Tyler always had a more nuanced approach to anger than most, but Wolf finds him touching upon sadness, success, relationships, contrition, and aegis as well.
Wolf is often great, but there is something more lurking in Tyler. The question is, do we care what that might be?
It may not have the global appeal of his OF stable mate’s ‘Channel Orange’, but it is certainly his most accessible and enjoyable. As if he cared.
In all—though overly bi-polar at times with a clear struggle to balance maturity with Tyler’s hooligan rebel rap—Wolf is a well written, developed, and produced album, and a sure sign that Tyler The Creator is a growing artist.
Wolf's mix of retro soul, moody synths and backwards beats doesn't add up to his masterpiece, but the fan-stalker narrative "Colossus/The Bridge of Love" is his own "Stan".
While Tyler will almost certainly never outgrow life as a weird, hell-raising provocateur, Wolf shows that he's already growing into life as a smart, diverse artist.
Using Wolf as a platform to let his imagination run wild while remaining accessible, Tyler, the Creator displays maturation on his own twisted terms.
With Wolf, Tyler, the Creator is exciting again: maybe not as the ringleader of the Odd Future empire, but as a producer who just turned 22
The noises and production are smoother, lighter even, but the lyrical content is infinitely darker than his previous bluster. There's a grand, overt maturation on display.
There’s a lot more diversity in the sound of the album, and it’s there that Wolf immediately shines.
Tyler’s third album demonstrates that he does not need to rely on shock value alone to carry his music. We already knew he was a talented composer and producer, but Wolf suggests he now may just be the finished article.
'Wolf' suggests Odd Future, far from being a flash in the pan, are set to grow and grow.
Wolf is still the balancing act between gruff cynicism and juvenilia that we’ve come to expect from Odd Future, but these songs are more three-dimensional. Tyler’s more likely to aim for melody instead of menace.
With his production style finally delivering on its early promise, and an ability to magnestise our attention with every line, here Tyler reminds us exactly why we started giving a shit about OF in the first place.
Fans of MTV mainstream rap will eat Wolf up, but for those expecting a bold leap of maturity from Tyler, The Creator, they’ll have to wait for the young rapper to grow up.
This album is so enjoyable on a musical level that my qualms with Tyler as a personality are essentially nullified, but I’m not sure that will ring true for most others.
Wolf is going to be remembered as the record that sees Tyler deploying his tact as an astute beat-maker and a producer more than allowing his reputation as a Satan-worshiping neo-fascist to swell any further.
Much like real summer camp, there are moments of adventure, immaturity, boredom, love, self-discovery, and, of course, an underlying feeling that you don’t really want to be at summer camp anyway.
It's a fun album for fanatics, but the willingness to shock feels too comfortable at this point, so those who found it tiresome before will likely find it devastating here.
It's complex, conflicted, and bipolar. Paranoid, even. Most of all, it reveals the harmless and empathetic character behind Tyler, the Creator's complicated persona.
Wolf meets it’s own high expectations by creating an absorbing journey of Tyler’s imagination.
If you can get past that tic, there's plenty to admire on Wolf, particularly in Tyler's self-produced beats, where jazzy chords rub up against fractured noise.
Tyler, The Creator returns from 2011's Goblin with a much more ambitious and worthwhile effort.
After three albums of unfiltered angst, the one-time wildcard now seems like a stubbornly static figure, an impression that’s supported by his monochromatic self-production on all of Wolf’s 18 tracks, which rarely build on the synthesized strings and tranquilized pianos of his other releases.
Inconsistencies aside, Wolf is at least an improvement from Goblin (albeit minor); although, it will certainly leave fans wanting and wondering why an entire record of "Yonkers" or "Domo23" can't happen.
His increasing fame has made him (more) bitter and walled-off; his insistence on still shocking us threatens to reduce him to a joke.
Since his buzzy 2010 debut, Odd Future’s Tyler has been eclipsed by both Grammy-winning pal Frank Ocean and a bevy of co-opting MCs. Rather than reclaim his place, Wolf’s disengaged haunted-house funk plods joylessly through empty rage and squirmy homophobia.
There's a pretty strong six track EP in here, but at sixteen tracks, Wolf is mostly flab and fluff.
Wolf is where he should’ve reasserted himself within this new context. Instead, he seems bent on making a career out of his adolescent emotional turmoil, resulting in a thematically stagnant, myopic and ultimately immature record.
Wolf succeeds magnificently at alienating the casual listener, but Odd Future die-hards will certainly find more things to love on this record than I have.
“Talking about rape and cutting bodies up, it just doesn't interest me anymore … what interests me is making weird hippie music for people to get high to.” Tyler says in an interview with Spin. Now rich and admired by his peers, he releases ‘Wolf’ and faces the biggest battle against himself yet.
Let’s start with the negatives. The album sits at a staggering 70 minutes long, so it can be very imposing the first time you listen to it. With it are a mixed bag ... read more
Great bars under really uninspired production for the most part. It still carries this heavy cloud of bass that makes the album really tough to get through. Production was still better than Goblin by a reasonable margin. This album however opens up the overall appeal of Tyler. His Eminem influences here are still really prominent. He certainly improves from a goblin but it still suffers from some of the same issues. Overall a better experience.
Not only is the lyrical world Tyler creates here fun to explore and vibrant as hell, the music that accompanies this world is fun and punchy as hell, with many songs as explosive as they are emotional. A great concept album from hip-hops more creative figures.
Favorite Jams: Answer, Pigs, Tamale
Lest Favorite: Trashwang
Like a psychotic breakdown every track. Kinda hard to listen to at times, but if you enjoy Tyler’s early work, or just more abrasive hip hop in general, this album works. Not a wonderful album, and not Tyler’s best, but a cool listen, and definitely unlike most of his odd future contemporaries.
cult classic for the OG Tyler fans, answer ifhy and rusty were perfect songs, parking lot was kinda there, and trashwang kinda sucked, although it's better than the two previous joke songs on his last 2 albums (+ mixtape)
Rating each track individually;
77 - WOLF
80 - Jamba (feat. Hodgy)
80 - Cowboy
Awkward - 82
82 - Domo23
93 - Answer
82 - Slater (feat. Frank Ocean)
48 - 86
Colossus - 89
PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer (feat. Frank Ocean, Lætitia Sadier) - 84
IFHY (feat. Pharrell Williams) - 92
78 - Pigs
Parking Lot (feat. Casey Veggies, Mike G) - 75
85 - Rusty (feat. feat. Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt)
67 - Trashwang (feat. Na-Kel Smith, Jasper Dolphin, Lucas Vercetti, L-Boy, Taco, Left Brain, Lee ... read more
1 | WOLF 1:50 | 76 |
2 | Jamba 3:32 feat. Hodgy | 81 |
3 | Cowboy 3:15 | 79 |
4 | Awkward 3:47 | 80 |
5 | Domo23 2:38 | 81 |
6 | Answer 3:50 | 93 |
7 | Slater 3:53 feat. Frank Ocean | 81 |
8 | 48 4:07 | 86 |
9 | Colossus 3:33 | 88 |
10 | PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer 7:18 feat. Frank Ocean, Lætitia Sadier | 82 |
11 | IFHY 5:19 feat. Pharrell Williams | 91 |
12 | Pigs 4:14 | 78 |
13 | Parking Lot 3:53 feat. Casey Veggies, Mike G | 73 |
14 | Rusty 5:09 feat. Domo Genesis, Earl Sweatshirt | 88 |
15 | Trashwang 4:42 | 63 |
16 | Treehome95 3:00 feat. Coco O., Erykah Badu | 77 |
17 | Tamale 2:46 | 82 |
18 | Lone 3:57 | 86 |
#17 | / | Clash |
#79 | / | Crack Magazine |