6

Thursday, May 30, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
ARTS

Tyler, the Creator’s sixth full-
length album, IGOR, is both a natu-
ral step into his constantly evolving 
identity and marks a creative equi-
librium for the avant garde hip-hop 
artist.
In terms of Tyler’s eclectic dis-
cography, IGOR is probably most 
similar to Flower Boy, but to call it 
a continuation of Flower Boy’s jazzy 
weightlessness would be mislead-
ing. Where Flower Boy is zany and 
bright, IGOR holds back, rueful at 
its happiest.
The album, at its darkly tranquil 
core, traverses the gradual process 
of accepting existential uncer-
tainty. Many of Tyler’s albums act 
like operating tables for specific 
anxieties, unafraid to bloody the 
scalpel in the procedure. WOLF is 
the consummate example of this 
tendency, exploring the self-con-
suming angst of fatherly absence. 
With IGOR, coming to peace with 
himself doesn’t mean these anxiet-
ies will cease for Tyler, but rather 
that his ability to overcome them is 
improving.
The 
first 
track, 
“IGOR’S 
THEME,” is nothing more than 
a tone-setter for the rest of the 
album, following a simple, compel-
ling synth riff played over ener-
getic drums. But for the remainder 
of IGOR, the anxiety that Tyler 
places under his unique micro-
scope involves falling in and out 
of love. “EARFQUAKE,” the song 
that kicks off this journey, is one of 

Tyler’s catchiest ever, recalling the 
pleasantly swaying chords of “Bore-
dom” with a more poignant edge 
(and without the infectious sum-
meriness of Rex Orange County). It 
easily stands as one of the album’s 
highlights, even if it’s not the most 
ambitious of Tyler’s works to date.
The sense of haunting inevi-
tability Tyler lays out in “EARF-
QUAKE” with the line “’Cause 

when it all comes crashing down 
I’ll need you” persists throughout 
the album. In the song “RUNNING 
OUT OF TIME,” Tyler develops 
a tension between substance and 
style. Despite describing the quick-
ly crumbling facade of a relation-
ship, the beat is mystical, spacey 
and relatively slower than the rest 
of the album. The effect of this con-
tradiction conveys a hopeless long-
ing, a futile wish to slow time and 
alter the imminent.
One of the most fascinating 
aspects of IGOR is how different 
the album sounds based on one’s 
surroundings. The first few times 

I listened to it, I devoted all of my 
focus to the listen, usually sitting 
down. However, the experience 
of driving while playing IGOR 
revealed an entirely new facet of 
the album. Engaging myself in a 
soothingly systematic activity like 
driving shed light on just how even-
ly paced and naturally composed 
the album is. It tells a simple story, 
but one that fluctuates seamlessly 
through dynamic musical styles.
Much of this effect lies in Tyler’s 
typical genre-hopping. The pulsat-
ing, arpeggiated outro of “GONE, 
GONE / THANK YOU” grace-
fully melts into the sludgy, crack-
ing tones of “I DON’T LOVE YOU 
ANYMORE.” 
This 
penultimate 
track gives way to the explicitly 
bluesy finale of the album, “ARE 
WE STILL FRIENDS?” It’s one of 
Tyler, the Creator’s best songs, not 
because of its clarity in message 
but rather the lack thereof. Are our 
once-lovers still friends? That’s a 
likely yes. But are the ghosts of their 
romance really gone? That’s a far 
more compelling question, so Tyler 
knowingly keeps it ambiguous, with 
deceivingly harmonious chords and 
an all-too-bright melody.
IGOR is a robust, fascinating 
addition to the eccentric, self-
mythologizing canon of Tyler, the 
Creator. While it certainly bounds 
forward in his maturity as an artist, 
it lacks the edge that he so unapolo-
getically embodied. This transition 
shouldn’t be a disappointment; it 
doesn’t take away from the pierc-
ing power of his discography. Bet-
ter yet, Tyler has seemingly arrived 
at this pensive, nuanced stage of his 
persona on his own terms.

‘IGOR’ signals a new era

ANISH TAMHANEY 
Daily Arts Writer

ALBUM REVIEW

GETTY IMAGES

IGOR

Tyler, the Creator

A Boy Is A Gun 
(Columbia Records)

“Booksmart” is a glorious cel-
ebration of the joys that come with 
being a teenage dirt bag. It’s also 
Olivia Wilde’s (“Life Itself”) direc-
torial debut. It’s also so, so good. 
Amy (Kaitlyn Dever, “Them That 
Follow”) and Molly (Beanie Feld-
stein, “Lady Bird”) are high school 
seniors who devoted all their ener-
gy to getting into stellar colleges. 
They had no fun and at the bitter 
end of the school year, they real-
ize that all the kids who did have 
fun got into the same schools. They 
make it their mission to finally go to 
a party that night, and what ensues 
is the most sincere 
odyssey of adoles-
cent stupidity.
Amy and Mol-
ly’s friendship is 
the 
bedrock 
of 
the 
whole 
film, 
which 
is 
why 
“Booksmart” 
manages to mean 
something, instead 
of falling into the 
high-school-romp 
wasteland. 
The 
two are involun-
tarily high in the suburban grass 
when Molly starts undermining 
how intensely she’s pining and Amy 
not-so-gently tells her to shut up. 
Without hesitation, Amy says that 
if a certain boy is who Molly wants 
then that certain boy is who she 
deserves. Duh. Their love for each 
other is effortless, and that’s what 
makes it so honest. This movie 
shows women at their very best, 
doing dumb shit for each other 
because they know it’s needed and 
because they want to.
All of these characters are clever 
in the stupid way that only high 
school seniors can be, and they’re 
all really sweet, even when they’re 
being assholes. There’s lust and love 
and even some loathing, but there is 
never malice. They’ve got none of 
Ferris Bueller’s irresponsibility, but 
they’re all just as big of shitheads.
Speaking of shitheads, all hail 
Gigi (Billie Lourd, “Billionaire Boys 
Club”). She rolls in to Leikeli47’s 
“Money,” and, from start to fin-

ish, nothing she does makes any 
sense. Lourd is hot in the super-
natural way that makes her seem 
like she can do absolutely anything, 
and Gigi operates under that same 
power. She’s a crazy queen con-
coction of a character, somehow 
elevating all those traits to create a 
caricature that’s entirely her own.
Fast but never rushed and 
unexpected but never overdone, 
“Booksmart” 
assertively 
cusps 
every coming-of-age trope it abides 
by. The class burnout isn’t going 
to college; he’s working at Google. 
The wannabe fuckboy drives a car 
painted in flames, and he wants to 
build airplanes and produce musi-
cals. The resident hunk can clock 
your Hogwarts house over a ner-
vous round of beer pong. Swoon.
The film itself 
is beautiful. The 
skateboards 
are 
sexy and the con-
fetti falls slowly. 
When my heart 
broke, Amy was 
underwater, 
and 
when 
it 
burst, 
Molly was hallu-
cinating a musical 
number. 
There’s 
enough whimsy to 
wade through the 
kind of unbound-
ed optimism that’s specifically 
reserved for high schoolers mak-
ing fools of themselves. But it’s all 
serious, you know? High schoolers 
are dreamy, but they’re also very 
intense. They feel everything — 
every unrequited love and missed 
opportunity alike. With a gorgeous 
ease, Wilde found a way to weave in 
the heartache with the hope.
It feels disrespectful to say I’m 
proud of Olivia Wilde because she 
is Olivia Wilde and I am dust, but I 
feel so much pride for this film that 
I had absolutely nothing to do with. 
This is a female-driven comedy 
that is always progressive but never 
tries too hard to be. It is so normal 
because of how confidently it just 
keeps going. This movie knows 
what it’s worth, and it never settles 
for jokes that aren’t good enough 
or characters that are mean for the 
sake of being sharp.

‘Booksmart,’ best 
kind of bonkers

ARYA NAIDU 
Managing Arts Editor

Booksmart

Annapurna Pictures

State Theatre, GQT 
Quality 16, Ann 
Arbor 20 + IMAX

FILM REVIEW

Read more at michigandaily.com

