Listening to: Wolf by Tyler the Creator
Genre: HipHop
Year: 2013
This album was one of the few albums that really stumped me when I first listened to it. On one end, this was Tyler beginning his transition into a more mature and more distinct sound, but it was also filled with his older, more vulgar writing style that may or may not stick with people.
I’ve actually listened to this album for a few days already, but only because I couldn’t properly find what I felt about this album. While his newer records are distinctly coherent with their vibe and their distinct sound, Wolf has this somewhat stitched-up masterpiece kind of sound. It’s not necessarily the best-flowing, best-written nor best-produced record from Tyler, but it laid the foundation of Flower Boy, Call Me If You Get Lose, and especially IGOR.
This was especially evident as I really couldn’t pinpoint a song that really stuck out with me. Domo23 is the exception as there was this one PewDiePie montage that featured that song and it was an absolute joy when I found out its name, but that it was a Tyler the Creator song. But in terms of overall songwriting, my favorite has to be Slater which also featured Frank Ocean.
Many themes calling back to Odd Future were prominent in this record which is a bittersweet memory as Tyler has moved away from that kind of style for something more personal which is especially evident in his track “Sorry not Sorry.” But the funny thing is that you can start to hear what Tyler will end up becoming in this record.
48 is an especially distinct track in this regard as this kind of sound eventually ended up in IGOR and it stood out to me due to the motifs and the “what” adlibs.
Unfortunately, I have to be honest and say that I didn’t vibe with this album as much. Now that I’m used to a more coherent Tyler, Wolf sounds like the transition between his more refined sound and his older, mixed-through-a-laptop speaker talking about extremely controversial topics kind of sound. Still, it’s nice to hear his older stuff being an evolution of what he has now, rather than shifting his identity to be more popular.
My total absolutely unbiased scoring:
Vibe: 6/10
Flow: 5/10
Mixing: 6/10
Complexity: 8/10
Consistency: 6/10
Emotional Factor: 4/10
Replayability: 5/10
Fave Track:
Slater
Gears Used:
KZ ZSN Pro 2
HiBy R3 II
Das it, das music
