The Random Album Review with Larry and Brian · Larry Wetzel

Larry and Brian listen to - GNX - Kendrick Lamar - Random Album Review S3 Ep3

·23 min

Brian and I open the third episode of season three with GNX. We sound excited for the listen and point out the album title on screen before getting into Kendrick Lamar's surprise release. It landed hard. We explain that there was almost no buildup, just a small snippet that had leaked online a few months earlier, plus a post and a music video appearance that left us guessing. The date matters here: November 22nd of 2024. We call out the fact that the album came out at the end of last year, met widespread critical acclaim, and debuted at number one. That is the kind of release people do not really miss. The conversation shifts to how long it had been since Kendrick last dropped something, and we treat the wait as part of the event. From there, the play-by-play gets loose. We joke about the "heart part six" line, talk through a Drake-related pun we are only half sure about, and keep circling back to the way Kendrick sounds like he is whispering straight into the mic. We also laugh at a moment that sounds, to us, like Mario falling off a stage. Another song pulls us toward older rap, especially West Coast rap, which we say makes sense. We notice a beat we have already heard on TikTok. That leads us into a quick comment about how popular the album is and how hard it has been to avoid hearing it. SZA comes up again. We say one late song feels like the first one with a different sample, then decide the second SZA appearance is not as interesting to us as the first. A bit of guitar picking closes that stretch. After the first listen, we say the album was awesome and that the 45 minutes went by so quickly we barely noticed. We also expect it to score high in our running list, and we note that the list will need a few more entries. The whole thing keeps the tone of two people talking through a record, remembering bits as we go, and reacting in real time.

As heard by us

A surprise Kendrick listen that keeps circling familiar beats, sharp jokes, and plenty to react to.

The episode spends its time on GNX, Kendrick Lamar's surprise November 22, 2024 album, and treats the release as a record that arrived with little warning, aside from a leaked snippet and the build of anticipation around it.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You get a first-pass Kendrick listen with a few beats you may already know from TikTok.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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