There’s more ingenuity in the stuttering rhythms of the wonderfully offbeat A Boy Is a Gun, which comes across as something Brian Wilson might have cooked up had he been born a B-boy (and samples the same soul tune Kanye did on Bound 2). Tyler will never be a powerhouse singer but here he evokes memories of Prince’s show-stopping soul number International Lover. The closing track, Are We Still Friends, is a big-hearted ballad. This buzzing, eardrum-bursting key riff – half southern crunk, half horror movie – is matched with 70s-style funk drumming, splashes of piano and unusual falsetto croons in a strange, scintillating concoction. Press play on track one, Igor’s Theme, and you smash into an immovable synth wall. The album is bookended by two of its best and most surprising songs. “Don’t go into this expecting a rap album,” he wrote in a statement before Igor’s release.Ĭover art for Igor. With the focus more on sonic texture than song structure, the album is a smorgasbord of buzzing basslines, prominent piano chords and out-of-key synths. Yet Igor, Tyler’s fifth full-length solo album, represents his sharpest stylistic swerve to date. Yet here we are, over a decade since The Odd Future Tape, and the release of a Tyler, the Creator album is still an event.Īfter the mutinous, uncompromising sounds of his earlier work, the evolution of Tyler took a huge leap with the richer arrangements, languid grooves and more considered writing of his excellent 2017 record Flower Boy. It always seemed as if Tyler would rather do something other than rap. There have been explorations into other creative realms: screenwriting, fashion, film scores, app development and singing ( he once said he was looking to Isaac Hayes and Barry White for a blueprint on how to harness his deep voice). Leading the generation-defining rap group Odd Future didn’t stop the young Los Angeles radical from regularly declaring that a career as a traditional MC would be a lousy fit. IGOR is full of inspired contributions (Dev Hynes and Charlie Wilson singing together on the lovesick “EARFQUAKE,” Carmichael’s short asides, Mild High Club’s backing vocals on “GONE, GONE / THANK YOU”), bits of pure Tylerian humor (“'Bout to go buck wild, nigga Steve Irwin (I see the light) / Sick of that Claritin, I'm on my third one”), and compelling bits of production (the propulsive, paranoid beginning to “WHAT’S GOOD,” the Al Green-sampling euphoric closer “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?”).T yler, the Creator always said he didn’t want to be a rapper. Memorable moments, on the other hand, abound. If you listen with your eyes closed, you probably won’t be able to tell where any given song begins and ends. They have a way of twisting into different sonic or emotional universes, picking up new voices (Kali Uchis, Jerrod Carmichael, Frank Ocean), and getting pleasantly lost in themselves. Almost all of IGOR’s tracks either accumulate unexpected layers or sever from themselves at some point, and many do both. Moments, indeed, are a more appropriate frame through which to consider IGOR than songs. One word in particular stuck out: “MOMENTS.” Tyler asked fans to think about what their favorite moments were on the album, and articulate them if they ever cross paths with him. Rather, the note suggested he understood he had done something.
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