Rumor has it scores of rappers, DJs, singers, bands and yacht-rockers converged on the SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA desert over the weekend. But only one of them released the most timely album of the year on day one and only one of them shut down the festival in just about every way you can think of on day three and only one of them was worth giving a DAMN about in the sense that you don't choose to give a damn so much as you have to give a damn because ... there are so many becauses KENDRICK LAMAR does and doesn't answer on his fifth album, which rides dualities and dichotomies like beats and which is musically dense and deep in a markedly different way than the jazz- and soul-inflected TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY and which has been received with religious fervor, as if this was the one album every music fan alive was waiting for at this exact moment. We collect the first half week's worth of think pieces, reviews and reactions in our REDEF MusicSET "God DAMN, This New Kendrick Lamar Album"... Oh, and can we just talk about the song "PRIDE." for a minute?... It's a bit too easy to make fun of the band Lamar presumably will replace atop the BILLBOARD 200 next week, and the internet is currently full of people doing just that. But it's also full of people who are streaming the CHAINSMOKERS in droves and clearly enjoying what they hear. My favorite hot takes (or hot-mess takes, if you will) on the duo's debut album are those that recognize that dichotomy and dare to ask themselves if maybe they enjoy it, too—or at least, if they "like hating it to such a degree that I'm not sure it's worth distinguishing between the two emotions"... And by the way has anyone pointed out that a #1 EDM album featuring COLDPLAY is going to be replaced by a #1 hip-hop album featuring U2?... The BILL ADLER HIP-HOP ARCHIVE (warning: there goes your day, probably)... RIP ALLAN HOLDSWORTH, SYLVIA MOY, MARTÍN ELÍAS, BRUCE LANGHORNE and TOM COYNE.