Wolf

Reviewing every Tyler, The Creator’s album (3/9)

With Tyler’s first album being mediocre and his second being horrible, it’s hard to know what to expect with his 3rd release, Wolf. This album is SO much better than anything he’s released. The jump he made in quality between Goblin to this is nearly unbelievable. Literally everything about Wolf is just better than anything else he’s made up to this point.

The concept on this album is why more interesting and unique than Bastard or Goblin, it’s also executed way better as well.

The production on this thing is actually amazing, this is really the first time we saw Tyler showcase top notch production. Some of the beats are simple, but they work very well, and some of the beats are very unique like Jamba, and that works well too. I love the synths used on this album on songs like Awkward, they add so much character.

Tyler’s rapping on here is much more impressive than his first two releases. He has better flows, better rhyme schemes, he still says some outlandish things but usually it’s actually funny rather than being cringe. There’s a lot of introspective lyrics and concept songs on here as well. Take Answer as an example, easily one of Tyler’s best songs. The idea that Tyler talks about how much he hates his father for leaving him and acts like he doesn’t care about him, but deep down he knows that if he called him, he hopes he would answer. His writing on this album is actually very thoughtful and often thought provoking in the listener.

Now it’s not a perfect album. Some of the songs are definitely too simple and can end up dragging on or just being repetitive, or they just don’t stand out within the tracklist at all. Some of the verses on Trashwing aren’t very good, it’s easily the worst song on the album despite it being a pretty decent song.

This album has so much character, it really feels like its own world. There’s so many unique elements to this album to the point where it feels like it has its own distinct sound that is completely unique to itself. Whether it be the dusty drums, the horns or the scratchy, chamber-sounding synths all over, when you hear one of these things you’ll instantly know it’s Wolf. I feel like that’s a difficult thing to accomplish and it really helped make this album stand out and be very iconic.