John Vs. “Goblin” by Tyler, the Creator

Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape, rape jokes, all that.

Like I have an audience that’s at risk or something.

Still, that’s something that’s been running through my mind as I’ve been repeating this album. Given the circles on the internet I move in, I’m hearing and reading more about feminism in regards to what passes as this part of pop culture. For example, the entire Dickwolves saga, best summarized here. It certainly brought a lot of ideas and emotions into the internet in a way that they just hadn’t before, changing how a lot of people think about art and discussion on the internet.

Reflexively, I always get nervous as soon as anything comes up about relegating creative speech. It’s to the credit of the arguments made that I stuck with that whole cycle instead of dismissing it out of hand. Now I’m in this weird, Orwellian place where I agree with both the calls for sensitivity and blow back against artistic restriction. More precisely, I believe that an artist should approach social matters with more care than simply calling on it for simple plot building or punch line enhancement. In that specific example, I see how having the idea of Dickwolves (which is funny) can lead to the rape conclusion (which is not funny).

Here, let me give you a more personal example.
I swear we’ll get to Tyler in just a minute.
Oh god, I’m turning into Tim Rogers.

Okay, so, I make music. Everyone on the site does, and it’s the main reason that two thirds of the site haven’t been writing for the site (I just told Andrew to quiet down so we don’t look bad). And I have a lot of songs in various stages of development, plotted for various releases in the future. There’s lots of spread sheeting. May this be the only time I have to directly address what a song of mine means, but it’s important to making this point.

It’s probably clear that it’s about rape. Specifically, it was about a dream I had that included rape as a key centerpiece to the dream. The scenes were elicited by the nature of my then “girlfriend”- which is an incredibly long story that isn’t what it reads like- as well as my discomfort at watching a long distance relationship develop. It was also about my revulsion at those images being in my subconscious as well as a longstanding issue I have with telling dreams from reality.

Now that is a pretty goddamn complicated thing, there, and that is a key reason why all this talk of rape as a theme gets me edgy. I fear being lumped in with more clumsy artists that are just using rape to evoke inhumanity without thought. So this is obviously when it’s time to start talking about Tyler. The first thing that most people remember about any Odd Future music is that it is crass like nothing else around right now. In this case, the discussion is going to turn to my interpretation of why.

I feel safe in saying that it’s not in the interest of some greater cultural statement, or that it serves as some analysis of the economy or society. There’s at least a bit of weight in comparing the failure of the American school system and Tyler’s disposition, but that’s missing the point. What’s happening here is the same thing that happened on livejournal, and the same thing that happened in diaries. These are angry kids confronting the world with half a toolset to do it and a whole lot of anger, and they’re documenting it however they can. The difference between Odd Future and my old livejournal is that people are listening.

Tyler repeatedly confronts his audience during the record, be it the “random disclaimer” at the start of Radicals, his admission of lying during Goblin, and using the idea of a public persona as an actual vehicle to violence in Nightmare and Tron Cat. The outside is starting to wear on him, but he’s still got the young hurricane energy that lets him make music. And let’s not mince words: he makes fucking awesome music.

There’s almost never any dissonance between beats and lyrics, to the point that it usually feels perfect. It feels unfair to criticize She, given that it’s the one track that doesn’t have Tyler producing it. Tyler and Frank Ocean definitely shine on it, and Left Brain is a hell of a producer. It still sticks out just a little bit from the rest of the album because of the subtle differences in production, and it’s counterpart on the album, Her, shows the mild disconnect between producers. I think I’m probably over-emphasizing it, but it stuck out, so I’m going to say it.

LOL THAT’S ALL WRONG.

He’s not the best rapper. He even admits this within the first song of the album. The point of Odd Future isn’t really this idea of being the best rappers around. It’s about world building, and I think this is the stronger point of the Wu-Tang comparison. Comparing anyone in Odd Future to anyone in the Wu-Tang clan is just foolish, as what the Wu had was a collection fucking amazing rappers, to the point where their world building is secondary. And really,what the Wu-Tang Clan was building towards was more of a franchise building exercise.

What Tyler is going for is his namesake: he’s aiming to become the god of his own little horrible universe, taking all of the thoughts that line the brain of a pissed off kid and using them to build. A lot of what he says when he’s addressing the shit people talk about his lyrics, he’s quick to point out that a lot of people have some dark fucking thoughts from time to time, so why is it a big deal when he just shows his? I wonder if some people are uncomfortable with it because he has no fear with confronting what his mind gets up to in the seedier corners.

I’d like to take a minute to address the whole “hipster fad” subject. I’ll give you that it looks that way, but I’ll offer this. I have a lot of trouble connecting with most rap because I don’t identify with gang culture or excess. Fuck, I live a few blocks away from both. There’s still shoes on powerlines near by. That kind of rap music doesn’t appeal to my specific power fantasies, and therefore it’s obnoxious to listen to. So the reason stuff like Das Racist, Odd Future, DOOM, Kanye West, et cetera connect with me is because that shit doesn’t come up in the same way. There’s exceptions to this (Wu-Tang, Clipse) but I find this generally holds true. I do not think that I am the only person living in that environment, so it could hold true for a group of “hipsters” as a whole.

I’m mostly guessing, though.
I don’t really identify myself as a hipster.
Mostly because I am very fat.

What were we talking about?

Oh, yeah.

WINNER: “Goblin,” by Tyler, The Creator

WHY: Goblin is the album of the year-so-far, but it might not be the best album put out this year. It’s good as long as you’re part of the in-group. It is musically strong, but on top of that it’s an event that’s causing ripples in the discourse of music, which happens so rarely these days. It’s more crass and provocative than almost anything that’s happened in the last decade in a half, and it has this dangerous air that most music just doesn’t any more. That might only be valuable to me, but I’ll take that.