Are people just putting albums on shuffle at this point and streaming it?

Could GKMC drop in this day and age and still be received well?

After Hours

Visually I remember this being a very conceptual album, I think musically it kind of plays well on it's own though with no concept
(not saying that as a bad thing)

Mr Morale? It's pretty focused and conceptual. As was TPAB. DAMN was broad but people still had plenty of fan theories about it.

They were putting GKMC on shuffle when it dropped too, not everyone looking for the deeper meaning behind the music. Backseat Freestyle, B**** Don’t Kill My Vibe, Money Trees, Swimming Pools can stand as hits alone without the overarching theme of the album.

Morale is what made me want to make this thread. People clowned this album. Which was unusual for a Kendrick album. And you're right, it's extremely thematic like GKMC and TPAB.

It was his first album where people were kind of just like, whatever.

We know who clowned Mr Morale and why lol. It had a large audience of people who appreciated it.

It's a challenging album and not one to be taken lately outside of a few singles. Same way I interact with TPAB tbh.

There’s never been a major album criticized for having some sort of narrative or storyline throughout out it. That’s always seen a positive for an album. The hard part is making the music good enough for people to want to come back to it over and over again regardless of the narrative.

I think there hasn’t been a major one in a while because most music listeners just don’t care enough nowadays about artists doing it anymore

I can’t think of any recently but I also can’t think of one that has tried and failed massively

I 100% agree, love this album personally and the people that get it get it. It's actually a really special album and a further evolution from TPAB.

But idk when the stuff you see online and on your day to day is about Kendrick dropped an "ehh" album, it might be something going on

i was kinda hoping donda was going to be storyline driven when i heard the audio of Donda West

Poetic justice and maad city too, album was full of hits so it would do well in this era even if people ignore the storyline

Serengeti's AJAI albums have scratched that itch for me personally.

i imagine the definition of "storyline driven" used in this thread will be pretty narrow. many artists operate that way when making albums. it just might go unnoticed if the artist doesn't come out and say "hey, my album is telling this story" or if it's not quite as overt as some of the other examples listed in here.

IGOR is literally Tyler processing the end of a relationship as the side piece

That last Brent Faiyaz album

Name them

that was a s*** story

November 10th

A concept album about an organization offering “lifestyle- and industry-specific applications designed to curate a desired multi-experience,” Integrated Tech Solutions picks apart the charlatan language that hears app inventors put themselves on continuums starting with cavemen and continuing through da Vinci. On “Mindful Solutionism,” the wheel evolves seamlessly into modern agriculture—and then into atomic bombs, Agent Orange, cigarettes, and surveillance cameras. In a rare moment of transparency, the engineers Aes give voice to sum up this spiral in just a few words: “We cannot be trusted with the stuff that we come up with.”

I can think of one that failed. That Childish Gambino album with the timestamp song titles

? that album had a story?

Thought we were talking about themes and concept albums

idk but all i know is when DAMN dropped people were eagerly pulling that s*** apart and coming up with theories and everything

Morale drops and i saw some of the most surface level critiques about its concept, there was definitely a shift in how people consume music

blk odyssy - diamonds and freaks, genesis owusu - struggler, hmltd - the worm, 3 from this year that the artists have spoken on if you wanna see any info about em