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Jan 24, 2013The quotidian problems and longings of the title track making up the real heart of the album, a rough and tumble struggle to the top.
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Jan 10, 2013In another rapper's hands the concepts might have been overcooked or the messages too self-righteous, but Kendrick manages to achieve scale while remaining firmly grounded on two feet.
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Dec 21, 2012This is the best rap album of 2012--not just because of champion verses and immaculate drops, but because they recognize that the most brilliant foreground only shines against a well-defined backdrop.
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The SourceDec 12, 2012With his major label debut, Kendrick Lamar has done something that few new MC's are capable of, and that is, live up to the hype. [Dec 2012/Jan 2013, p.87]
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Dec 11, 2012Where Good Kid, M.A.A.D City really succeeds is in its powerful emotional core.
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The WireDec 7, 2012Despite its complexity, the album is full of ravishing, soulful production and vocals--as catchy and emotionally stirring as it is subversively and intellectually thrilling. [Dec 2012, p.75]
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Dec 5, 2012His major label debut good kid m.A.A.d city solidifies his burgeoning reputation and stands out as a landmark contemporary hip-hop album.
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Nov 26, 2012The atmospheric beats Dr. Dre and his hirelings lay under the raps and choruses establish musical continuity, shoring up a nervous flow that's just what Lamar's rhymes need.
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Nov 26, 2012Kendrick Lamar may not have saved hip-hop, but he's certainly provided us with one of 2012's best records.
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Nov 15, 2012Surely there's despair and persistent uncertainty, but there's an unspoken beauty to the struggle.
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Nov 5, 2012Lamar has once more asserted a great and formidable talent, and good kid is triumphantly and unmistakably his, but the artists that stick around longest are the ones who let us make their art our own.
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Nov 1, 2012From its ambitious narrative arc to its fine linguistic detail, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is a honed and deliberate major label debut.
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Entertainment WeeklyNov 1, 2012This Dr. Dre-endorsed phenom delivers on the promise of his rabidly beloved mixtape Section.80. [2 Nov 2012, p.68]
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Oct 31, 2012It's a wise, mature labyrinth of an album that's both filled with vibrant life and haunted by death.
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Oct 30, 2012He may be young and he may like to have fun, but he's also gotten depths of thoughtfulness that you don't have to dig deep for before they shine.
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Oct 30, 2012Add it all up and subtract the hype, and this one is still potent enough to rise to the top of the pile.
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Oct 30, 2012Good Kid is an exercise in tasteful restraint, with Lamar employing his boundless budget in creative ways.
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Oct 25, 2012Lamar's invincible on good kid, and reveals just how deft his hand is.
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Oct 24, 2012Lamar's no impressionist, however; his lyrical gifts weave a complex, yet uniquely-West Coast set of influences into something that feels new and forward-thinking.
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Oct 24, 2012Every record is both complexly arranged and sonically fitting, foregrounding Kendrick's vivid lyricism and amazing control of cadence. There's not a single loophole.
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Oct 24, 2012We now have an album from him so masterful that it'd be greedy to ask for much more.
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Oct 24, 2012A heavily introspective tour de force, Lamar has created a stubbornly parochial soundtrack to his life in Compton, CA.
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Oct 24, 2012It's a masterpiece of storytelling, empathy in the midst of chaos.
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Oct 23, 2012There is plenty here to suggest Lamar has a long career ahead of him. But the album nevertheless falls short of the pedigree his storied elders have set for him, and its status as an all-time classic is far from guaranteed. For the most part, though, good kid is solid.
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Oct 23, 2012The miracle of this album is how it ties straightforward rap thrills--dazzling lyrical virtuosity, slick quotables, pulverizing beats, star turns from guest rappers--directly to its narrative.
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Oct 23, 2012Lamar concentrates the ideas of hip-hop narrative and nonfiction into such a form that's shocking for how simultaneously accessible yet full of depth it is.
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Oct 23, 2012Good Kid, m.A.A.d City impresses with its diversity and scope, but it's not just a record to admire: put simply, there's an embarrassment of killer material here.
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Oct 23, 2012It's a completely exhausting listen, one that might prove easier to admire than enjoy. But at the very least, it's never anything less than fascinating.
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Oct 22, 2012The Compton MC's long-awaited major label debut is a breakthrough, as he both resurrects and reinvents West Coast hip-hop.
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Oct 22, 2012He reaches beyond his home state for a broader sound, and the results are remarkable.
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Oct 22, 2012The plush production of tracks like the Neptunes-produced centerpiece "good kid" hearkens back to Seventies blaxploitation soundtracks and Nineties gangsta-rap blaxploitation revivals, and good kid warrants a place in that storied lineage.
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Oct 22, 2012Lamar's major-label debut, probably the year's most significant hip-hop release, proves his talent to be as prodigious as his online output.
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Oct 22, 2012["Compton" has] one of the few predictable moments on an album that otherwise brims with comedy, complexity and the many voices in Kendrick Lamar's head.
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Oct 22, 2012He's given us all he could possibly give us; an album worthy of being called a classic.
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Oct 22, 2012With Good Kid, m.A.A.d. City, Compton's flag bearer unveils a group of songs equally potent individually and collectively, meeting the mainstream and rabid fans in the middle, improbably touching that thinnest slice between mass appeal and mass respect.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2,178 out of 2382
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Mixed: 49 out of 2382
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Negative: 155 out of 2382
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Oct 22, 2012
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Oct 26, 2012
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Oct 22, 2012