I've literally never listened to an album and thought while LISTENING TO MUSIC
"man this sure didn't turn out like how the cover art was"
or
"whoa, this is just in tune with the covert art he had!
who does that?
Ok the way you typed it out is funny as hell...
BUT
There IS a precedence for the album cover being a big part of the album itself. The cover, traditionally has been the visual component that illustrates the artist's mindset or the concept behind the project. Before the days of rampant internet piracy all you had to go on for a project was the single, the video, and the album artwork to decide if the album was worth your time.
There HAVE been time since when I listened to a project and was very impressed by it as a WHOLE. Meaning I factored in the music, videos, and artwork and was very impressed by he cohesiveness of it all. Life Is Good and Good Kid M.a.a.d City are recent examples of such.
I'm saying all of this to say that for many fans, artwork and presentation are very important. I didn't like the title nor the artwork the very first time I saw it for this new project, but Kendrick has EARNED the benefit of the doubt from me that there is a reason behind what he's doing. It might be straight forward and to the point that this is just some throwback, hardcore, straight spittin west coast banger shyt. Or there might indeed be something "deeper". Whatever it is Kendrick, off all new school artists, should get a pass until we hear the entire project