ODD FUTURE WOLF GANG KILL THEM ALL

the angel haze is really really good but took me a while to get into it cos the beats she goes over are (mainly) so well known. So at first I was hearing the beat and just filling in what the verses *should* be. She can definitely rap tho. Not sure that she's really doing anything startlingly more original or exciting than OF however.

yeah people with in-house production will always somewhat justifiably have a leg up on rappers who primarily do freestyle tapes

Has Goblin dropped yet?

lol ok it came out today.

the problem is that so many "outsider" artists have affected transgression by telling the world about their dark thoughts that, wrong or right, it's become boring. Tyler doesn't transgress expectations; he follows a well-worn path of faux-rebellion trodden by everyone from the Sex Pistols to Eminem – and the alleged vulnerability Tyler reveals in rapping about his absent father is entirely part and parcel of this archetype.

OTM. though i like goblin, with reservations, i'm disappointed that it casts the crew as neither futurist nor particularly odd. everything is familiar: the lazy backpacker beats, the gleeful teen transgressions, and the macho/emo internal conflicts behind them. seems like a record that could have come out anytime in the last decade. not saying it lacks distinctive character, but it's hardly innovative. compared to the stakes-raising frank ocean mixtape, that's a real disappointment.

will say that it seems strange to take tyler to task for his thoughtless homophobia, because, especially on this LP, it's a punch forever pulled. he even (weakly) subverts it with talk of his dad's dick and dancing around in all-over print panties. however disappointing tyler's rationalizations in interviews may be, goblin's homophobia is tame by the standards of the genre. there's little to it beyond the fact that he likes to call both friends and haters "faggot". it's the album's misogyny that's significant and troublesome, imo.

anyway, it's funny that forks mentions s. clay wilson, cuz i keep thinking of early r. crumb. suppose goblin lies somewhere in between, combining clay's psychedelic hellscape with crumb's self-portraiture and confessional obscenity.

OH HAY, that quote pulled from lex's excellent guardian piece, btw.

Excellent piece Lex.

I think I noticed some casual racism mixed in with the rapeness on Fish as well although it's pretty mild: "Slip it in her drink/ in the slip of an eye/ I can make a white girl look chink."

I still think this is one of the better tracks on it though.

It's a great piece, Lex, though (quibble quibble) you're wrong to throw the Sex Pistols in there. Their transgression was of a different kind entirely.

I'd say Bodies is an apt comparison.

Nah, Bodies came out of leftfield - there was nobody else saying things like that in rock. By comparison, Tyler's particular shock tactics are a well-trodden path by now. You couldn't call Bodies trolling.

sure you could, but it was fairly fresh trolling

and i think you really mean that there was nobody else saying things like that in UK pop

WRONG THREAD

fuggit

yeah i guess i just see the sex pistols as part of that perceived lineage - the fetishising of that archetype. i can't believe how EXACTLY like eminem's old material goblin is - so much déjà vu listening to it.

i also somehow left out the way in which tyler's background and tough life (both actually fairly standard) is totally othered by liberal critics in order to rationalise why he needs to say what he does. it's weirder to me when i see critic types obviously getting off on his lyrics than it is hearing the lyrics themselves.

like i distinctly remember when pink and xtina sung about their absent dads people went "lol #whitegirlproblems" (not to mention singer-songwriters like fiona apple always getting accused of solipsism)

great piece lex!

xpost I haven't heard anything comparable in mid-70s US rock either TBH, but that could be my ignorance. And Bodies is way too complex and unsettling to be trolling - it's a bit different to a rape joke.

Lex, I don't want to take anything away from your piece. I just think that Goblin's lineage is Eminem and Bushwick Bill and horrorcore and very different from the Pistols. But your point about the tough life and father issues being a cliche is OTM.

OTOH I find Earl genuinely weird and troubling - not so much Sid Vicious to Tyler's Johnny Rotten as Paul Lester suggests but Johnny Rotten to Tyler's Malcolm McLaren.

a twitter discussion about the daddy stuff made me think of this amazing lost r&b single - in a parallel world the brittle acting out that teairra marí displayed here and all across her debut album would have received odd future-level attention and discussion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gx2FWn8SK4

she seems to still be gamely trying to resurrect herself from the elephant's graveyard of forgotten r&b babydivas!

i also somehow left out the way in which tyler's background and tough life (both actually fairly standard) is totally othered by liberal critics in order to rationalise why he needs to say what he does. it's weirder to me when i see critic types obviously getting off on his lyrics than it is hearing the lyrics themselves.

― lex pretend, Monday, May 9, 2011 11:53 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm not asking for a survey, but i'm not sure how true this is. i would say that tyler's background, present situation and "tough life" are totally othered by tyler himself. he relentlessly promotes these things as both explanatory and interesting in themselves. are liberal critics buying this? not sure. i mean, my dad split...

OTM about the striking eminem echoes though, mentioned that upthread.

i find the entire thing about earl's mother sending him to juvenile delinquent camp in samoa (!) and refusing to let him record music/give permission for his voice to be used totally fascinating

she sounds formidable and terrifying

i would say that tyler's background, present situation and "tough life" are totally othered by tyler himself

yeah this is true i guess. i don't wanna downplay it and say it's an inherently boring subject - it's just not inherently striking in itself either

will say this in tyler's defense, not that it's particularly meaningful...

spent saturday with some extended family, including a young [nonspecific family member] who's going through some seriously fucked up family shit. don't know him well, but he's a good kid with way too much garbage on his plate. half wished i could tell him to listen to "nightmare", cuz i suspect he could relate, maybe even use the support. but yeah, no fucking way.

goblin and especially "nightmare" seem aimed precisely at confused teenage guys, and that's maybe a good thing ... for confused teenage guys, if not for anyone else.

maybe. though "this music is balm to the souls of confused/emo teenagers" has never traditionally meant automatic critical acceptance.

i love this verse from that teairra marí song. so on point, and so good to hear coming from a teenage girl:

no, i don't strip in the club
nor trick in the club
but i got friends that do
so my girls that's gettin the dough
the best way they know
don't hate - girl, i got you
even though it ain't me - i understand
it's real in these streets - i understand
when it comes to that rent, that whip, that cheque
ain't nobody gon protect your neck like you

nice antidote to a thousand gross family guy-style jokes about strippers with daddy issues

That song's a little too Kelis-soundalike for me (musically, it's equal parts "Milkshake" and "Bossy") but yeah, it's kinda brilliant and should have been a massive hit.

in a parallel world the brittle acting out that teairra marí displayed here and all across her debut album would have received odd future-level attention and discussion.

..."this music is balm to the souls of confused/emo teenagers" has never traditionally meant automatic critical acceptance.

― lex pretend

two unrelated lex bits.

thing is, the critical acceptance of goblin is a product of and most interesting in light of odd future's marketing savvy. i mean, tyler's album is receiving all this hype not strictly for its own merits, but because OF have collectively done such a great job laying the groundwork. they've been telling a story for a couple years, and this is only the current (and most public) chapter. hell, their design work deserves at least as much credit for this album's reception as its content.

as the online music discussion progresses, it seems the hype cycle is becoming pathologically noisy and violent. is OF almost an incredibly blank canvas that critics are using (via the tumblr-o-sphere) to project their hysterical wishes for the next big thing to emerge and 'shock' them? it's almost like OF's history has happened so quickly that they're useless now. did tyler use a time machine to kill his own grandkid? their potential has been maximized before they've achieved any significant artistic accomplishments.

to me, the interesting and frightening thing about everything - much more than the music - is how the reblog nation has been harnessed to crown them as the next big thing, while never displaying any patience to wait for that chronological moment. it reminds me of the time the internet talked about kanye's album. anyone else noticed nobody talks about it anymore? anyone still listens to it?

(for the record, and in this context, i find Goblin boring as hell)

'all of the lights' still charting fwiw

^ good song

is it too obvious to point out that the backlash to the hype is equally predictable and short sighted?

yes

good thing i didn't then.

angel haze mixtape is fucking awesome btw, tkx lex

good piece, lex!

yeah i've read the whole thing now, great

yep co-sign its a really good piece

is OF almost an incredibly blank canvas that critics are using (via the tumblr-o-sphere) to project their hysterical wishes for the next big thing to emerge and 'shock' them? it's almost like OF's history has happened so quickly that they're useless now.

cuteforce otm

i think the odd future narrative for 99% of people who will listen to goblin is more like

jimmy fallon youtube -> yonkers youtube -> tyler, the creator goblin site:mediafire.com

throw ilx in front of fallon and that's me to a t
also add like seven fake downloads

lex i love u for getting lil b on the front page of the guardian website <3

flopson OTM, but it works differently for people (critics & fans) who've been engaged with OF for some time, and that's where most of the hype has come from. kind of surprised that anyone who hasn't been following OF would be blown away goblin taken in isolation.

i mean, it's an installment, and makes the most sense that way

on the radio yesterday afternoon, DJ ran "yonkers" into immortal technique's "bin laden", kinda funny

OF is 2011's chillwave -- a forced non-event that vaporized during its inception

WASHED OUT. WHAT HAPPENED?

if you say so

i bet its the same critics who praised 'glo-fi' praising this. even if the artists are still doing things, the excitement is completely gone

actually there's quite some buzz around the washed out album that's dropping soon

even if the artists are still doing things, the excitement is completely gone

there's a difference between what's going on in your head and what's going on outside it

is there? go on