“Transylvania” is a too-obvious extended metaphor. While none of Goblin’s songs are downright bad, at 73 minutes long the album can wear out its welcome and a few inessential candidates begin to look disposable. This one’s got Frank Ocean, it’s pretty damn good. From there, you get “She,” a new addition to a long line of rape fantasies. In case you forgot that Tyler grew up on N.E.R.D and Eminem, here’s your reminder. ![]() What could have been a simple 4 minute-barrage of nihilism and curse words slowly morphs into peaceful paean to youth and optimism. “Radicals” is another seven minute monster. The aforementioned “Yonkers” is a red herring, as close to a “Real Slim Shady” as you’re likely to get out of him at this point. Things drag on too long…and then they drag on so much that they start to get unhinged and interesting again. It’s the little things that bug him: being too busy to skate, brain dead message board trolls, getting pegged as horrorcore. The title track is a sprawling mess, an almost seven-minute rant against everything that’s pissed our hero off since Inglorious. It’s also frequently brilliant and always imbued with personality and charisma. Anyone expecting more than “Yonkers” will be disappointed: the album is sprawling, brutal, uncompromised, and difficult to absorb. Whether or not Goblin is a false move is open to interpretation. The expectations alone are crushing: one false move and he’s another Charlie Sheen, a fucked up spectacle at the end of his 15 minutes. Tyler blew up quick and will never see a royalty check for Bastard. Artists hating their own success is a well-worn trope, but the burning glare of the hype machine has never been so swift and vicious: the kid hasn’t even released a CD and yet he’s become the single most discussed, loved, hated and debated artist of the year and suddenly shit is moving way too fast.Įminem struggled for years and went multi-platinum. But then you have a track like ‘Her’, which is the lamest kind of sub-Atmosphere emo-rap, and you wonder what the point of Tyler following Bastard up so quickly was when he had so little to add.You think you’re sick of hearing about Odd Future? Ask Tyler. When Tyler’s conversations with his pitched-down psychiatrist work (such as the “so you were telling me you went to New York” before ‘Yonkers’ drops, and “The Devil doesn’t wear Prada, I’m clearly in a fucking white tee”), they’re as memorable as they were on Bastard, and although ‘She’, ‘Tron Cat’ and ‘Nightmare’ are already familiar ground for Tyler, they’re fine additions to his body of work. Bastard was a phenomenal record, and he’s too talented for Goblin to be all bad. The most offensive thing about them is how frat boy-accessible they are – is this what Tyler wanted when he talked about starting a cult?ĭon’t get me wrong here: I’m a Tyler fan. People have been offended by Goblin’s content, and they have every right to, but tracks like ‘Bitch Suck Dick’ are more stupid than they are upsetting. Well guess what, when you have tracks like ‘Radicals’, where the chorus is “kill people, burn shit, fuck school”, and ‘Fish’, which takes the already cliché fisherman/murderer theme and takes it to levels so stupid that I Know What You Did Last Summer seems like The Shining by comparison, then people are going to associate you with people like Necro and Cage. Tyler spends plenty of Goblin bitching about people calling him horrorcore. Where as Bastard was such a natural record, with a narrative that unfolded without seeming contrived, and tracks like ‘Inglorious’ where Tyler’s human side could emerge through the fire and brimstone without it seeming like a token gesture, Goblin screams of a lack of fresh ideas. He’s defensive from the off, asking “ Bastard intro, how the fuck I’m gonna top that?” and “can’t they just be happy for me?” on Goblin’s first track, and on its last, ‘Golden’, he’s basically crying. ![]() Which goes some way to explaining why Goblin, Tyler the Creator’s second album and his first for XL, sounds like such a limp, bloated version of Bastard, his landmark 2010 debut.Īnd despite his don’t-give-a-fuck persona, Tyler seems to be affected by the pressure. ![]() As the saying goes, you have your whole life to write your first album, then a year or so to follow it up.
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