Tyler, the Creator's Goblin: A First Listen

"Tron Cat"
If I haven't talked about the beats much, it's because there's not much to tell. Fruityloops synths, funkless banging for drums, and not much actual chaos going on between these elements to cause a disturbance or even friction. But "Tron Cat"'s one of the better ones, the artificial cowbell atonality somewhat recalling Clipse's excellent Hell Hath No Fury. This song is most notable for actually showcasing Tyler's creative vileness, rather than just fronting about it. His bad taste finally scores for more than one line at a time: "I fuck bitches with no permission"; "Splatter in her chatterbox"; "Rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome"; "Chop her legs off and tell her to run some errands."

"Her"
His Urkel impression's bad, but it sets up Tyler's first real moment of vulnerability. He gets mad when his crush doesn't text him back. The closest he fears he'll get to her is a Facebook poke. And -- whoa -- her name is his password. He perks up when she tells him her current relationship is getting rocky. "Wait, why's he about to kiss her," he thinks to himself when he stalks her on someone else's date. "She's so pretty/ Fuck self-pity," he concludes. Tyler is best at his most human. Duh?

"Sandwitches"
More horror movie synthsquirts, a hearty chant of "wolf gang, wolf gang" that must make crowds go insane. He accepts the superstar position here, talks shit, gets in more sub-Eminem celebrity disses (spoiler alert: Ellen Degeneres suffers the same fate as Taylor Swift). A relative banger.

"Fish"
"In the blink of an eye/ I can make a white girl look chink" notwithstanding, Tyler's clever bits are still too few and far between to justify this many songs exceeding six minutes on one record. I'm used to his moody, fake jazz piano by now. Oh, and he apparently really masturbates a lot.

"Analog"
A swirling, stately beat that wouldn't be out of place on the Weeknd album, Tyler's natural minor-chord instincts fade in and out of lounge-soul masquerading as free jazz. Something's wrong with this album, and it's not Tyler's MRI; this is one of the catchiest songs, yet it's losing my attention.

"Bitch Suck Dick"
"By the way, we do punch bitches." This is a posse cut, with rattlesnake hi-hats and horrorcore square-wave synths blatantly ripped from Hustle & Flow's "Whoop That Trick." It's also really messy and you can guess the chorus. I don't need this shit.

"Window"
"It was all a dream/ I used to read Complex magazine," our hipster lazily subverts. This sounds like the token (tokin'?) weed anthem at first, but Tyler doesn't do drugs, so he just expounds on his critics and other "faggots" again for eight virtually music-less minutes. Curren$y could fill that space with three better songs.

"AU79"
Any goodwill I had for this rapper, who really did interest me last year on "Bastard," "French," and others, has evaporated in the horribly dull and self-indulgent dip Goblin took after "Sandwitches." I'm supposed to praise this shitstrumental's "atmospheric mastery" I suppose.

"Golden"
Back to the therapist. More of the same. Bitch suck dick.

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