Flower Boy Review
An Album by Tyler, the Creator
Flower Boy is definitely Tyler, the Creator’s best and most surprising album. He peaks on this project with his best flows, lyrics, and production. This album gets really deep and personal, but that’s a good thing.
Tyler, the Creator usually trolls all of his fans and the internet with controversial lyrics that are in his past albums, but he’s different on Flower Boy. Tyler sounds sincere, honest, aware and conscious on this album. I don’t think he’s trying to fool around anymore, or at least he isn’t on here. Of course, he still has some bars on this album that are humorous or light-hearted, but his focus is to be personal.
The first thing about this album I’d like to talk about is how Tyler is supposedly coming out on this album. I know a lot of sources have already spoken about this topic on the internet, but I’d like to address it as a fan of Tyler. Honestly, if he did come out on this album and isn’t trying to pull a joke, who cares? Let him be. We don’t need to over analyze his entire album and lyric or tweet history to try and solve this case of “Is Tyler, the Creator Gay?” Everyone that is making a huge deal out of it are stupid as hell. I mean, really. So many other artists have come out, like Frank Ocean for instance, and we didn’t make a big deal out of it. I get how Tyler has used the controversial “F” word a lot in his music, but he wasn’t even trying to be offensive when he used it. He’s already explained that many times in his interviews, but I guess people just forget. I really think we should just let Tyler be Tyler, enjoy his music, and move on.
Okay, now let me get into the music aspect of the album.
I really enjoy the fact that this album really doesn’t have a lot of super hyped songs on it, allowing Tyler to focus more on his personal lyrics. I didn’t think there would be a lot of hype songs, considering the majority of the subject matter, but when he does get hype, it sounds really good. Who Dat Boy featuring A$AP Rocky and I Ain’t Got Time! are great tracks, and I think Who Dat Boy should be considered as one of the best bangers of the summer, or even the best one.
The majority of this album is made up of songs that have a slow tempo for the instrumentals, but have soothing features and hooks, and verses from Tyler that are very revealing and deep. Songs like Foreword, Where This Flower Blooms, Pothole, November, and Glitter are mainly made up of Tyler rapping. But other songs like See You Again, Garden Shed, Boredom, and 911/ Mr. Lonely have Tyler rapping, but are mainly made up of the featured artist singing. Tyler has mainly had features on his past albums be from the members of Odd Future. Cherry Bomb, his last album, was his first time really branching out for different artists. There really isn’t one bad feature on any of these songs, and the singing on See You Again, Garden Shed, and Boredom sounds amazing. Kali Uchis sounds very fitting on the song See You Again and provides dynamics to the track. Estelle sounds efficient and sharp on Garden Shed. Rex Orange County is definitely the best featured singer on this album, in my opinion, and he sounds very convincing and blissful on the song Boredom.
I also thought that Frank Ocean sounded amazing on this album, and I’m glad he’s on it a lot. My favorite Frank Ocean appearance would have to be on either Where This Flower Blooms or 911.
Tyler also sings on this album, and he surprisingly sounds extremely good when he does sing. I honestly didn’t even know he was singing when he does on some songs. A good example of him singing and me not knowing it’s him was when he sings on the song Garden Shed. It sounds very powerful when he sings on this track. But, his best singing on this album, in my opinion, is when he sings on the song 911/ Mr. Lonely. The hook he sings is super catchy and hard not to groove to.
Now that I’ve talked a lot about the performances on this album, I wanna get into the production. The production on here is Tyler at his very best. The instrumentals are extremely diverse and fitting for this album. You can tell that Tyler has really put his best into the production on here. It sounds very professional. He uses synths, classic piano keys and chords, violin strings, G-Funk piano keys, all kinds of drums, acoustic and electric guitar strings, heavy and smooth bass, and some samples, too. The difference of instrumentals on this album from his past production is that it sounds a lot more raw, and he doesn’t seem to use a lot of computerized instruments, and uses more live instruments, giving it a more lively sound. My favorite instrumentals are the ones on the songs Foreword, Who Dat Boy, Pothole, 911/ Mr. Lonely, November, and Enjoy Right Now, Today (which is the outro and the only instrumental track).
The only song I really didn’t like a lot on this album was I Ain’t Got Time! due to the weird instrumental, hook, and it just doesn’t sound like it fits with this album. I wish he at least got Lil Wayne to do a verse on this track, or even someone like Earl Sweatshirt or Domo Genesis would sound nice. I also didn’t like how the songs Sometimes… and Droppin’ Seeds are so short, when he could’ve made two really good songs. I’m especially confused as to why he didn’t make a full track with Lil Wayne, which would sound amazing, and he’s even made a full song with Wayne with the song SMUCKERS in Cherry Bomb. I get that these two songs are made as interludes, but he didn’t really need to have interludes on this album.
This album is overall an amazing piece of work and art, and it could go down as Tyler’s best album to date. It’s very sentimental, and makes Tyler an even better rapper and artist than he was before. I can’t stop listening to this album, and I probably won’t stop for a while.
Album Grade: 8.5/10