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