Goblin
Following the popularity of the “Yonkers” video, Tyler, the Creator could have catered to the tastes of the masses and cashed in. Instead, he made an album that\'s unwieldy, irate, insolent, schizophrenic, odious, and deeply personal. It\'s exactly the album the artist wanted for himself. It\'s also completely uninterested in any sort of standardized rap music, but who really needs traditional rap, especially from a kid as creatively fearless as Tyler? His willful ignorance of hip-hop\'s rules makes *Goblin* exciting. His productions reach outside hip-hop\'s realm to touch the belching industrial designs of Throbbing Gristle and the darkly seductive jazz of Roy Ayers. The lyrics are stream-of-consciousness yet highly crafted. The imperative is to share without regard for the flammability of the thought. The teenage mind is a dark and complicated machine, but Tyler\'s more interested in self-exploration than self-destruction. The scenery here is ugly, beautiful, and sometimes terrifying—sometimes all at once—but we should be thankful for that complexity. There are few albums that allow as much access to a young artist’s emotional and artistic landscape.
Following months of anticipation and hype, Odd Future's anarchic leader drops his second full-length: the bleak and uncompromising Goblin.
When gravel-voiced rapper Tyler, The Creator threatens suicide, as he does often on Goblin, his first commercially released album, it’s difficult to tell whether to take him seriously. The 20-year-old leader of the nihilistic Los Angeles rap crew Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, Tyler raps primarily to shock and…
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The opinions prompted by the second album from Tyler, The Creator will likely be as contradictory as its material.
Queerly irresistible in the same way one idly stares at road kill, the album is a masterpiece for those capable of stomaching it.
<p>Moral qualms aside, the first official album from the Odd Future star is too long and oppressive, writes <strong>Dorian Lynskey</strong></p>
And yet here we are, with the ascent of Odd Future, a crew that deals in horrific imagery and outright menace under the leadership of Tyler, the Creator.