Album Review: Call Me If You Get Lost - Tyler, The Creator

After the release of his two most recent albums Flower Boy and IGOR, fans and critics wondered which direction Tyler, The Creator would take his music next. The critical acclaim and mainstream recognition that these projects received were bittersweet for Tyler, as his genius was finally being acknowledged but the pressure was mounting for his next project to deliver. Artists who are able to consistently raise their own standards while exploring new sounds should be praised, and that is exactly what Tyler does on Call Me If You Get Lost. Each of his projects has a unique aesthetic, rollout, and mood, giving listeners a unique experience every time a new album is released. Just as expected, this newest project is quite an experience.

Tyler has mastered the art of the album rollout. Often announcing new projects just weeks out from their release date, he is able to immediately establish the album’s aesthetic and vibe for fans to analyze. The lead singles “LUMBERJACK” and “WUSYANAME” were great selections, as they capture the essence of the album without showing the best that it has to offer prematurely. The artsy era of Flower Boy transformed into the mysterious and alter ego defined IGOR, and now Tyler has come full circle with essentially a matured version of what put him in the first place, sprinkled with the personalized motifs and sounds that he has created.

The album implements skits, features, and shorter transitional tracks well to bridge bangers together. The album isn’t as cohesive of an experience as an IGOR, but it didn’t set out to be; instead, Call Me If You Get Lost is a traditional rap and hip-hop project that allows Tyler to return to spitting bar after bar as he did in the Cherry Bomb and Wolf days. We see this right away with tracks like “CORSO” and “LEMONHEAD”, which incorporate noisy and industrial-type beats that complement Tyler’s delivery perfectly.

The album isn’t top-heavy, either, with the tracks toward the middle delivering just as much as the openers. Lil Wayne’s feature on “HOT WIND BLOWS” is one of his best in years, Tyler absolutely snaps on “MASSA”, and intricate lyrical schemes are found all throughout “RUNITUP”. For fans more interested in the longer, episodic tracks that Tyler has gotten so good at writing in recent years, “SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE” absolutely delivers. Somehow, this track feels familiar and brand new at the same time.

“RISE!” and “BLESSED” are solid tracks, but feel unnecessary for an album that could have been refined to create a complete experience as IGOR did. The closing, tracks, however, make up in some part for these shortcomings. “JUGGERNAUT” features incredible industrial production from Pharrell Williams, who absolutely blesses Tyler here. “WILSHIRE” is a compelling story, and its 8:35 runtime goes by in a flash. “SAFARI” is a strong final track that lets Tyler go harder than he has on previous closers.

Overall, Tyler yet again delivers the project that I didn’t know I wanted from him. While less cohesive and experimental than IGOR, Call Me If You Get Lost is a unique and well-executed rap album that sees Tyler continuing to mature artistically and musically. This will be on a heavy rotation for the summer. What did you think of this project?

Favorite Tracks: “CORSO”, ““LEMONHEAD”, “WUSYANAME”, “LUMBERJACK”, “HOT WIND BLOWS”, “MASSA”, “RUNITUP”, “SWEET / I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO DANCE”, “JUGGERNAUT”, “WILSHIRE”, “SAFARI”

SCORE: 8/10

Album Review: Jesus Is King - Kanye West

After over a year of build-up, false release dates, and politically charged rantings and ravings, Kanye West has finally released his 9th solo studio album Jesus Is King. If you can’t tell by the title, Mr. West is proclaiming to have been recently saved by the Christian faith, and his most recent album is meant to tell his fans and listeners “what Jesus has done for him”, according to him during a conversation with esteemed interviewer Zane Lowe for Apple Music. In usual Kanye fashion this album is completely unique from any of his previous projects, but it still left me scratching my head and unsure of how we got to where we are with one of the most hard-to-understand artists in the genre. To put it bluntly, I miss the old Kanye.

Kanye West was once, in my opinion, one of the most creative artists in all of pop culture. A revolutionary producer, social provocateur, and always-unpredictable presence, Kanye represented the best qualities of a “woke” performer. His music was never too overtly preachy, but his older albums were packed full with well thought out social commentaries reflecting issues not only in his community but of those felt by millions across the country. Every album seemed purposeful, intentional, and crafted to a specificity only he could achieve, and unfortunately that magic has dissipated to the point of being nearly non-existent. Even if you remove the cultural context from Jesus Is King (which I think you never should - context informs all art), it just isn’t up to the high standard Mr. West has previously set for himself.

To clarify: I have absolutely no problem with Kanye West releasing religiously-themed music. Artists should feel free to share their life experiences with their audiences, and it’s becoming apparent that the last year has been a rebirth for Kanye personally. Some of my favorite Kanye songs, “Jesus Walks”, “Ultralight Beam”, and “Saint Pablo”, directly invoke religious imagery and symbolism in a beautiful and compelling way. The problem with Jesus Is King is that, to me, these themes feel hallow. There is a lot of musical potential on this project, and not every song is terrible (a couple are actually very enjoyable to listen to), but for some reason the project as a whole just totally falls short for me. Most of the lyrics on the album are nonsecular, but for some reason, I don’t feel like there’s a lasting message like there has been on previous faith-based Kanye tracks. I think there needed to be more thematic substance for this project to be successful in my eyes. I’m not going to go into too much depth about why I find this album problematic contextually, but I would also like to clarify that any disagreements I have with Kanye’s ideologies and opinions have nothing to do with his identity, but instead have to do with his logical inconsistencies and substantive shortcomings. That’s all I’ll say there… let’s not get riled up.

The worry I had for Kanye’s mental stability is starting to lessen as he seems more and more comfortable in his own skin with every public appearance he makes. I’m glad that he’s making music that seems to be speaking to a lot of people, but it just isn’t doing so for me. The intellectual artist that I enjoyed for so long seems to be of the past now, and I will still enjoy his older projects, but this just completely missed the mark for me.

Good tracks: “Selah”, “Follow God”, “Use This Gospel”

Bad tracks: “Closed On Sunday”, “On God”, “Hands On”

Score: 3/10

Album Review: Hollywood's Bleeding - Post Malone

Post Malone has returned after the release of his two critically-acclaimed and highly-streamed albums Stoney and beerbongs & bentleys. His newest project, Hollywood’s Bleeding, promoted its release with multiple successful and impressive singles. Unfortunately, besides a couple of impressive feature tracks, this album disappointed me generally and is my least favorite from Malone’s discography. The highs are sky high here, but the lows are much worse than the standard of quality Post has set for himself.

Let’s start with the positives: every single released in preparation for this album was excellent. “Circles”, “Sunflower (ft. Swae Lee)”, “Goodbyes (ft. Young Thug)” and “Wow.” are some of the best tracks Post Malone has released in years. The featured tracks that succeed here could have gone very wrong, for example pairing Travis Scott with Ozzy Osbourne (“Take What You Want”) or Future with Halsey (“Die For Me”), but these pairings along with Malone’s presence lead to very successful tracks. The opening track, “Hollywood’s Bleeding”, sets the mood for things to come, and “Myself” was partially written by Josh Tillman, so of course I loved it. As previously stated, the highs are high on this album.

But the lows are low. It seems like Post Malone is embracing the role of being a pop star, which is fine, but some of the musical risks he takes because of that on this project are questionable. The lyrics on “Saint Tropez” and “Enemies” leave a lot to be desired. Both SZA’s and Meek Mill’s features are subpar to me and both artists feel underutilized. “Allergic” is Paramore-esque, but in all the worst ways. The lows are as low as the highs are high on this album.

I feel about this album how I feel about the rest of Post Malone’s discography. I absolutely love some of what he has to offer, and the rest is mediocre at best. I expect this album to enjoy commercial success and to break streaming records, and I’m glad it provided a lot of good songs to add to my ‘Best of… Post Malone’ (more coming about that soon) playlist on Spotify. Hopefully his next project is more refined and is less of a roller coaster than this one.

SCORE: 5/10

Album Review: GINGER - BROCKHAMPTON

The self-proclaimed “hardest working boyband” has returned to releasing music with their long-awaited album GINGER. After what was a transitional period for the group musically and personally around the release of their previous project IRIDESCENCE, BROCKHAMPTON has returned to address some the controversies that could’ve easily torn them apart.

To fully appreciate the importance of this album, you need to be familiarized with BROCKHAMPTON as a group and with the drama they’ve collectively been through. The rap group formed after meeting on internet forum kanyetothe.com in 2015. Shortly after meeting, the group moved into a house together and started making music. The group took the internet and hip-hop community by storm after releasing the SATURATION Trilogy, which consisted of three outstanding albums within the same year (2017). After finding success, allegations of sexual misconduct came out against one of the group’s biggest members Ameer Vann. These allegations, along with other personal drama stemming from Vann, lead the rest of the group to elect to kick him out of the group. This sort of decision clearly wasn’t an easy one for the group, but in their mind, it had to be done. IRIDESCENCE, the first album of BROCKHAMPTON’s that came after the Vann incident, was chaotic and disjointed in many ways. It was evident that there was emotional pressure on the group, and they still needed time to process what they had been through. GINGER is the opposite of IRIDESCENCE in many ways, and it is a project about embracing those around you who are still there after shared trauma. This is an amazing project.

What makes BROCKHAMPTON special is getting to know the personalities of all of its members. Whether you prefer Joba, Matt Champion, Kevin Abstract, or Bearface most, every artist has a unique style to contribute, and collectively their stories are greater than the sum of their parts. Having what feels like a connection to this group after getting to know and love their music over the past years makes their emotional rawness throughout this project so powerful. Each member shares their experience over the last year, and each is different - Joba turning to religion, Dom still feeling resentment and anger for the person who betrayed him which comes to a tipping point during the bone-chilling “DEARLY DEPARTED”, or Matt Champion’s reservations to completely blame Ameer altogether. At the beginning of this album, even apparent in its opening lines, it’s clear that the group is lost, but by the end, they are embracing and thankful that they still have each other.

This album is forever going to be cemented as a defining moment in BROCKHAMPTON’s discography. While it isn’t the lightning in a bottle that the SATURATION Trilogy was, this album is powerful thematically while still providing countless catchy hooks, impressive instrumentation, and some of the best tracks I’ve heard in a long time, specifically “SUGAR” which is just fantastic. I laid out the criteria for what defined a perfect score from me in a previous blog post, which basically states that a perfect score means that I wouldn’t change a single thing about the project. There are only some small tweaks I’d make to GINGER. It does exactly what it set out to do, and does so in glorious style. This is a must-listen, and my current album of the year (always subject to change).

Favorite Tracks: “SUGAR”, “DEARLY DEPARTED”, “VICTOR ROBERTS”

Least Favorite Track: “LOVE ME FOR LIFE”

SCORE: 8/10

Album Review: CASE STUDY 01 - Daniel Caesar

I’m happy to say that there is finally another album for me to review on this blog. Unfortunately, this summer has been somewhat slow as far as musical releases go. Luckily, R&B artist Daniel Caesar has snapped that cold streak. This album’s shock drop with no lead up singles was a very pleasant surprise, and while this album isn’t perfect, there are gems throughout that will be on repeat as the summer goes on.

I need to preface this review by admitting that Daniel Caesar has a special place in my heart. Caesar’s 2017 release Freudian (which I rated 8/10) was one of my top 10 album releases from that year. Since Freudian’s rollout, I’ve returned to tracks such as “Get You” and “Best Part” which have become quite sentimental to me because of my relationship. Going into CASE STUDY 01 both my expectations and hopes were high, and while I wasn’t disappointed, this generally seems to be a slight regression for Caesar.

The most accurate description I’ve been able to come up with for this project is “bottom heavy”. The second half of tracks, specifically from “SUPERPOSITION” and onward, are a return to form for Caesar that perhaps exceeds the quality of music he’s ever released. Tracks 7 through 10, “SUPERPOSITION”, “TOO DEEP TO TURN BACK”, “COMPLEXITIES”, and “ARE YOU OK?” both feel sentimental and experimental; nostalgic and brand new simultaneously - which are the exact qualities that I turn to Caesar for. Beat switches, soft accompanying acoustic guitar, and Caesar’s signature vocal performances really round out CASE STUDY 01’s rocky start.

“CYANIDE” is one of the only tracks from the front half of this project that really caught my attention. Unique flows and high production value will likely make this track the highlight of many fan’s listens of this project. Besides that song, however, I was underwhelmed with the beginning tracks. “ENTROPY”, “LOVE AGAIN”, and especially “FRONTAL LOBE MUZIK” featuring Pharrell Williams just didn’t hit the mark in my opinion. I can’t even pinpoint why exactly I’m not drawn back to these tracks, which is why I don’t exclusively review music, but there’s just something that feels hollow about these tracks. Objectively they aren’t bad, but again, “SUPERPOSITION” is what kicks this album online to me, and salvages rating points that the first half of this album couldn’t produce.

I’m happy to have another Daniel Caesar album downloaded in my library, and I’m sure some of the tracks will be repeat listens for me. This is a generally a good album that could have great if the same production and attention to detail were given to the opening tracks. I’m excited to see which direction Caesar goes from here.

SCORE: 6/10