Not long after his year-defining album DAMN. was released, Kendrick Lamar shook up his obsessive, ready-for-a-conspiracy fans. In an interview with MTV News, he said that the album was also designed to be played backwards: “It plays as a full story and even a better rhythm. It’s one of my favourite rhythms and tempos within the album. It’s something that we definitely premeditate while we’re in the studio,” he said.
And while he said the alternative order doesn’t change the record’s narrative, he did comment on how it alters its feel:
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“The initial vibe listening from the top all the way to the bottom is … this aggression and this attitude. You know, ‘DNA,’ and exposing who I really am. You listen from the back end, and it’s almost the duality and the contrast of the intricate Kendrick Lamar. Both of these pieces are who I am.”
Anyway, all of this is to say, it seems Kendrick – or someone selling his music on his behalf – stands by his words in that MTV interview. For a few hours on Monday night, a collector’s edition vinyl version of DAMN, with a reversed tracklist, appeared online via Microsoft’s official webstore. The item has since been taken down so this is extremely ???. As yet, it’s unclear whether it’ll get a wider release, whether it was ever official in the first place or whether there’ll be further opportunities to buy it.
But if you missed out, Noisey put the backwards order in a Spotify playlist for ya – we care, you know? We called it .NMAD because we’re very funny and cool:
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