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Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly Surpasses Radiohead’s OK Computer as Top Rated Album on Rate Your Music

To Pimp a Butterfly has an average score of 4.34 out of 5 based on 58,322 ratings

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Kendrick Lamar / Thom Yorke
Kendrick Lamar / Thom Yorke (photos via Getty Images)

    What do OK Computer, Abbey Road, and Loveless have in common? They’re good, but not quite as good as To Pimp a Butterfly — at least according to the cumulative scoring on Rate Your Music. Kendrick Lamar’s landmark 2015 album now has a 4.34 rating on the popular community review site, suprassing Radiohead’s OK Computer as the highest-ranked album of all time on the platform.

    According to its FAQ page, Rate Your Music uses a complex algorithm to calculate an album’s score, which considers factors including total number of reviews, each user’s activity level on the site, and more. In short: To Pimp a Butterfly’s ranking didn’t just come from a bunch of hardcore Kendrick fans with a vendetta against Radiohead. Unlike sites like Metacritic, Rate Your Music is entirely community-based, but this all means that it tends to be a pretty reliable indicator of an album’s legacy over time.

    The next highest-rated rap album in the Rate Your Music archives comes at number 6 with Madlib and the late MF DOOM’s classic Madvillainy. Kendrick appears near the top again with his sophomore LP good kid, m.A.A.d city at number 11. Nas’ Illmatic, The Wu-Tang Clan’s Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), and Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy are ranked at 18, 23, and 28 respectively.

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    Whatever your favorite Kendrick album might be, when it comes down to it, we can’t disagree with To Pimp a Butterfly’s high ranking. After all, we named it one of the greatest albums of all time, and upon its release, we gave it a glowing review and named Kendrick our Artist of the Year. K Dot himself reflected on the making of the record last year on the Spotify podcast The Big Hit ShowHis latest album was 2022’s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers.

    Rate Your Music’s Top Albums of All Time
    01. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
    02. Radiohead – OK Computer
    03. Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
    04. King Crimson – In the Court of the Crimson King
    05. Radiohead – Kid A
    06. Madvillain – Madvillainy
    07. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
    08. Radiohead – In Rainbows
    09. Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon
    10. The Beatles – Abbey Road
    11. Kendrick Lamar – good kid, m.A.A.d city
    12. David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars
    13. The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico
    14. Talking Heads – Remain in Light
    15. Mingus – The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
    16. The Beatles – Revolver
    17. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme
    18. Nas – Illmatic
    19. Black Sabbath – Paranoid
    20. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Attenas to Heaven!

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