The Most Important Of Things: Results of the Sad Moth Fan Poll

With the addition of new writers, I am now obligated to include them in the "Best Reviewer" poll.  This also means closing the previous poll.  Below are the results.  There are not many conclusions to be drawn from the data, except that Nimbi was clearly the worst, performing about 27% below the mean.  Patrick took the top spot, but only by a vote.  I think it can be said that with the closing of this poll ends the first definitive era of Sad Moth history.  Nimbi is dead, and in the past weeks the size of the Sad Moth writing staff has grown a full 25%.  The era of the First Four is over.

Who Is The Best Reviewer on Sad Moth Music?

Patrick	13 (28%)
Emanuel	12 (26%)
Nimbi	9 (19%)
Noah	12 (26%)

Votes so far: 46
Poll closed 

¿Housekeeping? ¡Abre La Puerta!

Kendrick is back, (albeit a week ahead of schedule, (consult video at left)), and hip hop won't ever be the same because of it.  

Kendrick hasn't been quiet between the release of Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and To Pimp A Butterfly.  He's hopped on a wide array of tracks, artists ranging from Flying Lotus to Eminem.  He stirred things up in 2013 when he called out a litany of rappers on Big Sean's Control.  He toured Kanye's Yeezus tour.  In short, Kendrick emerged into the mainstream.  But whatever artistic statements Kendrick made during the past couple years have been dwarfed by his new album.

On the first listen to To Pimp A Butterfly, I was expecting something similar to Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.  I was listening to the tracks looking for the same thematic arch, thinking, "maybe this is the Backseat Freestyle of this album."  When I saw the 12 minute run-time of Mortal Man, I expected it to be an theatric, tone-shifting epic of a song in the vein of Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst.  After the first listen, I wasn't sure what I thought yet, but I certainly didn't have an overwhelmingly positive reaction.  I realize now that my expectations of what the album should be were really stupid.  Of course Kendrick has changed since his last album, and of course Kendrick's too good to just recycle themes and material that worked on Good Kid, M.A.A.D City.  And, to anyone who hasn't listened to the album, or has only given it a cursory listen, do not trust your initial reaction to it.  This is a dense album.  Put the time into it, and To Pimp A Butterfly delivers.  

The album attempts to do nothing less than capture Kendrick's personal struggles, experiences, and journey throughout the last couple years of his life.  I'm not going to attempt to analyze all the themes in this album, there's way too much going on, and this doesn't need to turn into a literary analysis paper.  Though the fact that a formal analysis of this album is possible shows the kind of depth that Kendrick accomplishes on this album.  The central conflict, above all other themes, is Kendrick trying to rationalize his existence as both a public figure, whose words are heard and believed by millions, and a deeply flawed human being.  From this central conflict emerge the themes of the album.  Depression, survivor's guilt, institutional racism, sex, police brutality, political and social hypocrisy, the pressures of fame and Kendrick's self-awareness of his position in Hip Hop culture.

The production on the album is incredible.  I think the production on To Pimp A Butterfly has the most cohesive aesthetic of any of his albums.  Kendrick has truly brought rap back to its roots. Jazz and Funk are present in both samples, (James Brown, the Isley Brothers) as well as contemporary performance (Thundercat, Terrance Martin).  TPAB does not bang pe se. It grooves.  And that's an amazing thing.  When I'm feeling the beat listening to TPAB, I'm digging the song in a way, viscerally, that no other rap album really does for me.  I don't know how to describe it beyond that, but this gif I found in the comments section on Rap Genius does a pretty good job.

Titled: "Da funk be like"

 Sure, there's been jazz-hip hop in the past, and plenty of funk bass lines are used in rap, but this is something new, I think.  And, though TPAB heavily utilizes sounds of the past, no one would say its too concerned with the oldies, or not hip.  The jazz and funk aesthetics are blended with more conventional, hip-hop production similar to production on Kendrick's past albums, as well as other sounds of the present (Sufjan Stevens, Bilal, Anna Wise). Cutting edge producers Flying Lotus and Pharrell were heavily involved in the production process.  In all, the music is great. It's production that eludes to and expands upon the musical lineage that this album is joining and advancing. 

The true power of To Pimp A Butterfly is its relevance.  Kendrick is the king of hip-hop, and there may be no more culturally important King of ____ in America, or in the world, today.  The King of Pop is dead.  The King of Pain is still making good music, I guess. The King of Queens is in syndication.  Does the King of Saudi Arabia have the ear of nearly as many fans?  Kendrick is among a very select circle of artists that has the ear of the nation, to the degree that it can be achieved at all.  And amongst those few, he’s one of only a handful to really say something impactful. 

When Kendrick calls himself a prophet, you don’t scoff, you wonder how he feels about it, and he tells you.  Kendrick demonstrates this incredible self-awareness of both his own feelings, and how those feelings are relevant to his music.  The truth is, Kendrick is scared by is influence.  He knows that he’s a flawed individual, and he knows he fears being abandoned by his fans, and his public.  In Mortal Man, he references Michael Jackson, as a prime example of what can happen to someone in his position.  

"That nigga gave you Billie Jean, you say he touched those kids?

When the shit hit the fan, is you still a fan?"

I can talk on and on about the power of this album, but I’m deviating from the purpose of this post: how good is To Pimp A Butterfly?   Really good.  Really really good.  I think I should acknowledge that this album is so good, the question I’m really debating here is: Is this album a 10/10?  Talking to Manny about the album, he seemed worried that everyone, people whose opinions he respects, the people whose opinion he completely disregards, likes this album.  I don’t think that’s a problem.  The fact that anyone and everyone can recognize this album as a classic means that not only is it a classic, it’s an admirably accessible one.  Another question that was posed to me:

"Yeah, but does it have bangers" -- Noah Wong

A completely stupid question, for sure, but one with a legitimate answer.  To Pimp A Butterfly doesn't.  It just isn't that album.  King Kunta peaked at 58 on the Billboard Hot 100.  No, there are no stand out bangerz, nor are there any tracks that you can point to and say "that that is TPAB in a nutshell".  The album is not succinct, and it can't be summarized.  Though King Kunta seems to have been anointed as 'the single' from this album, this very well may be just because it got leaked first.  I personally thought Alright was 'the single' on first listen.  This album is certainly playing the long game, and only time will tell if more tracks gain steam and more people begin to 'get' the album.

When I started writing this review, I thought I would come up with enough complaints to be able to justify a lower rating.  But the more I write about it, I only find more to love about it instead.  (Rapsody's verse, George Clinton's appearance are great. And check out the wheelchair dude, the gold chainz kid, pimp-cane pop'n'lock it dude, the c-list bitches, and pretty much everybody in the background in the King Kunta video).  The only thing I can think of is "not popular enough", but that's not really a criticism of the art, only it's reception.  

I've tried to rationally critique this album, but maybe I'm just too blinded by my personal investment with Kendrick Lamar.  I strongly associate Good Kid, M.A.A.D City with a specific time in my life, junior year of high school, when I was first able to drive to school and cruised around in my Chrysler Town & Country bumping Sing About Me I'm Dying of Thirst and feeling like I was on the deluxe cover art.  This year, I found myself driving west through the southern Wisconsin countryside into the orange late-afternoon sun, winter quarter over with a week of spring break ahead, and To Pimp A Butterfly on the stereo.  Maybe I just have too much allegiance to Kendrick, an irrational infatuation with this music that is blinding me from its issues.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I guess that's for you to decide.  For me, I've got too much personal experience and enjoyment wrapped up in this great artist, and this amazing music, and I can't give it any lower of a rating.

10/10

Favorite Tracks: Wesley's Theory, King Kunta, These Walls, Alright, Complexion (A Zulu love), Mortal Man

To Pimp A Butterfly Review: Thank god I didn't make some stupid title that had to do with moths instead of butterflies. Just Because they're both in the family Lepidoptera it doesn't mean it's okay.

It was meant to be!

OKAY I’ll admit it I was really, really intimidated by this release. To Pimp a Butterfly right off the bat was acclaimed by listener and critic alike, and the attention wasn’t only on the internet and social media. One of my friends told me that she saw people straight up running home the night of its release because they heard, “the album dropped.” The thing is I can’t deny that I wasn’t excluded from the hype. If it isn’t already apparent by our domain name I was a really big fan of Good Kid M.A.A.D City so I had a lot riding on this album before it’s initial release, a lot of people felt that way too. To my pleasant surprise on my first listen I was thrown into To Pimp a Butterfly with nothing but pure fascination. It’s an album that sounds entirely different as a successor. Section 80, and Good Kid M.A.A.D City have this smooth, tranced flow to it, with a trap inspired track or two mixed in, making them more predictable and concrete. To Pimp a Butterfly, on the other hand opts to be stylistically experimental and in that framing it’s nothing short of mania, but that’s not a bad thing, it’s actually refreshingly ingenious. 

The first thing that’s noticeable about the album is the diverse and collaborative production. It doesn’t sound like anything Kendrick has put out before considering how many different genre’s it borrows from track to track. The album’s irrevocably strong opener “Wesley’s Theory,” which features the production skills of Flying Lotus, Thundercat on bass, and some voice overs by George Clinton and Dr. Dre outline the ranged genre choice and sampling that sets itself as the framework for the album. An example of this diversity is the album’s interlude “For Free,” which starts off with a praising gospel choir and then transitions into a jazz track where Kendrick scat-raps. Another example of this genre experimentation would be the contrast between the album’s singles “i” and “The Blacker the Berry.” "i” has a production that feels like a Motown track because of its electric guitars, upbeat kit, and backup singers, where “The Blacker the Berry” has this ethereal beat and an edgy hook that reminds me of reggae dub vocals--both of these are great songs by the way. All of this seems pretty all over the place and confusing but the album has this impenetrable strength with bringing the tracks together through it’s breaks and transitions--I’ll touch upon this more later. It provides a really enjoyable experience as a listener.

One thing that is really appreciable about the album is how its artistic and tone setting experiments, skits, and samples don’t detract from its musicality. I would actually say it really contributes to their artistic value. Particularly “These Walls” come to mind. The distorted moaning at the beginning of it  is a little agitating but if you give it a chance  it’s a really sexy and smooth track that features Thundercat again. It has actually grown to be one of my favorites of the album. “For Sale?” the album’s other interlude is another really good example of this. When looking at it’s symbolism it’s a really ironic point in the album; it’s production reminds me something that could be featured on an early Flying Lotus track because of it’s dream like and calm IDM qualities but from what I can tell he didn’t produce it. It’s a very unexpected part of the album because the song is about an aged Kendrick reminiscing about a conversation that he had with the devil and there’s a lot of contrasting tonality.

I need to preface the rest of this review by saying that I’m not going to go into anymore of my analysis of the album, I might do a video or a separate blog entry for that, but right now I need more time to digest it. With that being said the album certainly has A LOT to say, and a lot needs to be said about the non-musical aspects of the album such as Kendrick’s spoken word, the contrast between the tracks “u” and “i,” the constant references to the character “Lucy,” and the interview he has with Tupac at the end. But what I can say though is that the album’s writing is very strong. It has clever one-offs--the line in the opener “look both ways before you cross my mind” is one I personally love, a bunch of skits, and aforementioned spoken word that really transitions each track effectively to create a cohesive package. Kendrick and the writers and producers of this album really know how to musically tell a story. This is something that they did with Good Kid M.A.A.D City that really makes it a great album. Admittedly I think it’s done better in To Pimp A Butterfly and Kendrick has really perfected his method of message, which is something I see other rappers struggle with; I feel like Childish Gambino’s Because the Internet is a way too ambitious attempt to be something like this, and you can read that review to see why it didn’t work.

Even though the album tells a strong, thought provoking  story and is literarily significant, it’s musicality is obviously the strongest part of the album. Most tracks that are on it are just down right good songs. “King Kunta,” has a killer groove, with great flow and lyrics: I really like the line “a rapper with a ghost writer? What the fuck happened?” “Institutionalized,” has a verse with Snoop Dogg where he just killed it. “Alright,” is a pretty good trap track. “Complexion” sounds like an old school Tupac song. “ “How Much a Dollar Cost?” reminded me of Good Kid M.A.A.D City. I liked “You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said),” that was solid. I seriously didn’t have a song that I thought was bad or that I didn’t like. I mean, there were some that I wouldn’t go out of my way to individually listen to like “Momma,” or “Hood Politics.” However, I feel that they’re still necessary to the album as a whole, and I enjoyed them during each of my consecutive listens. 

Kendrick Lamar has more than proved his skills as a rapper, and I really feel that he is one of the modern day greats. Not only does he have good flow, but his technical skill and control over his voice is very strong too. Earlier in this review I talked about the genre hopping in the production, and I think the main reason why it works so well is because Kendrick is able to pull it together and apply his style to it. Throughout the album he reuses things that he’s done in the past that make it work, like the post production helium voice at the beginning of “Institutionalized” that sounds really reminiscent of the one used in “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe.” He also incorporates new voices too, in “For Sale” he changes his voice to sound like an old man’s, or in “u” he makes his voice crack and strains it so he sounds fucked up and staggered. Not only is it really entertaining but Kendrick changing his voice is a gimmick that really emulates his style, and a personal touch that he puts on the album. He knows what he’s doing and he does it well. It works musically and contextually to the story of the album.

Kendrick Lamar did an amazing job with this album. It functions as a hip-hop album, a story, a poetry book, a social commentary, and it’s an instant classic that will be remembered for a long time.

9.5/10

Favorite Tracks: Wesley’s Theory, King Kunta, These Walls, u, How Much a Dollar Cost, Complexion, You Ain’t Gotta Lie (Momma Said), i

Least Favorite Tracks: N/A

Thoughts On: What is a 10/10?

A perfect 10, it's either given out too much or too little. So much so that it can seemingly be an abstract concept. Reviewing music is weird, its subjectivity entails that any sort of review that could possibly be made is entirely up to what the listener's entire experience and taste has led them to believe. It's a very intuitive process. Yeah, people can rate objectively, but those objective characteristics boil down to what sounds good to the listener, and there is no golden rule to what sounds good. This makes it very hard to give out a score in general, lest a perfect score. I mean a 10 hasn't ever been given out by Sad Moth, or me personally in a formal review setting, so it's kind of weird for us to be rating on a 1-10 scale without addressing an example of the end of said scale. If we're going to continue to use an out of 10 scale, one of us has to at least talk about what the fabled latter end potentially entails, which is a task that kind of sucks.

Although this is way too simple of a categorization, in my life so far the types of "10s" that I've come across that are pretty straightforward.

There are 10/10 albums from artists that have had huge cultural impacts to music, and history in general. These are albums that transcend their genres and become representative of a culture or a subculture. These are albums that are genre inventing, representing, or shoving (not pushing)...

The Beatles- A Hard Day's Night

Miles Davis- Kind of Blue

The Sex Pistols- Never Mind the Bollocks

Then there are albums that everyone, critics and fan bases alike, say are 10s and that you should believe are 10s because it's a collective decision that these albums are perfect...

My Bloody Valentine- Loveless

Radiohead- Kid A

Neutral Milk Hotel-In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Then there are albums that are 10s to me because of the personal significance they have for me, or that I simply enjoy entirely...

Nujabes- Modal Soul

 Wilco- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver

These are all albums that I love in some way shape or form, but obviously they're not entirely representative of the categories that I've allotted to them or all the albums that I consider to be 10s. The most important characteristic about all of these "10s" is the placidity of the score. An album that I personally think is a 10 might not always be a 10. Maybe an album is a 10 on a first listen, and gets boring after awhile, maybe it's opposite. Good music can become relevant during certain parts of your life like when you fall in love, when you're heartbroken, when you start anew, or reconnect with old ghosts. I can't tell you what types of beats, or melodies, or lyrics, etc are 10s, they just...are. Nothing is really perfect, but it's the jagged edges of these imperfections that can align like jigsaw puzzles with the listener. That's why music means something, that's why it has so much weight on feeling. A 10 is when something perfectly fits, when something can really evoke real emotion, feeling, synthesis. When you listen to something like that you fall for it, it becomes a part of you and who you are in the world, and that's a beautiful thing.

Go out there and find your 10s, whether it's with music, people, whatever,

Happy listening, 

Emanuel

Here are some other albums off the top of my head that I consider to be 10s, this is by no means a conclusive list, maybe I can make something like that in the future if I'm interested, I'll probably just come back to this and add this when I think of it.

Johnny Cash- At Folsom

Kendrick Lamar-Good Kid, M.A.A.D City

Chet Baker- Chet Baket Sings

Death Grips- Exmilitary

James Blake- James Blake

Nujabes- Metaphorical Music

Daft Punk- Random Access Memories

The Strokes- Is This It

Weezer- Pinkerton

Frank Ocean- Channel Orange

INTRODUCING: Another Noah

Sad Moth would like to introduce their newest writer to the team, Noah Wong. To be honest pretty much everybody knows who Noah is, so this need not be very long.  Noah goes to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. He was awarded “Most Spirited” for his role on the state-bound 2013-14 Middleton varsity volleyball team.  He once made eye contact with Mr. Piovanetti while peeing, and gave him a firm nod.  He was in chess club, I think.  He also listens to way cooler music than all you fags.  But enough from me. Allow Noah to introduce himself.

Sad Moth Concert Tour Pt. 3 No Blurry Concert Pictures by Request of Jeff Mangum: Neutral Milk Hotel

"Heil NMH!"

Quintessential indie-rock band Neutral Milk Hotel is on their last formal tour together, and I was privileged enough to see one of their last concerts that they would ever have. If you haven't heard of or listened to NMH, they're an indie rock group out of Louisiana, front manned by the mellow Jeff Mangum, who can only be described as what former Sad Moth writer Nimbi would have looked like in his forties (RIP). Neutral Milk Hotel is a band that some consider being a major contributor to shaping the indie music scene of today. Many famous bands such as Arcade Fire, Beirut, or Animal Collective were inspired by Neutral Milk Hotel, specifically by their album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. They have an interesting sound that ranges from folk/ folk-punk to lo-fi, and they're a necessity to listen to because of how solid and unique they are composition wise. Fun instrumental fact, this noise is actually made by a violin bow being moved across a bent saw blade, that's the type of listening experience you get from Neutral Milk Hotel.

If you've been to a Neutral Milk Hotel concert before one thing you would know is that by request, taking pictures isn't aloud. It's not something that's taken lightly either. The first time I saw them live a girl snapped a picture of Jeff Mangum and he stopped singing and playing just to flip her off and say, "fuck you." So I didn't want to be disrespectful, or publicly humiliated by being singled out in a large crowd, because I tried snagging some eloquent blurry concert pictures. I also don't have the photographic touch like my co-author Noah. Since I don't have photos this kind of puts the transparent author/reader relationship that we've established with our Blurry Concert Picture series in a weird place. I mean at this point in the article I could basically just make up what happened and what their set list was, you know something ridiculous like "Jeff Mangum got on stage, furiously masturbated for an hour, ensuring that the fapping noise was the only sound on the mic, and then played a lo-fi cover of the Ghost Buster's theme." Also you guys could just not believe me, so as a motion of establishing mutual trust here is my concert ticket...

Blanked out my information for obvious reasons

Now that that's out of the way let's get onto the concert, I have got to say it was pretty great. Neutral Milk Hotel played a strong setlist that was energizing, but laid back when it needed to be. The beginning of the concert had Jeff play I Will Bury You in Time solo, which was pretty  but then it transitioned perfectly into Holland 1945 which made the place explode into this lively, energetic mosh--it was a ton of fun to just cut loose, and the music complimented that. Their choice of music was great for a final concert, they played all the highlights off of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, as well as their hits of their other albums like Song Against Sex. Not to mention they played their hearts out too. The entire band is made up of very talented individuals that make songs that already sound good on album sound great live. I think that's where the "no photography" philosophy of Jeff Mangum spawns from. He is entirely passionate about playing his music and because of that it's beautiful. Taking pictures of it would be like taking pictures of fireworks, there's no point because by immortalizing that moment, you are in turn missing it. An evening with Neutral Milk Hotel is just that, and that's something you don't get very often at concerts. 

I had a really enjoyable night with this band and have this melancholy feeling to see one of the greats go. Maybe someday we will meet again, but until then farewell Neutral Milk Hotel.

Happy listening,

Sad Moth Manny

"And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me"

I'm not going to call this a life hack because I have self worth, but this is pretty cool...

You know yourself, you're a cool, easy going person that just so happens to enjoy buying a CD every once and awhile. However, regardless of how lax you are, if you're a sane human being that's not on any emotionally leveling antidepressants then there is one thing that really pisses you off...

These fuckers...

Yeah that's right, the security seals that are impossible to get off crystal CD cases. I hate them so fucking much. You can't peel them off in one pull you have to either pick it off and spend the better part of ten minutes getting every little bit of sticky seal off of the case, slice it off the case with a sharp object which scratches the case and still results in picking off leftover seal, smash the entire thing with a hammer so you can cry in a corner in silence, or just give up and pirate music leaving your CD collection small and sad. I honestly don't know why they have this on here, It's not like it's that good of a security measure. I'm not going to just open it up and take the CD if I was going to steal it, I would definitely take the case too, it's not like it's that much more cumbersome. I honestly feel like it's just the record companies blasting you in the ass one last time before you can relax and enjoy your music, I mean you're already paying fifteen dollars for a physical copy of a mass burnt CD with some album artwork... sigh.

Well luckily since I'm not going to stand for leftover Nazi engineering being used in contemporary America, I came up with a way to stick it to the man and save your new manicure...

So go out there, and enjoy your music in peace, 

Happy listening, 

Emanuel (Sad Moth Manny)