#HotTakes of the Week

No more CDs from me

Never to be one out of the headlines, this week Kanye West described the minimalist, clear jewel box packaging to his last album Yeezus as an “an open casket to CDs r.i.p”. Apparently there will be no more CDs from him, with all future releases exclusive to digital platforms. It’s probably a sensible decision from Kanye and allows him to continue his evolution of the concept of the ‘album.’ Like the video game industry, Kanye seeks to release unfinished or early access pieces of art, with the ability to patch and fix his work post-release. The CD, like all physical mediums, is dead. It’s time we moved on.

Untitled Unmastered

Surprise releases are now a common occurrence in the music world. Rather than hyping up albums for months, artists are deciding to release their music without expensive marketing campaigns, with the help of streaming services like Spotify and TIDAL. This week, Kendrick dropped untitled unmastered, a compilation of unreleased demos from the same sessions as To Pimp A Butterfly. While it’s not as polished (hence the name) and cohesive as his award-winning record from last year, the politically-charged and experimental collection of B-sides is easily one of the best releases of the year so far. However, I’m not sure about the Cee-Lo Green feature (especially after those awful tweets last year). The #HotTake EP of the week – this shit’s on fire!