Untitled unmastered.

KENDRICK LAMAR Aftermath/Interscope

Being a collection of outtakes from last year’s blockbuster “To Pimp a Butterfly,” “untitled unmastered.” exhibits all the same hallmarks. That doesn’t mean it’s as good—that’s generally why they become outtakes—and honestly, some of these sound like they were turned down by Jimmy Buffett, though conversely that doesn’t make it bad. Kendrick claims these eight pieces were kept off the main vehicle on technicalities. I have a hard time believing that, considering if he truly valued them the same as the official release, he’d have paid them the same attention and care. Instead, he turned it into an art project, attempting to cash in on the forced heterodoxy of “untitled” and the empty claim of “unmastered.”

Audio mastering is a different concept than it was 50 years ago; “unproduced” would have been a more interesting, daring route. A different but equally numerous aggregate of producers tackled “untitled unmastered,” so there’s nothing rough about it, other than the haphazard, McCartney-esque way that song fragments have been joined, most notably on the eight-minute “untitled 07 | 2014–2016.” I’ve always been partial to the practice, but I also maintain that the discrete parts have to stand well on their own, which they just don’t here. And though it may seem petty, the ostensive lowercase and full stops are just plain abominable. “Pimp pimp hooray” is pretty funny, though.