I had to skip We Cry Together too. My two-and a half son was in the car and I couldn't in good conscience expose him to that kind of raw intensity on the way to pick up his flu meds.

I really don't see myself returning to that track except to experience the whole heft of the album again.

Favorites so far:

N95
Mr. Morale
Silent Hill
United In Grief
Savior

I’m really enjoying this. Baby Keem kills it again. And I can honestly say I’m happy to hear some solid verses from Kodak. I don’t know hardly anything music of his but I like him. Haha.

This was my first thought upon hearing this song. I cannot let this play around them. The Alchemist beat makes it repeatable you me. And it’s a pretty amazing performance.

I'm not sure there's a way to understand, digest, and appreciate this album without We Cry Together.

I think the division is thematic. I still can't pretend to begin to fully digest it but it feels very meaningful after two full listens. This isn't even his longest record. So, clearly there's something else at work here.

And I agree this is certainly a piece of art more than a pop record.

But it's still gonna take a long time to process and work through this thing. This is a heavy, dense, and purposefully uncomfortable record.

That's okay. I added the one song I thought was good to a rap playlist and called it a day.

I hate this album now!

I listened to We Cry Together and Mother I Sober. How does this even qualify as music?

How does it not?

I just listened to We Cry Together and now I'm emotionally exhausted.

Hypebeasts on the internet

yeah the We Cry Together track is not enjoyable, but that's obviously the intention

But I'm surprised at how hip-hop centric this is, not as much live instrumentation as I expected after the (non-album) single and first few tracks. You take 4-5 specific tracks off this thing -- a couple of those being interludes -- and this is closer in production style to DAMN than I had anticipated.

It's neither as focused as DAMN, nor as sprawling as TPAB. But it's more raw and angry than both and after one listen, I'd say it's Kendrick exorcising his / his community's demons in a public setting. None of the lyrics were at all upsetting to me, because I just see them as an extension of his reality.

Need to listen more, but I suspect that a fairly truncated version of this album will be a regular A+ listen for me; but that the album as presented is probably a bit schizophrenic and unfocused for repeated spins.

Still want to experience this in context of 4 LPs.

N95, Purple Hearts, and Savior are all early standouts

Seems like people aren't high on Die Hard or Mr. Morale but I think those are two of my early favorites.

To be clear, I’m not trying to be a dick. Admittedly, I don’t listen to much rap, but I like some of his past stuff.

I don’t mind tough content, but I like melody, maybe a hook. Prison Sex by Tool is a good example of a song that is a tough listen if you really think about the content, but it’s also a song that I want to hear again. These two tracks are unpleasant to my ear in every way.

I’m always happy for anyone to find music they connect with and genuinely love. This just baffles me tho. Then again, people enjoy Mars Volta as well.

All of this feels right to me as of right now. But we'll see what living with it reveals. I happen to love that it's not as focused as DAMN. nor sprawling as TPAB. It's its own thing. I like the schizophrenia of the record. I think that's all part of the themes being explored.