Too much icing, not enough cake.

We came for the exciting, almost revolutionary new style of gameplay and puzzles that, while difficult, relied almost entirely on logic, and stayed for the surprisingly well-executed plot and unique villain. So what do they do with the sequel? Make the puzzles overly simplistic so as to facilitate the newly expanded plot.

The first album drew our attention because of the unusually singular, assured, and unique voice and style for an amateur rapper, and stayed for the unexpected flashes of real-life pain and emotional honesty. With the second album, we got an overlong, at times whiny, album that relied too heavily on said real-life emotion with a few pointless “I can still be controversial” verses.

This is a trend I’ve been noticing a lot in recent entertainment. Likely because of how little barrier there is between creator and audience now, due to the increased use of social networking to build a fanbase. While it’s definitely worthwhile to take fans’ opinions and thoughts into mind, it’s also important to realize that the products these people first impressed us with were their doing entirely, without any audience input. 

There are a couple ways I can think to fix this. There’s the approach that Minecraft took, making its creation completely public and taking popular opinion into account throughout the process of its creation, rather than just up until the process actually starts. Or the creators of entertainment could just try and have more confident in their own abilities to please without relying on fan service.

Just some thoughts I’ve been having lately. I also sorta noticed this with the Weeknd’s new tape, Thursday. Can any of you think of other examples?

I don’t like how ”Kill people, burn shit, fuck school” has evolved.

It was cool when it showed up on “Pigions” cause it was unexpected and definitely had a slight sense of irony, something in which Goblin is a bit lacking. I thought it was sort of hilarious too; when I hear Tyler say “burn shit” I don’t think of arson; I think of how my friend and I used to steal his dad’s campfire lighter and melt action figures. It has that really precise balance between serial killer and hyperactive 10 year old (I could probably say that about Tyler’s entire persona, actually. He’d probably agree). But now it’s supposed to be some sort of rallying cry, which makes a little sense but it’s almost opposite the original intention. Instead of knowingly provocative and intended to piss people off, it’s communal and sorta positive. Which I don’t know, it sort of declaws it, . It’s still shocking and edgy-sounding, but just because of the content, not the intent. I mean, I can’t blame him. It manages to get a big part of his aesthetic across in six words, and is as catchy as it is edgy, and he’s gonna need an excuse to get roomfulls of fans to chant it back at him for their first big tour.

I actually love “Radicals,” but it could do without Tyler’s weird between-verse Satan W.K. inspirational speeches (except for “I’m a fucking unicorn and fuck anyone who says I’m not,” obviously). They tend to overstate his points, rater than letting the music speak for itself. Which also makes sense, seeing how often people misinterpret it.

I like that I complain about OF thinkpieces then go ahead and turn my blog into one long, disjointed one.

I don’t even mean in terms of us disagreeing on the album; art is subjective after all. I mean that in its 1500 words, he mentions nine songs. All but one within the span of less than 100 words:

For everyone else, the album remains an either/or prospect. For one, the record could have used an editor— it’d be stronger if it were 20 minutes shorter. Yet the highs are very high: “Yonkers” remains a potential frontrunner for song-of-the-year, and tracks like ”Sandwitches”, “Analog”, ”Tron Cat”, and the Frank Ocean feature “She” work as standalones away from the album as a whole. Tyler’s most inwardly focused songs— the therapy-session set pieces “Goblin”, “Nightmare”, and “Golden”— are also fascinating portraits from an unmoored mind struggling to remain grounded.

Needless to say, he doesn’t go into any depth about any of them. It doesn’t even seem like he listened to the album more than once: among such (mostly valid, I might add) criticisms as “almost nothing that counts as a chorus” and “[The songs] certainly aren’t jokes for his friends— there’s not a lot of humor on Goblin,” there’s no mention of the notable exception “Bitch Suck Dick,” basically the opposite of what you’d expect after hearing those criticisms. A (hilarious) semi-parody of Lil Jon-style blowjob rap, there’s nothing meant to be taken seriously in it (the chorus is simply “my bitch suck dick like she suck dick”). Furthermore, it features Jasper and Taco, two dudes who can’t rap for shit and are only in the group because they’re friends with Tyler. It’s only one song, but it’s such an obvious exception that omitting it from a review whose biggest criticism is the album’s self-seriousness and density is a huge overlook.

Really, this review is indistinguishable from the many bland Odd Future thinkpieces that have been circulating as of late. I mean, he even refers to the song “Yonkers” as “excellent,” but gives no reason why. In a review of an album with that song on it. Really, what he’s reviewing is the album’s potential cultural impact, which explains why he would have such harsh words as “a pathetic attempt for an underdeveloped, disconnected mind to locate some emotionality, control, or simply attention” but still give it a high score. I’m actually pretty disappointed about this. After countless yawn-inducing cultural-analytical thinkpieces, I was excited to see some professional writing primarily about OF’s music.