes downloaded the album to my MacBook and iPod, the tracks were reversed and I didn’t really notice. Thus, for me, the album began with the epic ‘More News from Nowhere‘ and ended with the raucous title track. It probably took me close to a year to realize that the song order was backwards and, really, I didn’t care. I have since re-ordered the album in my iTunes and the tracks run the way they were supposed to. But, for me, it doesn’t really sound right, though it is more sensible to start with the raucous and end with the epic.
Last week, Kendrick Lamar, the second coming of conscious hip hop (or Jesus, take your pick), re-released his most recent album, DAMN. But, here’s the thing, this is the COLLECTORS EDITION. So what did Lamar do to make this a collector’s edition? New tracks? Remixes? Remixes AND new tracks? Oh, hell no. Lamar just re-ordered the album, from last to first. And, the world has confirmed his brilliance.
Now, DAMN was a mighty fine album. And while I prefer the re-ordering of the tracks to play it back to first, all I can think is, really?!? This is brilliance? Lamar is playing us for fools.
Matthew Barlow 
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