Tyler, The Creator - IGOR ALBUM REVIEW
Since I’ve covered Tyler, The Creator on here before, I’m not going to go too in-depth on who he is or what he’s done in the past and all that, but it is worth noting that Tyler has had one of the most changing aesthetics in music. Tyler’s first couple projects, Bastard, his 2011 breakout Goblin, and Wolf, were vulgar, hard-hitting rap albums, and most of those lyrics were violent, creepy, and borderline-rapey. Back in the early 2010s, cancel culture wasn’t as relevant. Personally, Tyler wouldn’t have a career if songs like “Yonkers” or “She” or “Tamale” were coming out today. His polarizing 2015 record Cherry Bomb split his fan base, in a way. It was still abrasive and in your face, but its instrumentals became lush and airy, with multiple instruments in the mix. I personally love Cherry Bomb, and it was the record that I found Tyler with. Then, that lush sound took over Flower Boy, his best record yet, and along with a new sound, it brought a new, romantic side of Tyler that we haven’t seen before. Flower Boy was destined to be a future classic. And now, two years later, we have IGOR, an R&B/pop hybrid that only Tyler could make. How is IGOR? What is IGOR? Let’s find out…
IGOR is anything but a hip-hop record. I mean, yeah, it has hip-hop elements, but I don’t consider it to be a hip-hop record. It takes elements of neo-soul, funk, and R&B, and for a while, I couldn’t place the sound on any existing sounds. Listening to it for the first time, I actually said out loud “Did this man really just make a new genre of music?” That’s a true story, by the way. “EARFQUAKE” is the big radio hit, if there even is one on IGOR. The Charlie Wilson background vocals, the fun Playboi Carti feature, and Tyler’s production just combine together into a near-perfect track. “PUPPET” with Kanye West is melodramatic, but it’s also quite a bop with Tyler’s pitched-up “la-la’s” at the end of the track. “A BOY IS A GUN*” flips the song “Bound,” which has been infamously sampled by West, into a groovy yet off-kilter love track. In fact, every song on here is good at the least. The only track that really didn’t impress me was “RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” While it is a catchy track, it just grew stale on me real quick. But my favorite track off IGOR (and maybe out of Tyler’s discography) is “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?,” a devastating song and is one of the best closing tracks to an album of the 2010s. This flipped one of my favorite Al Green songs, “Dream,” into a vintage-leaning relationship ender, but how it ends the track is so jaw-dropping. I was so blown away by “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” that I almost immediately listened to it again just to process it.
While Flower Boy is a future classic, IGOR is an instant classic. You’d think that this had a whole group of producers and writers that put it together, but if you look at the album art, everything was done by Tyler. Writing, production, arrangements, etc.. This was all Tyler, and that also proves how one-of-a-kind Tyler is as an artist. There will be imitators of this sound, but nothing will ever be able to replicate Tyler, The Creator’s IGOR.
10/10
Stream IGOR here
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube Music
IGOR is anything but a hip-hop record. I mean, yeah, it has hip-hop elements, but I don’t consider it to be a hip-hop record. It takes elements of neo-soul, funk, and R&B, and for a while, I couldn’t place the sound on any existing sounds. Listening to it for the first time, I actually said out loud “Did this man really just make a new genre of music?” That’s a true story, by the way. “EARFQUAKE” is the big radio hit, if there even is one on IGOR. The Charlie Wilson background vocals, the fun Playboi Carti feature, and Tyler’s production just combine together into a near-perfect track. “PUPPET” with Kanye West is melodramatic, but it’s also quite a bop with Tyler’s pitched-up “la-la’s” at the end of the track. “A BOY IS A GUN*” flips the song “Bound,” which has been infamously sampled by West, into a groovy yet off-kilter love track. In fact, every song on here is good at the least. The only track that really didn’t impress me was “RUNNING OUT OF TIME.” While it is a catchy track, it just grew stale on me real quick. But my favorite track off IGOR (and maybe out of Tyler’s discography) is “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?,” a devastating song and is one of the best closing tracks to an album of the 2010s. This flipped one of my favorite Al Green songs, “Dream,” into a vintage-leaning relationship ender, but how it ends the track is so jaw-dropping. I was so blown away by “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” that I almost immediately listened to it again just to process it.
While Flower Boy is a future classic, IGOR is an instant classic. You’d think that this had a whole group of producers and writers that put it together, but if you look at the album art, everything was done by Tyler. Writing, production, arrangements, etc.. This was all Tyler, and that also proves how one-of-a-kind Tyler is as an artist. There will be imitators of this sound, but nothing will ever be able to replicate Tyler, The Creator’s IGOR.
10/10
Stream IGOR here
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube Music
Comments
Post a Comment