I remember you were conflicted...

Misusing your influence... I use to do the same.

It was very good, but K-Dot still hasn't been able to replicate the constant bangers of Section.80. Way ahead of his contemporaries, though.

Ok then.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how good it actually is.

8.8/10

IMO? Kendrick Lamar's best album. It's not GKMC and it's not supposed to be. If anyone thinks this album is clustered, then I don't know what they're talking about because after listening to the album multiple times, it's like GKMC in a sense that all of the tracks fit in the context of the album. GKMC was great, it's a classic to me but so is this. It's AOTY for me right now too and before someone says "T&Y > TPAB," T&Y was great but there was a track or two on there that were my least favorites. Whereas TPAB, to me, has no track on there that isn't great and I don't have any least favorites. I loved how at the end of the tracks, Kendrick was reciting this poem but was cut off and then at the end of Mortal Man, he started reciting it to Tupac and even have a conversation with him that just blew my mind. Some of the other tracks on here blow my mind too. I love the soul and funk in this album and that there's no real "bangers" like there was on GKMC or Section.80. It's not supposed to be like either of them and I love what Kendrick did with this album. I was anticipating it and I too had hoped it'd be just as great as his other two studio albums and I have to say that it is just as great, more great even, just... my mind was blown. Seriously though, I'm going to stop here because it's going to seem like a review and that's not what I'm doing, just giving my personal opinion.

Why I give it an 8.8...

It's a very, very, very solid effort, it's definitely among the best projects released in a long time... but there's a reason I can't give it a higher rating. The album is cluttered, whether you want to admit it or not, I've seen huge Kendrick supporters try and defend it by saying, "Well look at how many themes he touched on, it had to be somewhat cluttered". False. GKMC touched on just as many themes, drug and alcohol abuse, sex, violence, tragedy, peer pressure, poverty, etc. And the story that it told was far less cluttered and far more consistent. TPAB takes a dip towards the middle, I know bangers aren't everything but I think Kendrick desperately needed one between say... tracks 5-10, I found myself getting a bit bored during that section, and during my final few listens it became almost unbearable to get past it. 

He tried to fit an entire century of black music into one album, it would seem like an impossible task but he made it work, he didn't hit it out of the park, but no one could... it's a daring task to begin with, and one that I don't think he needed to do. 

I truly believe that people are really buying into the thematic aspect of the album, and while it is great, again it doesn't compare to GKMC. GKMC was a lot easier to follow, being complex is needed in music, but there's a line between complex and confusing... Kendrick passed over that line. I want to be able to have a full understanding of a theme by the end of my third listen, it took me a lot longer than that on here, and I'm still not sure I've fully grasped it.

The hooks aren't there. Hooks aren't everything I understand that, but that's always been Kendrick's biggest strength. The hook on "Michael Jordan" is what originally drew me into him, they're what made Section.80 what it is, take away those hooks and it's a below average project. And he continued with the great, insanely quotable hooks on GKMC. On TPAB, I don't come away with many quotables, and although that may be a bit nit-picky... it'll hurt the lasting effect of the project,

There are sounds throughout the first half of the album that really serve no purpose. They almost sound like rookie mistakes, and I doubt it was done intentional. It makes no sense to me why they were and they hurt the first three tracks of the album. (Although Wesley's Theory and King Kunta are among my favorites), I felt they could've been even better if they were stripped down just a bit.

I know it sounds like I'm bashing it, but believe me, for however long this list of cons may be, the list of pros is 3x longer. This is a very good album, but it just doesn't compare to Kendrick's previous work. It's still a very strong contender for Album of the Year however and has a great chance of snatching it up.