My initial response to the album’s sudden iTunes drop was a groan, not again.
Untitled unmastered came out last Thursday–as in, not even a week ago–and yet the album has already been parsed and praised, as it richly deserves. It’s hard to remember the last time the stakes felt low for Kendrick Lamar. He’s playing he’s making music with his friends and the stakes are low. This is my favorite part of the record, because God, does it ever feel good to hear him laughing, goofing off, straying into lewd territory not for the sake of political allegory, but just for fun. It follows up the song’s woozy, clacking first half, the obvious frontrunner in the recent batch of tracks he released late last Thursday night as untitled unmastered. That’s the only way to describe the laugh he dissolves into mid-verse on the back half of “Untitled 7,” a warbled acoustic jam that devolves into what amounts to a sex joke.
So while it's not a perfect answer, the connection to important dates in 2014 definitely seems significant enough to be worth mentioning.Oh, you want me to touch you right there?/Oh, like a little lamb, play in your hair? "): That date was the same date that an Arizona Judge found Sheriff Joe Arpaio guilty of violating the constitutional rights of Latino citizens by targeting them for traffic stops and unlawful detaining them.Īnd, as for the "untitled 07 | 2014 - 2016," there's a chance that that title, too, is referring to the protests and outrage that have taken center stage over the last two years. In addition to the dates in 2014, there is one in 2013 (from "untitled 03 |. ") was the day President Obama spoke out about Ferguson and did not mention race - two of them ("untitled 08 |. ") was the day hundreds protested the police shootings in Albuquerque, Aug(from "untitled 04 |. ") was the night 31 people were arrested in Ferguson for protesting, J(from "untitled 02 |. While six of the dates in the track titles do refer to moments in 2014 when race was at the forefront of the national headlines - Aug. So it seems only natural to think that those dates must refer to some of the most pivotal moments in 2014, when civil rights were either challenged or thrown into the spotlight.īut that’s not necessarily the case.
You could read unmastered as meaning the album has yet to be mastered - a term for the final touches put on a movie or piece of music in post-production - but you could also read unmastered as Lamar refering to himself being unmastered, a man set free from the long history of racism in our country. Plus, there’s that whole “unmastered” thing in the title, which is a totle double entendre, if you ask me. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images The lyrics are thickly layered with images straight from the bible as well: Lyrics like “Close my eyes pray to god that I live forever/ Dark skies, fire and brimstone some of us sent home,” suggest a very close relationship between some of today's biggest headlines and the end of the world. are chock-full of references to both the struggle facing African-Americans in this country, as well as the end of the world. But, considering this is Lamar we're talking about, I think these dates are worth reading into - because although the album is only eight tracks long, there is plenty in those eight tracks for fans to sink their teeth into.Īnd there are some pretty clear themes in the new album that might lead us to our answer. mean? With so little information surrounding the release of the album - Lamar has yet to speak about it since its release - it’s hard to tell just what these random dates mean, both to the artist and to the world.
So, what do the dates in the song titles on untitled unmastered. Because though each song is titled "untitled" along with a number, next to each title there are also dates that have me asking all sorts of questions. There was no explanation for what the album was for, and the album title is extremely cryptic - just like the song titles are. Thursday was made a whole heck of a lot more glorious when Kendrick Lamar decided to drop a new album, untitled unmastered., into our laps.